Sermon Illustrations
Bonhoeffer on Disobedience
Disobedience, as well as obedience, has the power to transform a person completely. Through disobedience in a particular decision, one can falsify the whole sequence of right thinking. The pastoral epistles talk about this a lot. Disobedience comes in a variety of disguises: as superficial indifference or as the continuous creation of problems; as ascetic rigorism or as sectarianism; as the quest for novelty or as a philosophical restlessness. All that stuff is given a lot of weight preeminently to cover a scar in the conscience that lies hidden in the background.