Classic Book of the Month: Life Together

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: what it means to live in Christian community.

WORLD reviewer Emily Whitten says a German theologian martyred for standing up to Hitler can teach us how to live faithfully in Christ.

NCF CHOIR: Our blessing cup is the communion of the blood of Christ. Our broken bread is the communion of the body of Christ.

EMILY WHITTEN, COMMENTATOR: That’s the student choir of New College Franklin, a small Christian liberal arts college in Franklin, Tennessee. Each year, their in-coming freshmen read a book titled Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It’s also WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month for March. Founder and Dean of Students Gregory Wilbur says it’s become a tradition to discuss the book each year.

WILBUR: We have the seniors and freshmen over to our house, and feed them dinner, get the new students to meet the old students, and to then talk through this book.

Bonhoeffer’s book is a manifesto on how to live out authentic Christian community. Wilbur says the seniors often use the book to reflect back on their time in college and find lessons to take into their careers. The book also helps freshmen think more realistically about their college years ahead, seeing them as a gift.

AUDIOBOOK: It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us… [20:35] It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.

Our culture often pushes us toward isolation or superficial connections. One study found that the average college student spends 8-10 hours a day on their smartphones. In contrast, Bonhoeffer says we need embodied community because we are both “spiritual” and “physical” beings. Often by living in the same space, we learn things like how to confess our sins and find forgiveness.

AUDIOBOOK: It is nothing else but our fellowship with Jesus Christ that leads us to the ignominious dying that comes in confession, in order that we may in truth share in his Cross. The Cross of Jesus Christ destroys all pride.

Theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together in 1938. The Nazis had recently shut down his underground seminary, where he lived with 25 students. So he used the time to put some of his reflections in writing. Of course, to avoid persecution, many German churches embraced Nazis and their evolutionary ideas about the elimination of the weak. In contrast, Bonhoeffer saw that in Christ, both stronger and weaker Christians are part of one body, each gifted to serve the other.

AUDIOBOOK: It is the struggle of the natural man for self-justification. He finds it only in comparing himself with others, in condemning and judging others. Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.

This is a short book–slightly more than 100 pages. But Bonhoeffer gives practical advice for issues that often crop up when Christians live together. For instance, tribalism.

WILBUR: You can group around the people who think the same way you do, or have the same views on things. You don't have that same luxury when you're forced to be in relationship with a smaller group. You have to work out differences. You have to figure out how to live together. How to do that respectfully. How to speak the truth in love.

Bonhoeffer sees pride behind much of the conflict we experience in community. We speak when we ought to listen. We take offense when we ought to bear with another’s weakness. We rebuke harshly rather than with kindness.

AUDIO: Under the following paragraph, start playing :55 sounds of gathering/talking leading.

God’s Word is often the light we need for such blindspots. Whether you’re in a family or a Christian organization, Bonhoeffer suggests having daily devotions as both a group and an individual.

That’s something Greg Wilbur has put into practice at New College Franklin. One morning this February, I joined 20 to 30 students gathered for a devotion in Cornerstone Presbyterian Church. That’s where the college meets. Built in the 1840s, it’s marked by beautiful mahogany pews and stained glass windows.

AUDIO: Let’s stand. Turn to the midday office. Page 25. Hallelujah. Sing to the Lord a new song.

After devotional time, the students go upstairs for classes, but they soon return for a midday choir practice. Like Wilbur, Bonhoeffer sees singing hymns and Scripture–especially the Psalms–as helpful in keeping hearts focused on Christ.

AUDIOBOOK: We sing words of praise to God, words of thanksgiving, confession, and prayer. Thus the music is completely the servant of the Word. It elucidates the Word in its mystery.

Faith Crampton works for the college in Student Services. She says when was a student at New College Franklin, living within such a small community wasn’t always easy.

FAITH CRAMPTON: I lived for a couple of years in a three bedroom apartment with five other women. So there were six of us, which was a lot of women in a small space. And um, so there was just a lot. And even just friendship conflict, and everyone being 20-something. And fighting over boys.

When the Holy Spirit grows his people in such practical ways, it may not be as striking as an Asbury-type revival, but it’s just as life-giving.

CRAMPTON: So much of the smoothness of working through those problems. I really just felt that it’s because the Spirit of Christ is here.

In Life Together, our Classic Book of the Month, Dietrich Bonhoeffer often writes poetically but a little too confidently about some things that go beyond Scripture. For instance, Greg Wilbur disagrees with Bonhoeffer’s rule that Christians always sing together in unison. Still, Bonhoeffer gets a lot right about our hunger for deep Christian fellowship.

AUDIOBOOK: Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients.

I’m Emily Whitten.

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