Bonhoeffer on Fellowship & Solitude

[12strings]

from Deitrich Bonhoeffer's little book, LIFE TOGETHER:

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community...If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called...but the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.”

“Only in fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone, and only in aloneness to we learn to live rightly in fellowship.”

“If we have learned to be silent before the Word, we shall also learn to manage our silence and our speech during the day.”

 

[humblethinker]

This year I read Metaxis' biography of Bonhoeffer - great read! I highly recommend it!

This thought of Bonhoeffer's here about solitude and community is excellent. I'm going to share it with my community group.

 

[annsni]

This year I read Metaxis' biography of Bonhoeffer - great read! I highly recommend it!

I decided to start reading it and started last night. It's really interesting!!

 

[humblethinker]

I decided to start reading it and started last night. It's really interesting!!

It was an incredible time to live! By coincidence just before I read that book on Bonhoeffer I had read biographies on Ludwig Von Mises and Einstein (both Jews who fled Germany). All three are giants of that same time in history and it is fascinating how their spheres of interest and influence have affected history (less of an affect for Bonhoeffer though).

Regarding Bonhoeffer, I didn't know he had such a relationship with Barth. Very interesting. Also, though the book didn't talk about Luther much, I have since found it interesting to know how much of an influence Luther had on Germany as a future single unified country and also on thoughts of the 'Jew' problem. Luther's later commentary on the 'problem of the Jews' was, as I understand, used for cover by the Nazis and the church in Germany to promote their ill-treatment to the Jews. Luther had some very unchristian and inhumane things to say about the Jews.

Enjoy your read and come back and share your thoughts on it!