Chapter One: Community

Bonhoeffer cuts to the heart in this first chapter. He addresses disillusionment in Christian community and identifies the major cause--our own mistaken ideas about Christian community. Written in 1938, Bonhoeffer was writing during tumultuous times in Nazi Germany. His urgency is clear. He essentially says, Here's what Christian community isn't. Here's what it is. Now get about the work of the Kingdom.

Everyone seemed to have gleaned several gems and challenging statements from this reading. Rather than sum up the discussion inadequately, I'll just share a handful of these and let you mull them over.

"It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus lived in the midst of his enemies...So, the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes." pg. 17

"Communal life is again being recognized by Christians today as the grace that it is, as the extraordinary, the 'roses and lilies' of the Christian life." pg. 21

"Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this." pg. 21

"The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us." pg. 26

"Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it." pg. 27

"For Jesus Christ alone is our unity. 'He is our peace.' Through him alone do we have access to one another, joy in one another, and fellowship with one another." pg. 39

I could go on and on. This is a serious underlining/highlighting book and pushes me out of my comfort zone Sumo-style. How about you?