Community: A Spiritual not a Human Reality

A few notes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together.

Community: A Spiritual not a Human Reality
Christian community is different from all other communities.

-Spiritual: that which is created only by the Holy Spirit
-Psychic (human): that which comes from the natural urges, powers, and capacities of the human spirit.

Spiritual Reality v. Human Reality

Spiritual Reality
*basis: the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ
*basis of community: truth
*essence of community: light (Jn. 1:5,7)
*community: fellowship of those who are called by Christ
*burns with bright love of brotherly service (agape)
*ordered, brotherly service
*humble subjection to the brethren
*Word of God alone rules
*Word alone is binding
*all honor, power, and dominion are surrendered to the Holy Spirit
*Spirit governs
*naive, unpsychological, unmethodical, helping love is extended toward one's brother
*service of one's brother is simple and humble
*there is never, nor in any way, any "immediate" relationship of one to another
*spiritual love is directed to the other person for Christ's sake

Human Reality
*basis: the dark, turbid urges and desires of the human mind
*basis of community: desire
*essence of community: darkness (Mk. 7:21)
*community: fellowship of devout souls
*glows by dark love of good and evil desire (eros)
*disordered desire for pleasure
*humble yet haughty subjection of a brother to one's own desire
*along with the Word, the man rules who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities
*word binds; so do men bind to one another
*spheres of power and influence are sought and cultivated
*psychological techniques and methods govern
*psychological analysis and construction is extended toward one's brother
*service of one's brother consists of a searching, calculating analysis of a stranger
*expresses a profound, elemental, human desire for community, for immediate contact with other souls, just as in the flesh there is the urge for physical merger with other flesh
*human love is directed to the other person for his own sake