“Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The view from below, p. 17
Context: There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action." by Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer161

German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi 1906–1945

Related quotes

“Ascetic Christianity called the world evil and left it. Humanity is waiting for a revolutionary Christianity which will call the world evil and change it.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 91

“[About Christian Groups] They have no rights to call themselves "Christians", because they have no Christianity to them; they have no kindness, no compassion, no charity. I want Jesus to come back and say: "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!"”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Source: From Her Tours and CDs, Assassin CD

“But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, , quoted in [2012-05-13, In LU Speech, Romney Boldly Touts Faith, and Traditional American Values, Jason, Johnson, Bearing Drift, http://bearingdrift.com/2012/05/13/in-lu-speech-romney-boldly-touts-faith-and-traditional-american-values/, 2012-05-15]
2012

“The civil state of the nations, being merely and essentially civil, cannot (Christianly) be called "Christian states,"”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)
Context: The civil state of the nations, being merely and essentially civil, cannot (Christianly) be called "Christian states," after the pattern of that holy and typical land of Canaan, which I have proved at large in the Bloudy Tenent to be a nonesuch and an unparalleled figure of the spiritual state of the church of Christ Jesus, dispersed yet gathered to Him in all nations.
The civil sword (therefore) cannot (rightfully) act either in restraining the souls of the people from worship, etc., or in constraining them to worship, considering that there is not a tittle in the New Testament of Christ Jesus that commits the forming or reforming of His spouse and church to the civil and worldly powers...

“Sociologists can no longer differentiate the lives of Christians from non-Christians, or the behavior of churches from corporations. We have abandoned the vision that Christianity is an alternative way.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

“Each brotherly compassion that man hath on his fellow Christians, with charity, it is Christ in him.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 28
Variant: Each kind compassion that man hath on his even-Christians with charity, it is Christ in him.

“I’m what C. S. Lewis would call a ʽMere Christianʼ, and all of my two books are very, very much meant to be from the point of view of what C. S. Lewis called ‘Mere Christianity’, meaning that I don’t touch upon anything at all where Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians differ, yhey express just the basics of the faith, from a basic, ecumenical Christian viewpoint. They only talk about the Christian faith that they have agreement on.”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Eric Metaxas and the God Question http://www.greeknewsonline.com/eric-metaxas-and-the-god-question/ (August 1, 2007)

“A local cult, called Christianity.”

Thomas Hardy The Dynasts

Pt. I, sc. vi, Spirit of the Years
The Dynasts (1904–1908)

“The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian actions.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

Source: See In His Name https://books.google.com.br/books?id=HCucAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA312 by E. Christopher Reyes, Volume IV, p. 312

“A man may call himself a Christian—but the measure of his Christianity is the occupation of his mind and heart with the truth as it is in Jesus.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 376.

“Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Dietrich Bonhoeffer161

Related quotes

Related topics