We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?

He observed "Here one can truly speak and hear about sin and grace and the love of God. Bloesch. His father Karl Bonhoeffer was a distinguiDietrich Bonhoefferd neurologist.

He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and executed by hanging in April 1945 while imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp just 23 days before the German surrender. He was also involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential and many have labelled his book The Cost of Discipleship a modern classic.