Sublime

First, Christian community is not an ideal, but a divine reality; second, Christian community is a spiritual [pneumatisch] and not an emotional [psychisch] reality.

They need them again and again when they become uncertain and disheartened because, living by their own resources, they cannot help themselves without cheating themselves out of the truth. They need other Christians as bearers and proclaimers of the divine word of salvation. They need them solely for the sake of Jesus Christ.

They investigate the past and relate the struggles of the apostles and the Fathers to our present struggles. Thus they become defenders of the faith, showing its reasonableness, its “fittingness” for the oppressed community now.

So wie im Darwinismus die äußere Form eines Wesens, seine Gestik, seine Mimik, ja sogar sein inneres Erleben keinen Wert im eigenen Recht haben, sondern stets im Dienst einer Ökonomie des Überlebens stehen, fügen sich nach der Auffassung der meisten Geisteswissenschaftler die Sinnsplitter der Kultur nach einer Ökonomie der Sprache aneinander. Diese

Because God already has laid the only foundation of our community, because God has united us in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that life together with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive.

special “revelations” aside, theology should be derived from common Christian experience.

Individually, the scenes can seem trivial or meaningless: their power comes only when the play is taken as a whole.

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.