Identifying Characteristics of Community and What Are Ways to Nurture

Introduction

This assignment paper will try to examine different characteristics of Christian community that are presented by Dietrich Bonheoffer, who was born on 1906, was a key author and philosopher during Germany war. He wrote number of books related to theology, which are still read and as significant among contemporary evangelical believers as the works of C.S. Lewis and Billy Graham: such works as The Cost of Discipleship, Letters and Papers from Prison, Ethics, Life Together, and Christ the Centre. In 1939, he denied taking oath on Adolf Hitler and since then he was considered to be an anti-Hitler person. Shortly after, he was invited to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler (Marty, 1962). He was eventually caught, imprisoned, and executed. This assignment uses the work of Dietrich Bonheoffer published in the form of the book with a title “Real Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community”. The book seems to be very helpful and served as a guiding principle to identify characteristics of community and what implications do these ideas have for how you live and lead in the community where you live, work, and worship. Identifying characteristics of any community is a very healthy exercise, as it allows us to think what the nature of our community is, and how different components in our communities are linked to each other. The book in which the characteristics of the communities are presented was written in such an extensive language that lay-men could not understood what the author wants to say.

Discussion

Nature and Characteristic of Community

Throughout the book Bonheoffer discusses two types of communities that is human and spiritual community. By human community, he refers to the community which is motivated by desires (worldly desires) while, on the other hand, spiritual ...