Disillusionment and Christian Community

All of us have been disillusioned with Christian community. All of us have had dreams of what the church ought to be, and all of us have had those dreams shattered by the harsh realities of life together. Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew about disillusionment. After all, he lived during the "German-Christian compromise," a time when most of his brothers and sisters in Christ swore allegiance to Hitler. What is striking about Bonhoeffer, however, is that he did not wallow in his disillusionment. In point of fact, he warned his seminary students of the dangers of developing "wish dreams" for Christian community. "Wish dreams" are the source of disillusionment itself and a detriment to true community. "Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter..." (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 27).

For Bonhoeffer, disillusionment occurs when we come to Christian community as demanders--better yet, as consumers--and not as "thankful recipients." I will leave you with his challenging words on Christian community and disillusionment.

"Because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what he has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He does give us daily. And is not what he has given us enough: brothers, who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? Is the divine gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most difficult and distressing day? Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together--the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship" (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 28-29).