Research Paper on:
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffers The Cost of Discipleship Written by 10/2001 Please Dietrich Bonhoeffers The Cost  of Discipleship focuses on a neo-orthodox theological perspective that Bonhoeffer maintained until his execution in 1945. Bonhoeffer questioned some of the central theological perspectives of the early part of  the 20th century and also served to add a level of practicality to assessments of religious participation. As a result, Bonhoeffer has been described as a practical atheist as  well as a religious humanist, and some say his execution was the result of his forceful challenging of many of the cardinal doctrines of the Church (See Letters 9-12). Though  this assertion might suggest that Bonhoeffer rejected traditional religious views, it is more accurate to say that he challenged them, assessed them, and determined the value or lack of value  in much of what the Church was doing. Bonhoeffer, for example, argued that the nationalism that was a central element of the Nazi movement was actually a sin against  God, because it sought to replace God with Hitler, or more specifically with a kind of greed and egotism that was shaped by Hitlers view of the state (Discipleship 28).  The focus of Bonhoeffers work, then, is shaped by an emerging understanding of the conflicts and struggles of religious conviction. One of the misnomers common in the Church  is that it is easy to be a follower or a disciple of God, that it is easy to accept the premise of religious faith and adapt loyalty by ignoring  the constructs of modern temptation (Charry 31). In fact, though, Bonhoeffer shows that the temptation of greed and the desire for material satisfaction and personal recognition or fame are