“Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that service reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”

“It may be that Christians, not withstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!”

Excerpts from ‘Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community’
by D I E T R I C H  B O N H O E F F E R