Life Together
If one takes a broad overview of Bonhoeffer’s theology, several themes rise to prominence. Among them are “the Christian’s absolute, albeit costly, obedience to Christ,” “ethics as formation,” and “costly grace.” Yet one theme undoubtedly stands out: “Christ existing as community.” Bonhoeffer firmly believed that Christian community is where believers truly experience Christ. Indeed, this conviction formed the foundation of his doctoral project. In Sanctorum Communio, Bonhoeffer delves into several highly technical and philosophical ideas about the nature of “self” and “community.” He wrote, “For the individual to exist, ‘others’ must necessarily be there.”
Summing up Sanctorum Communio—a work that Karl Barth famously called a “miracle”—is no easy task. However, one major takeaway is the idea that we need “one another” for the “individual” to exist. People find their identities only when another person recognizes that identity. Because of this, we exist more fully in community than we do as isolated individuals. It is within this community that Christ lives and builds His Church. Bonhoeffer wrote in Sanctorum Communio:
The universal person of God does not think of people as isolated individual beings, but in a natural state of communication with other human beings. Furthermore, in relations with others, I do not merely satisfy one side of my structurally closed being as spirit; rather, only here do I discover my reality, i.e., my I-ness. God created man and woman directed to one another. God does not desire a history of individual human beings, but the history of the human community. However, God does not want a community that absorbs the individual into itself, but a community of human beings. In God’s eyes, community and individual exist in the same moment and rest in one another. The collective unit and the individual unit have the same structure in God’s eyes. On these basic relations rest the concepts of the religious community and the Church.
In short, a stronger sense of self and identity is found—ironically—only through a stronger sense of community. While Sanctorum Communio serves as a philosophical exploration encouraging Christians to live in godly community, Life Together is its practical application manual.
Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together in part out of frustration with fellow pastors who had abandoned biblical Christianity and pledged allegiance to Hitler and the German Reich Church. Because the Gestapo was authorized to shut down churches and seminaries that did not align with pro-Hitler Christian politics, the Confessing Church had to operate several underground seminaries. These seminaries trained ministers to uphold biblical Christianity and reject the heretical beliefs of the Reich Church, which included claims such as Christ being Aryan, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the compatibility of Christianity with Nazi ideology. During these trying times, Bonhoeffer came to deeply appreciate the privilege of living among other Christians.
The seminary at Finkenwalde (now Zdroje, Szczecin, in Poland) was one of these underground institutions. It operated from 1935 to 1937. During this period, Bonhoeffer traveled between his teaching duties at Finkenwalde and his professorship in Berlin. He taught seminarians the Gospel, their responsibilities as ministers, and the theological principles of Christian community. At Finkenwalde, he had the perfect environment to experiment with these concepts and demonstrate how they might manifest in real Christian life. Here, a group of students lived in isolation from a world that rejected them, forced to operate under the radar of mainstream society, and committed to leading “a community life in daily and strict obedience to the will of Christ Jesus.”
The “Finkenwaldians” embodied selflessness. As Bonhoeffer put it, they lived not merely “with each other, but for each other.” They integrated Christ and Scripture into every aspect of their day. Their training went beyond preparing for professional ministry—they learned to give their whole selves to Christ and to one another. During a dark time for Christians in Germany, when true believers were being marginalized, imprisoned, and executed, the seminarians at Finkenwalde were learning how to bear one another’s burdens and absorb each other’s pain. Bonhoeffer wrote, “You must open your heart to the weakness and needs of others as if they were your own, and offer your means as if they were theirs, just as Christ does for you in the sacrament.”
Finkenwalde was Bonhoeffer’s laboratory for experimenting with this Acts 2 interpretation of the Church. Life Togetherserves as the document chronicling how they lived, what they strived for, and how current and future generations of Christians should strive for the same.
