Because they daily hunger and thirst for righteousness, they long for the redeeming Word again and again. It can only come from the outside. In themselves they are destitute and dead.

They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly. They stand adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of the community. They act as if they have to create the Christian community, as if their visionary ideal binds the people together.

By sheer grace God will not permit us to live in a dream world even for a few weeks and to abandon ourselves to those blissful experiences and exalted moods that sweep over us like a wave of rapture.

In Bonhoeffer’s eyes, the official church—led by openly pro-Nazi church leaders like Müller and by overly cautious bishops who opted for compromise with these officials—had abandoned all pretense of being a true Christian church.

Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.

“To rule is to be in the midst of your enemies. And whoever will not suffer this does not want to be part of the rule of Christ; such a person wants to be among friends and sit among the roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the religious people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing, who would eve

Bonhoeffer realized that many seek community because they fear loneliness, cannot endure being alone, cannot cope with life on their own, or have been scarred by bad experiences and seek help in the company of others.

It speaks the Christian language with overwhelming and stirring eloquence. But it is what the apostle Paul is speaking of when he says: “If I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames” (1 Cor. 13:3)—in other words, if I combine the utmost deeds of love with the utmost of devotion—“but do not have love (that is, the love of

Emotional love can never comprehend spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above. It is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love. Because Christ stands between me and an other, I must not long for unmediated community with that person. As only Christ was able to speak to me in such a way that I was helped, so