God hates visionary dreamers? – Caring for one another, Part 1

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I want to begin with a shocking quote. At least I think it is shocking. See if you think it is shocking.  Here is the quote:

“God hates visionary dreamers.” 

How do you feel about that statement?  “God hates visionary dreamers.”

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? 

Thumbs down, right?  The concept of visionary dreamers seems like a good thing.  Why would God hate them? 

It is a caustic statement, for sure.  It was made, I suspect, to shock people into thinking about something very important. 

The person who wrote this statement is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  And he has a reason for the statement.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor living in Germany during World War II, and he vocally critiqued the Nazi regime.  Oh, so the statement of “God hates visionary dreamers” was about Nazis.  That would make sense.  Maybe.  Except that God doesn’t hate anyone.  Even Nazis. 

But this is where it gets even more surprising.  In making his statement that God hates visionary dreamers, Bonhoeffer wasn’t referring to Adolf Hitler or any other Nazis.  Are you ready for this?  Bonhoeffer was referring about Christians, people like you and I in church families, who are visionary dreamers.

Okay, I need to explain.  Let me assure you that Bonhoeffer was not crazy when he made that statement.

For speaking out against the Nazis, Bonhoeffer was arrested, thrown into a concentration camp, and ultimately killed by the Nazis.  Over the years of the Nazi’s rise to power, he had watched as many German Christians capitulated to the Nazis.  So Bonhoeffer brings a very interesting perspective on church families.  What should a church family look like when the world around you, including Christians, seems to be led astray? 

Bonhoeffer makes a critical point in his book Life Together, a book about how Christians should interact with one another.  He writes that we Christians can have a false starting point in our view of our church family.  This gets to the heart of why he said “God hates visionary dreamers.”

Bonhoeffer calls that false starting point the “wish dream”.  A wish dream, he says, “is a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be.”[1] When a Christian believes in their church family wish dream, when they desire it, when that try to make it happen, Bonhoeffer said, it will lead to pain, suffering and sometimes the Christian community will collapse under the weight of unmet expectations and bitter disappointment. 

Why?  Because those Christians have become enamored with their vision of the ideal church family.  But isn’t it good to strive for the ideal?

We’ll learn what Bonhoeffer has to say about that in the post.

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Photo by dlxmedia.hu on Unsplash

[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1954. Life Together: A Discussion of Christian Fellowship. San Francisco: Harper. 26.