God Hates Visionary Dreaming… (Bonhoeffer)

God Hates Visionary Dreaming… (Bonhoeffer)
-- Backyard Missionary

Do you reckon he could be onto something?!

“God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.” (Life Together)
(from here)

I don’t question that God actually does give people visions & dreams. I wonder if Bonhoeffer is referring more to that kind of visionary dreaming where we conjure up an idea to justify our existence.

I remember as a pastor having to come up with a vision for the year when occasionally there was no ‘vision’ beyond keeping going on the same track. I do think some of what masquerades as visionary dreaming is the stuff Bonhoeffer writes about - our own ego needs being expressed in the form of a corporate vision. And when we don’t achieve the vision we do so easily blame the community, God or ourselves.

How do you know if your vision is from God or is just something that you would like to achieve - especially when there is an element of pressure to keep on coming up with ‘vision’?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/07/god-hates-visionary-dreaming-bonhoeffer.html