Breakfast with Bonhoeffer

Jon Walker has done something special in his book, Breakfast with Bonhoeffer: How I Learned To Stop Being Religious So I Could Follow Jesus. He has written a thoroughly honest book about his own very real (often overwhelming) trials that encourages readers who may be going through struggles of their own. And through it all, he weaves piercing insights from the writings of twentieth-century martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Walker walks a fine line in writing so vulnerably of disappointment, divorce, depression, debt--as well as many struggles that DON'T start with D. The fine line, of course, is to relate his own suffering and grief without being maudlin, and while still making it possible for someone who is not suffering so much (or who is suffering differently) to identify. And he succeeds.

I was often amazed at Jon's story, but also at his ability to apply Bonhoeffer's insights not only to to his life but to mine also. And the intersections of Bonhoeffer's life--which ended in a Nazi prison camp just days before liberation--and Walker's...and the reader's...will make this a book not only to read, but to reread.

Whether you are hurting, healing, or happy, you'll find Breakfast with Bonhoeffer a rewarding book. You don't even have to read it at breakfast; it reads just as well at other times of the day! And you will probably want to look for Jon's other books, too: Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship and In Visible Fellowship: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's Classic Work Life Together.