Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) is one of the best-known Christians of the last century. He was executed in a concentration camp shortly before the end of the Second World War.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who became the head of an illegal underground seminary to train leaders for the Confessing Church – a movement resisting Hitler’s control of the German church. He must have thought long and hard about why some believers simply acquiesced while others resisted the move towards a form of Christian Nationalism (a question that is relevant today). A related question is how to best train pastors. He was around 30 when, in the mid-1930s, he oversaw a different kind of seminary at Finkenwalde.

His answer came from an odd place for a Lutheran. He turned to monasticism for a renewed model of church and seminary. In fact, he said that the renewal of the church would come from ‘a new form of monasticism’ based on the Sermon on the Mount. His experience at Finkenwalde shaped two of his most influential books: The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together. Some of Bonhoeffer’s sentiments in Life Together may appear strict today, partly because he lived in a more austere age, but many of his insights were forged in the intense reality of Christian community under persecution, giving them a distinctive weight and clarity.

He emphasised the need for humility in church leadership and, in fact, would only allow others to call him Brother Bonhoeffer, not Pastor or Professor. He was aware that the question ‘who is the greatest?’ easily raises its ugly head. Likewise, he advocated confession, being open with others about our weaknesses and shortcomings.

A new way of training leaders

Seminary education in Germany relied on producing scholars who were experts in theology and biblical languages. His approach was different. He outlines three pillars in Life Together. The first is genuine community, which teaches us to love when our natural inclination is to be selfish. Their training wasn’t to be merely academic; they shared life deeply, practising genuine discipleship in community. 

He was writing at a time when religion had become mired in individualism (again, relevant today). Community is the place where others speak to us the word of God and root us in the gospel. The second pillar is communal practices, such as listening to Scripture and prayer together – including praying the psalms. The third is our individual spiritual life, often rooted in silence and prayer. These components are drawn from the example of Christian monasticism, where the emphasis is not just on information but on formation. A community is formed, and we are formed personally through joining a community, through communal practices, and individual practices. 

There is much here for today’s church to learn. I think Bonhoeffer would be unimpressed by the idea that we can form a community without rubbing shoulders and meeting others face-to-face. As an advocate for simple church and a house church member, I would say that this short book has much to commend it. I will focus on two of his thoughts on community.

Visionaries can break what they are trying to build

Bonhoeffer was a visionary. His vision was very costly and ultimately, from the human point of view, it failed to stem the tide of Christians selling out to the current ideology. But it did help create an alternative to simply following the way of the world, and it has inspired many subsequent generations of church leaders. He believed in the necessity of a vision of a better future but astutely observed that visionaries, in their pursuit of an ideal, can unintentionally undermine the very community they hope to create.

We value the idea of Christian community – support, shared growth, and life together. But when we realise that the reality is harder than we expected, our dreams can get in the way. Bonhoeffer warned against what he called “visionary dreaming” – that impulse to chase a perfect picture of community at all costs. His words are famously sharp:

“God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself… When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”

Bonhoeffer wasn’t speaking from theory. He had lived through the tension of trying to build real Christian fellowship under extreme pressure. 

Beware of idealism

The more tightly we hold on to a perfect picture of Christian community, the more likely we are to become disappointed with the imperfect people around us, including ourselves. This disappointment can then turn into judgment, frustration, manipulation, or even control. We may feel tempted to “fix” people to achieve the vision. This may seem noble and even feel like love, but it risks prioritising an ideal over genuine relationships.

But this, Bonhoeffer says, is “human love” – a kind of love that tries to achieve an ideal even if it means pushing or shaping people into what we think they should be. He offers a vision of community that is rootedin attitudes and practices that help us live alongside real people, not idealised versions. What he challenges is the pursuit of an unrealistic ideal that ends up destroying genuine community rather than creating it.

Choosing real people over an ideal vision

Genuine, “spiritual” love honours the actual person in front of us. It trusts God at work in them. It speaks God’s Word but does not try to control the outcome. And because it refuses to manipulate, it creates space for freedom – freedom to grow, freedom to change, freedom to be guided by God rather than coerced by someone else’s expectations.

Bonhoeffer argues that our task is simply to communicate the Word of God and then leave it with the other person so that it can do its work. This capacity to step aside – to not manipulate, not coerce – is crucial. Freedom, he says, is produced by “spiritual love,” which promotes freedom “under the Word” in the other. He puts the point starkly:

“The life or death of a Christian community is determined by whether it achieves sober wisdom on this point as soon as possible.”

Clinging too tightly to our dream of community can backfire, causing us to dismantle the very community we hope for. But if we learn to love people as they actually are, God can shape something far better than our ideal – a community grounded in grace.

Sectarianism kills the Church

Bonhoeffer wrote: 

“… life together under the Word will remain sound and healthy when it does not form itself into a movement, a society, a collegium pietatis, but rather where it understands itself as being part of the one, holy, catholic, Christian Church, where it shares actively and passively in the sufferings and struggles and promises of the whole Church.”

This is remarkable. He could easily have looked down on his brothers and sisters who cooperated with Naziism. He could easily have proclaimed we are the true Church. He resisted the sectarian – “we are the true Church” – route. I am involved with home church because I believe that it is a great model for forming community and for individual spiritual formation. It can mirror the pillars of life together that Bonhoeffer outlined. If Bonhoeffer had been a home church leader, I suspect he would not have spent time writing about where others have gone wrong. He would have tried to create a community that would benefit and honour the whole Church and see home churches as existing not for themselves but to benefit all Christians everywhere. 

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