Life Together (1938)

Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (?)

Good book. It's a short read that feels like a long read because there are so many things in the book I needed to think about carefully. I ultimately disagree with some of the extremities to which Bonhoeffer tries to take us (I felt the same in The Cost of Discipleship), but he's certainly pointing in the right direction. ( )

This is a six-star book. Heck, call it eleven stars. Absolutely classic.

Life Together was young Dietrich Bonhoeffer's manifesto about the Christian community, written as he was leading an underground seminary for the confessing church under Nazi German rule. The members of the seminary knew that they would be executed if they were found; Bonhoeffer was martyred in the process.

Still, the book deals with the everyday nature of conflict and falling short between one person and another; it drives us into deeper relationship and forgiveness and community.

I'll teach from this book in academic and lay coursework around spiritual formation in communities and networks. It's a bit Lutheran and liturgical in some spots for some readers, but it's overwhelmingly powerful throughout. ( )

Modern social definitions of community focus on geographical and political union, and this focus has contributed somewhat to a recession and reduction of a sound doctrine of the church (Ecclesiology). For the church and the world, the carnal has largely replaced the spiritual. Life Together (New York: Harper and Row, 1954) may be a panacea for this ill that will also cultivate a desire for Christian fellowship in the greater context of the communion of the saints.

A man who was martyred for his faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's (1906-1945) conviction was forged in context of German dialectical theology and the fires of Nazi Germany. This context is essential to understanding Bonhoeffer’s emphases.

The Introduction, written by the book’s Translator, John W. Doberstein, succinctly provides a historical background. The biographical history specifically germane to the topic is the period starting from April 1935, when, by invitation of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer assists in the establishment of a seminary by the Baltic Sea at Zingst, where Bonhoeffer lived “a common life in emergency-built houses with twenty-five vicars.” (p. 11). Life together was moved shortly after to Finkenwalde in Pomerania, and it was Bonhoeffer’s experience and mediations during this time that led to the publication of Gemeinsames Leben in 1938. Another well-known book, The Cost of Discipleship, was also written during this period.

Bonhoeffer’s understanding of life together under the Word (p. 17) is the subject of his relatively small treatise. He draws out his definition of community as being lived in the midst of one’s enemies and oppressors (Chapter I, Community); its commonality expressed in worship, the use of the Psalter, the reading of Scripture, prayer, and the fellowship we enjoy at meals (Chapter II, The Day with Others); its individuality in engaging in both solitude and silence as stillness before the Word (Chapter III, The Day Alone); mutual service and submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Chapter IV, Ministry); and, how sinners can and may exhibit the love of God in Christ to one another (Chapter V, Confession and Communion).

Postmodern and post-Christian paradigms emphasize an ethos of getting together to do meaningful things, but meaning is derived from the experience, not principles that drive the events, and especially not from principles revealed to us in Scripture. Perhaps Bonhoeffer himself over-emphasized experience, but what makes Bonhoeffer compelling in this book is that he speaks—albeit without much citation—biblical truths that have gone largely by the wayside in evangelical circles: an emphasis on listening to God’s Word; spiritual, Christ-centered and other-focused love; self-denial; seeing Christ in others; an emphasis on union—we are members of one Body—and community; and suffering.

Bonhoeffer’s writings, and seminally, his doctoral dissertation Sanctorum Communio (The Communion of Saints), are problematic for both what he does and does not say. For example, in his doctoral thesis he wrote that Christ is present only in the community of the church: “…Christ himself is the community…Christ is present only in the community.” (A Testament to Freedom, pp. 56-57). This is to this reviewer’s mind a con-fusion of Christ with the Body of Christ for which he gave himself: one could easily end up neglecting God’s transcendence by overemphasizing the Incarnation. In other words, as I read this book, I wondered if Bonhoeffer wasn’t having Humanity swallow Deity.

Nonetheless, while it may be true that Bonhoeffer’s novel, neo-orthodox existentialism and his ecumenism are objectionable issues; that he was a theologian who espoused experience over theology; or that (reputedly) in following Barth he laid the groundwork for Death of God Theology: in reading Life Together I was often reminded that miserable sinners need mercy—from God and from one another—and as we walk our own Via Dolorosa with Jesus it is good to have the company of those who think of themselves as sinners getting sanctified. Whatever Bonhoeffer’s failings, identifying this basic truth wasn’t one of them.

Some favorite quotations are:

“Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases” (p. 33).

“Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ's; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes” (p. 36).

A discerning reader will glean from this book with the blessing of the Spirit: I recommend it with the previously stated caveats and observations. ( )

Amazing. One of the greatest presentations of true Biblical community. A must read for every follower of Christ. ( )