“When Christ calls a person, he bids that one to come and die.” These words were written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a well-known Lutheran pastor and theologian, in a book influential to many, The Cost of Discipleship, first published in 1937. Bonhoeffer lived his Christian call to holiness without counting the cost. He did what God asked of him; he was obedient to the call of God and the teachings of Christ. He followed Christ without qualification, reservation or question. He did not look over his shoulder and wonder why, but rather lived what he wrote. His discipleship, which he lived to the fullest, cost him his life.

Bonhoeffer was born in the state of Prussia in 1906 and grew up in an academic environment near the University of Berlin where his father was a professor of neurology and ps…