ABSTRACT
This chapter examines public actions concerning abortion and capital punishment that take place in a particular setting, the American political community. It focuses on the-world moral principles—of how to behave toward one another in the lifetime, not necessarily how to get to heaven for eternity. The American Founders envisioned a democratic political community with a theocentric moral foundation; Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks about the need for moral truth to govern our choice of actions. The chapter examines that Bonhoeffer began to fully realize that the community need for the social gospel in addressing the reality found in this world was as important in following his Lord as the individual need for the salvation gospel in preparing for the reality of the next world. Like the American Founders, Bonhoeffer developed a fear of theocratic tendencies and, like them, it resulted more from experience than from philosophy.
