There is no place in the church for the dominance of the strong over the weak. How is this prevented? In the Christian community, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, we do not relate to one another immediately, we relate to one another mediately – through the mediation of Christ. For that reason, we love others not directly, but for Christ’s sake. Thus when I am irritated with someone, for example, I should remember that I must see my relationship to that person through the prism of Christ’s interposition of himself between me and the one who is the cause of my discontent: he, too, is a brother for whom Christ died.

The Christian belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.