While playing Boggle last night with Clay, I came across a good quote that I had jotted down in a notebook while watching a documentary on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German Lutheran pastor and theologian). For those unfamiliar with his life and work he was a member of the German Resistance against the Nazis and was eventually executed for his efforts.
It was an interesting movie about a theologian that I previously only knew a little about. And at some point while watching it this quote, from theologian John de Gruehy, caught my attention:
...Even Bonhoeffer himself, even after he decided to be a theologian, a pastor, didn't often go to church. And the reason was, well, the church...yeah, it's important I suppose, but you know, you're an individual Christian and so forth and the church is a society of people who belong together and perhaps worship from time to time. No sense of real fundamental community in which you discover who you really are and your relationship with other people and discover that that's the reality of Christ - existing in the world together.
He defined the church as "the communion of Saints", "the physical manifestation of Christ on earth", "Christ existing as community".
"Christ is really present only in the community. The church is the presence of Christ, just as Christ is the presence of God."
on the church
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