I caught the tail end of PBS’s program on Deitrich Bonhoeffer last night, and I was so moved by the quote used to end the program, that I ran to my desk to find the paragraph online. Actually, what’s interesting, is that this famous passage from a letter to Bonhoeffer’s wife is often condensed. And it’s much more universally appealing in its condensed form, though many people, Christians especially, will see how Bonhoeffer’s Christian passion is mislaid in the edits. This letter was written the day after the 1944 conspiracy to assassinate Hilter had failed, a day Bonhoeffer was aware that the Nazis would soon find and arrest him.

Here is the famous passage as often quoted:

“I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”

And here is the passage from the letter verbatim. I’ve put the deleted sentences and phrases in italics.

“I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world — watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian (cf. Jer. 45!). How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God’s sufferings through a life of this kind?“