Sublime

and he argued that Christian life and the faith can never be lived in the abstract.

In both works Bonhoeffer contended that communities of faith in Christ must assume concrete form in the world in order to radiate the presence of God credibly and effectively, and to live in service to those in need.

The imprisoned, the sick, the lonely who live in the diaspora, the proclaimers of the gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible community is grace.

Bonhoeffer insisted that Christian communities could not allow God’s will to be merely an abstract idea or smothered in institutional, dogmatic, or biblical reductionism. His spiritual classics Discipleship and Life Together were thus given a realistic embodiment in their most tangible form, the Christian community.

social order

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.

Why is it that in

On innumerable occasions a whole Christian community has been shattered because it has lived on the basis of a wishful image.