It takes a little reading to get used to Bonhoeffer's style (prose), but once you can read "Life Together" fluidly, it hits you like a machine gun: practical advice followed by rationalle; practical advice followed by rationalle; etc. Among the topics covered are components to daily, family devotions, the relationship between work and worship; a new way of looking at Psalms and hymns; the importance of daily showing love through your actions so that you can spread the word of Christ; ways to guard against conflict in a church (as if there is ever conflict at voters meetings. Ha!)
This book won't take you very long at all to read, but the thoughts you take away from it will churn in your head for weeks. You'll find yourself turning back to the book re-read a section or two. You'll kick yourself for not reading it sooner. I know I have. HIGHLY recommended.
Particularly for those with Protestant background the discussion on confession is challenging, and his phrase about "daring to be a sinner" is paradoxical. "In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner".
Some examples;
Ministry of Bearing, page 101; "It is, first of all, the FREEDOM of the other person...that is the burden to the Christian. The other's freedom collides with his own autonomy, yet [the Christian] must recognize it. He could get rid of this burden by refusing the other person his freedom, by constraining him and thus doing violence to his personality, by stamping his own image upon him."
One of the ways that Peck defines an evil person in his great work, The People of the Lie, is a person that refuses to recognize the autonomy of others, the narcissistic attitude that "you exist to meet MY needs". Compare that with what Bonhoffer describes above and here:
Bonhoffer, pg 101, "It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other."
The opposite of evil.
More great quotes:
Fellowship of the Table, pg 69; "So long as we eat our bread together we shall have sufficient even with the least. Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue. This is a strange divine law."
How about the "Ministry of Holding One's Tongue", "The Ministry of Meekness" and "The Ministry of Listening" for the subjects of short chapters?
On sinfulness: "If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all."
Bonhoffer's take on confession needs to be addressed by todays Protestant body. We seemed to have thrown the baby out with the bath water when it comes to confession of sins. I think we are so wary of the "priest" that we forget we Christains are all priests. And if priests, what then is our role?
Bonhoffer, pg 112; "When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God." and "Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him..." , "Sin wants to remain unknown.", "In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart."
While these may seem platitudes it is in the way Bonhoffer challenges the community to actually work out this confession business in a practical and real way. If these don't seem at all like platitudes, if we really believe the power and depth here, why aren't we practicing the confession more seriously? Are we afraid of being too "Catholic"?
And as far as that goes, what about all the factions, groups, denominations, and friction we see in the body today?
Bonhoffer, pg 37; "...life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy only where it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis, but rather where it understands itself as being a part of the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles and promise of the whole Church."
Read any group of reviews on a controversial Christian book and observe first hand how far, how very far, we are from this "sound and healthy" life together...
On the whole I'd highly recommend this work to any one that is going to be working in the church in any fashion, anyone that is part of small group leadership or any seeking Christian that isn't a "lazy" reader. Don't be lazy, read this book.
