“The community of the saints is not an ‘ideal’ community consisting of perfect and sinless men and women, where there is no need of further repentance. No, it is a community which proves that it is worthy of the gospel of forgiveness by constantly and sincerely proclaiming God's forgiveness....Sanctification means driving out the world from the Church as well as separating the Church from the world. But the purpose of such discipline is not to establish a community of the perfect, but a community consisting of men who really live under the forgiving mercy of God.”
More from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to…”
“If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil…”
“How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in…”
“The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them.…”