Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in a Nazi concentration camp. One of the best-known and most-admired Christians in the modern world, he packed several lifetimes into his brief 39 years.
His witness to Christ was bold, clear, and consistent; sufficient to make him an exemplar in our days of often muffled, cowardly, and compromising talk about faith.
Think of a role that needs to be lifted up for our time. I’d say “one who always stressed Christian community” in this time when many admirers of Jesus want to “go it alone” as individuals of the spirit. Bonhoeffer was radical; let me quote the German original for emphasis: Christus existiert als Gemeinde: Christ exists not just in community but as community. Martin Luther preferred the word gemeinde to church; it referred to a “gathering.” That should be a congenial concept for Women of the ELCA participants! Jesus exists as “gathering” when believers cluster and congregate at the table where they hear his word anew, “This is my body.” How members of that body treat each other and serve others is emphatically richer if they keep in mind that they are participating not in mere community but in Christ-as-community.
This message is excerpted from “Exemplar” by Martin E. Marty in the April 2015 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian, 1945.
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