Musings: Notes From My Daybook

My spare moments the past couple of days has had me reading from German influences. First, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor. A group at church is currently reading his work, Life Together. Life Together reflects his brief term as a director of an illegal seminary in pre-WWII Germany. Bonhoeffer boils down to some basic essentials in terms of developing a robust spiritual life.

Moving back three hundred years is the work of Philip Jacob Spener. Again, from the Lutherans we find some of the early strands of the pietist movement. I'm rereading his work Pia Desideria and thinking of rewriting a paper that is now 20 years old on Spener's reflection on how to spur spiritual vitality in the churches. Reading something from the 1600's does create some challenges in terms of what it might mean for today. But Spener does have something strong going for him--a deep conviction about the necessity that faith must emerge from the heart.

Third, though he isn't, strictly speaking German, Reinhold Niebuhr, certainly is rooted in German heritage. Looking for material to encourage young ministers, I was reminded of Niebuhr's Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. Leaves is Neibuhr's published "diary" of his 13 years of ministry before he headed to New York City and a career in academia. I found my old first edition and reread his words I was immediately taken back to some of my own first discoveries about what it means to be in the "ministry"--complete with the challenges, the ambiguities, and those moments of joy.

Three dead guys. One clear passion from all three. Vibrant Christians, vibrant Christianity that transcends the trappings of religion and announces God's inbreaking reality.