Monday, May 01, 2017

A vision for the church?

I came across this interesting quotation on the Facebook from Bonhoeffer:

"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. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. 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."

Of course it would be interesting to read what (if anything) Bonhoeffer describes as the alternative: presumably seeking to be faithful to God's vision for his church, though that is of course easier said than done at the practical next steps level.

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