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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

A. Introduction

This paper presents an overview of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, in which he

describes his experience with the candidates of the Finkenwalde Seminary and those who

lived in the Brother’s House from 1935 to 1937. The treatise answers questions about

Christian life in community, especially under the fire of illegality.

In 1935, Bonhoeffer was in London when he was presented with a much-sought

opportunity to study non-violent resistance under Gandhi in India. But he decided to return

to Germany in order to head an underground seminary for training Confessing Church

pastors in Finkenwalde. By August 1937, Himmler decreed the education and examination

of Confessing ministry candidates illegal. In September 1937, the Gestapo closed the

seminary at Finkenwalde and by November arrested 27 pastors and former students.

Bonhoeffer spent the next two years secretly traveling from one eastern German village to

another to conduct "seminary on the run" supervising his students, most of whom were

working illegally in small parishes. His monastic communal life and teaching at Finkenwalde

seminary formed the basis of his books The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together.

Life Together was published in 1938 and enjoyed a tremendously wide recognition. It

is a record of the most satisfying days in Bonhoeffer’s life—as a supervisor of young

pastors-in-training—and the only book that he liked reading with his fiancée, Maria, when

he was in prison. An overview of the five chapters of Life Together and a conclusion follow.

B. Overview

1. Life Together: The Christian Community

The Christian community is centered in Christ. Whether it is a brief encounter or an

ongoing living community, the members of the Christian community belong to one another

only through and in Jesus Christ. This means that: a) a Christian relates to others because

of Jesus Christ; b) the path to others is only through Jesus Christ, and c) Christians have

been chosen in Jesus Christ from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.1

1
Life Together, 31.18
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

The first point of being in community relates to one’s need of others, in sharing

God’s word and mutually strengthening one another’s faith, thus bringing the message of

salvation to all. Christians need one another to speak God’s Word in fellowship, when they

become uncertain and disheartened. The Word is external and must be heard from the

mouth of fellow Christians. In this regard, Bonhoeffer refers to Luther’s Smalcald Article

VIII, reiterating that Christians will be deprived from the truth if they rely on their inner

resources to hear the Word of God himself.2 The second point—also in accordance to Paul’s

writings—stresses Christ as the means and center of all relationships with one another.3 The

third point relates to the Incarnation, according to which Christians are incorporated into

Christ and, as the body of Christ, they will be with Christ and one another in an eternal

fellowship.

Bonhoeffer emphasizes the difference between the community as a human ideal

versus a divine reality. The church is not the outcome of desire or visionary hopes, nor can

human beings claim themselves responsible for its successes of failures. Rather, God in

Jesus Christ has created the church, and Christians must receive and be in the church with

an open attitude of thankfulness for forgiveness for daily provisions and for fellowship.

Thankfulness is the key to greater spiritual resources. Without thankfulness Christians will

not experience God’s greatest gifts. Bonhoeffer stresses the importance of thankfulness for

pastors, who must never complain about their congregations to other pastors or to God but

must receive their congregations with thankfulness and intercede for them with prayer.

The Christian fellowship is not a mere human association brought together for a

common purpose, but a community in which human love and actions come from Christ and

go out to the other not from human to human directly, but through Christ. Christ opened up

the way to God and one another that was formerly blocked by one’s own ego. In Christ

alone can now Christians love and serve one another. He is the only and only mediator

2
Luther, Martin,1537: Smalcald Articles, Article VIII, On Confession
3
Ephesians, 2: 14 “He is our peace”, also Galatians, 6:16: “Our peace is based on our walk in
Him”
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

throughout eternity.4 This means that disciplining of other people is through Christ, and not

directly from one person to another. Direct personal influence may result to coercion.

Rather, a relationship centered in prayer to Christ may result to greater influence given by

Christ himself.

In order for the Christian community to stay healthy, everyone in it must learn to

distinguish spiritual love from human love, and God’s reality from the human ideal. In this

light, a Christian community remains faithful in the life under the Word when “it does not

form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis,5 but instead

understands itself as being part of the one, holy, universal, Christian Church…”6

A healthy Christian community knows where the self-centered (i.e., human) element

ends and the spiritual element begins. Bonhoeffer warns against a “purely spiritual life in

community” as not only dangerous but also not normal, since it fosters the development of

self-centeredness once the members retreat to themselves. The experience of a genuine

Christian community is a rare, God-given gift that a Christian may have once in lifetime. But

a Christian must not live in community in search of such an experience; rather, living in

community is a practice of faith, faith in Christ. This faith--not the experience--is what binds

Christians together. The unity of the community is in Christ, in whom alone Christians “have

access to one another, joy in one another, community in one another…”7

2. The Day Together: The Community at Worship

Life in the community begins at dawn with worship, which includes thanksgiving,

reading of Scripture, and prayer. Even though Bonhoeffer does not propose a strict liturgical

ordo, he treats worship with an intense interest in the pastoral side of life by insisting that

4
Life Together, 33.20
5
Bonhoeffer refers here to the “associations of piety”, examples of which are the private circles
for mutual edification established by the prominent theologian of Lutheran Pietism Philipp Jakob
Spener (1635-1705), when he was senior clergyman in Frankfurt. Bonhoeffer’s disdain for
Pietism is well documented. (See his letter to Bethge, July 31, 1936)
6
Life Together, 45.33
7
Life Together, 47.34
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

common worship should include “the word of Scripture, the hymns of the Church, and the

prayer of the fellowship”.8

He stresses using the Book of Psalms and praying them in the company of Jesus,

who prays all of the psalms. “The human Jesus”, Bonhoeffer writes, “to whom (…) no

suffering is unknown (…) is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his congregation.

The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word.”9

The Psalter teaches the community to pray according to God’s promises to his

people, also teaching its members that prayer transcends individual experiences and

reaches Christ’s concern for the whole church. The imprecatory psalms should be used not

as individual and personal, but “through and from the heart of Jesus Christ, who took all the

vengeance of God on himself (…) so that his enemies might go free.”10 Praying the Psalms

teaches also Christians to pray as a community, because they are praying as the body of

Christ, of which individual prayer is only a tiny fraction. The structure of the Psalms

indicates fellowship because, even when one is in prayer alone, Christ accompanies that

person in prayer.

Brief Scriptural readings during worship do not substitute reading of the Scripture as

a lectio continua (i.e., living whole) of God’s revealed Word for all peoples, for all times. The

worshipping community should read a chapter from the Old Testament and at least one half

chapter from the New Testament. The Old Testament must be read as part of the entire

story of our redemption, which cannot be separated from Israel’s passing through the Red

Sea, and other experiences. Reading the Scripture daily becomes every day more

meaningful and beneficial, as God’s Word alone helps Christians with troubles and

temptation (Anfechtung). All our words and resources quickly fail, when our faith is attacked

by doubt. Our salvation is external, and rooted in the Word, with its wealth of instruction,

admonitions and comfort—all of which drive out demons and help one another.11

8
Life Together, 53.38
9
Life Together, 55.39
10
Life Together, 56.41
11
Life Together, 63.48
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

Prayer, as the ultimate part of worship is both individual and common. Both formal

and free prayers have place in worship, through which the community prays for one

another’s needs, give thanks for one another’s progress and intercedes for one another’s

concerns.

A Christian community is a community of work. The beginning and end of the day

belong to God through worship but all the other hours belong to God through work. At the

end of the day the community comes together for physical sustenance. The coming together

around the table points to the common fellowship at the Lord’s table and the ultimate

fellowship in God’s kingdom. In all these three types of fellowship there is the same

knowing that all life comes from God,12 as the community shares food with each other and

with the poor. Evening worship includes prayer and confession of sin, as well as seeking

God’s protection through the night when one is deep in the helplessness of sleep.

3. The Day Alone: Personal Worship

From communal worship, Bonhoeffer moves to personal worship. Aloneness is

necessary, so long as it does not become monastic (i.e., escape from life in the world,

where God calls us to thankfully and prayerfully serve our neighbor). Solitude and silence

have therapeutic values. After a period of silence, one can meet people and events in a

renewed way.

Solitude and silence, as silent obedient to the Word of God, has three expressions:

a) meditation, not as the private pursuit of extraordinary experiences,13 but as a time of

personal reflection guided by the question “What does God say to me in this text?”; b)

prayer on the basis of Scripture, as a way of speaking to God about matters too personal for

corporate prayer. Bonhoeffer advises also to pray for the subjects of wandering thoughts,14

seeking to calm a wandering mind; and c) intercession, in which the Christian brings other

Christian brothers into the presence of God in concern for their needs. Intercession is the

12
Life Together, 77.61
13
Life Together, 88.72
14
Life Together, 89.79
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

means of transforming one’s personal attitudes about other people. For Bonhoeffer,

“intercessory prayer is a daily service Christians owe to God and one another.”15

The effects of personal worship are tested in the daily experience with the

community. Whether personal worship makes an individual strong or weak, affects the

entire community. For Bonhoeffer, “Blessed are those who are alone in the strength of the

community. Blessed are those who preserve community in the strength of solitude.”16 Both

individual and community owe their strength to the strength of the Word of God alone,

which is freely given to the individual and the community.

4. Service: Types of Ministries

In addressing ministry and its problems, Bonhoeffer cites Luke 9:46 to illustrate how

the struggle for advantage rising in a community is a rejection of justification by faith, in

favor of self-justification.17 He warns that bickering is the cause of a life-and-death struggle

for a community. For this reason, he stresses that community members must hold their

tongue. In Finkenwalde Seminary he asked the ordinands to observe one rule—never to

speak about a fellow ordinand in his absence; or, if this should happen, to tell him about it

afterwards.18 By discipline one’s tongue, the Christian avoids to use criticism to gain

advantage over the other person.

The community consists of strong and weak, talented and untalented members.

Excluding the ones in favor of the others means death for the community. Each member

must be included, have a purpose, use, and a contribution to make to the community, all

united in Christ.

Meekness follows the ministry of disciplining one’s tongue. Citing Paul (Rom. 12:16)

Bonhoeffer stresses that the meek person puts aside self-conceit but also associates with

15
Life Together, 91.74
16
Life Together, 92.76
17
Life Together, 93.77
18
Life Together, p. 94, footnote 3
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

the lowly and in doing so, the meek declares him/herself to be the greatest of sinners.19 In

reaching out to others there is the ministry of listening, which is vital to the ministry of all

Christians, especially clergy. Bonhoeffer defines listening as an art committed to Christians

by God and he decries the surrender of therapeutic listening to secular education, since

Christians have stopped listening to others. He urges Christians to recapture the art of

listening, because when then do not listen to others they do not hear God.

Active helpfulness is another ministry, necessary in the Christian community. We are

God’s to serve others. God sends people our way to interrupt us. Bonhoeffer compares the

monk’s vow of obedience to his abbot to one’s service obligation to one’s brother.20

The ministry of bearing distinguishes Christian from non-Christian communities.

Christ bore our burdens, and we in turn are to bear one another’s burdens. If we refuse to

bear our brothers’ and sisters’ burdens, this means we refuse to bear the cross, which is the

essence of our Christian life. Bearing our brothers’ and sisters’ burdens means that we are

not to judge them, to guard our impulses toward their failures or successes, and to forgive

their sins. When a community is torn by the sin of one person, the entire community is at

fault for having neglected to intercede for the sinner, give counsel or minister to the needs

of that person.21

When the community has learned to minister at all the above levels, is then ready

for the ministry of proclaiming. This does not mean pulpit preaching, but communicating the

gospel from person to person. This is the free encounter within a relationship in which

Christians truly listen, serve and bear the burdens of others. According to Bonhoeffer, the

Christian message is de facto contradicted if this ministry is lacking.

He raises caution not to probe into the sacred life of another, but urges us to be our

brothers’ and sisters’ life blood (Ezek, 3:18). Obedience to God’s Word means that, as a

19
Life Together, 96.80
20
Life Together, 100.85
21
With regards to bearing, Bonhoeffer cites Luther’s quote “Behold, you bear with them all and
likewise all of them bear with you, and all things are in common, both the good and the bad.”
(See p. 102.87, also footnote 18)
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

community, we cannot stand idle while our brother and sister falls into sin. Concealing a

person’s sin that is harming the community is cruelty. Admonishing the sinner must be done

always in relation to God. The ministry of rebuking is done in God’s name, for only God can

reclaim a sinner but he chooses to work through us. We must speak God’s Word, and it is

through the Word that God works to bring the sinning brother or sister to repentance.22

Bonhoeffer warns against the personality cult that is so frequently encountered in

ministry, while stressing that authority is given to the office not the person. Pastoral

authority arises when the ministry admits that it has no authority except that of Christ and

his Word.23

5. Confession and the Lord’s Supper

The last theme of the treatise is that of confession. Though not a sacrament in itself,

confession is treated by Bonhoeffer as of paramount importance for the Christian

community, because it liberates all sinners from living in hypocrisy. Sin terrifies us and

isolates us, as we desire to remain unknown. Confession opens the way for returning to the

community. In confession one gives up his evil, gives his heart to God, and finds

forgiveness and fellowship. If there is confession, the sinner is never alone again.

Confession is important because it says something about ourselves: that we are not

afraid to be linked with Christ. It is not necessary to confess before the entire community.

One can confess to a fellow Christian, because “the whole community is contained in those

two people who stand next to one another in confession.”24 In confession there occurs a

breakthrough to the cross, which overcome superbia (i.e., pride, arrogance, haughtiness.

Even though confessing in the presence of another may seem the most profound kind of

humiliation, it nonetheless liberates us from isolation and reunites us with Christ. And, in

the spiritual humiliation and death of the sinner who confesses, we affirm our cross. As the

22
Life Together, 106.91
23
Life Together, 107.92
24
Life Together, 110.95, also footnote 3
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

old creature is put to death through the sinner’s confession, we experience the cross of

Jesus as our deliverance and salvation.

In confession there occurs a breakthrough of assurance. Bonhoeffer writes: “In

addition to the examination of one’s faith there is also the confession of sins whereby

Chrsitians’ seek and find reassurance that their sins are forgiven.”25 Meaningful confession

must be about concrete sins. Therefore, self-examination as preparation fro confession will

use the Ten Commandments. In confession, one is struggling with real transgressions, thus

seeking real forgiveness.

One must confess to another Christian, under the cross. Bonhoeffer distinguishes

between the effect of psychological insight provided by a psychologist to a person with

mental disturbances and the forgiveness of sin offered by a fellow Christian, in God’s name.

The psychologist sees the other without God. The fellow Christian sees the fellow believer

under the judgment and mercy of God, in the cross of Jesus Christ.26 Only those who live

beneath the cross can hear our confession.

Bonhoeffer warns against confession understood as pious work as “the devil’s idea”,

“spiritual death”, and “the worst, most abominable, unholy, and unchaste betrayal of the

heart” that becomes “sensual prattle”27. Only for the sake of the promise of absolution can

we confess.

Confession, is finally related to the Holy Communion. Jesus commanded that all

should come to worship after they have reconciled with their brother. When confession is

ended, forgiveness is declared and the people of god share in the worship of the table that

will be perfected in eternity.

25
Life Together, 112,.97, also footnote 6
26
Life Together, 115.100, footnotes 9, 10, 11
27
Life Together, 116,101
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Life Together: The Church’s Life in Christ

C. Conclusion

Having completed my first year in Seminary, I read Life Together as a manual for a

seminarian’s life. Bonhoeffer offers remarkable pastoral insight and inspiration for

community leaders and servants alike. Throughout the manual, he places the church and

life in the church in the center of a secular world, which the church is called to serve in the

name of Christ. Without the principles of the Christian faith that Bonhoeffer outlines, such

service becomes impossible.

Bonhoeffer presents our commitment to Christ as the practice of certain principles:

community, solitude, service, Scripture reading, prayer, intercession, meditation, the ability

to listen, forgiveness, confession and forgiveness of sins, Christians’ breaking of bread

together, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, as well as the hope of breaking bread

together eternally. Yet, none of those practices constitutes a religion. For Bonhoeffer,

Christianity is not a religion, but a process of being included in the reality of God in Christ,

who has laid claim to the entire world, with all its spheres of activity. In this context, being

a Christian means living out God’s unconditional “yes” to the world and all humanity. At the

same time, being a Christian means sharing in God’s sufferings in the person of Jesus who

was handed to this world.

In Life Together, the Christian community is the cross in which the community of

faith and the community of love belong together. In faith, I see in Christ my brothers and

sisters. In love, I see Christ in my brothers and sisters. The verticality of faith meets the

horizontality of love and the two are the dimensions of the Christian congregation that is

rooted in the love of God and blessed by God’s love and mercy.

As my first year of seminary comes to an end, I am closing my reading of

Bonhoeffer’s Life Together with gratitude and a prayer. I am grateful for Bonhoeffer’s

witness of Christ in the life he lived and in the death he died, and for his ministry that is still

alive. And I pray that God grant me mercy as I walk on this path, strengthening my faith

when it weakens and bringing me back, each time I digress and lay down my cross.