October 7, 2025 - Reading Bonhoeffer's "Life Together": Chapter 3

Trump is claiming Portland is war-ravaged and burning to the ground, and yet there is no fire even on the ICE building block. Quoting the Temporary Restraing Order,Judge Immergut wrote this week, “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law." 

At first glance, Bonhoeffer’s reflections on solitude, community, and the inner life might seem remote from the current events happening in Portland, Oregon, particularly the Trump-Oregon court case about military deployment. Still, for me, deeply, surprising resonances emerged between Life Together (Ch. 3) and the political-constitutional moment in Oregon.

Let me briefly summarize my most pertinent takeaways from Chapter 3, and then explore their possible analogical resonance:

1. The Necessity of Solitude and Listening to God
   Bonhoeffer argues that every Christian must cultivate a “day alone,” a time to face God’s Word, to hear truth within, to be exposed to one’s own inner condition, and thus to enter community (or public engagement) from a place of integrity rather than compulsion.

2. The Danger of Retreat as Pride or Escapism
   He warns that solitude that becomes mere withdrawal or spiritual elitism is corrupt; true solitude leads us back in humility into responsible relationships and communal responsibility.

3. Freedom from Domination, Need, or Coercion
   One fruit of spiritual solitude is a mode of relating to others that is non-demanding, non-manipulative — one is free to enter into fellowship or serve, not to dominate or coerce.

The legal confrontation over deploying federal troops in Portland embodies, in a very real and public way, tensions between centers of power and centers of moral and civic conscience. While Bonhoeffer’s domain is spiritual and ecclesial, his way of thinking can offer salutary insight into what it means to act justly, humbly, and with inner rootedness in public life. Here are several reflections:

In a fraught moment like the Trump-Oregon court case, decision-makers (judges, governors, executives) are under enormous pressure from public opinion, political forces, media, and the weight of institutional expectations. Bonhoeffer would invite them to have their “day alone,” to not be immediately swayed by the loudest voices or populist demands, but to listen for deeper truth and conscience. I'm not seeing evidence of that with the current administration so much as trying to claim presidential power.

I believe Portland leaders have had their "day alone": The judge issuing the temporary restraining order (Judge Immergut) frames her decision in constitutional principle, not raw political expedience: The judge wrote, “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law."  I wonder how she, in her deliberation, inhabited her kind of “day alone” resisting clamors to yield to power or to abandon principle under pressure..

The state of Oregon and the City of Portland did not merely hide behind procedural objections; they brought a lawsuit, grounded in constitutional checks (10th Amendment, Posse Comitatus, separation of powers) and factual argument about the conditions on the ground. Their posture is not flight from conflict but an attempt to engage conflict within legal and moral boundaries. "Consitutional solitude" did not lead to political passivity. Bonhoeffer would likely say that a properly disciplined solitude enables courage and clarity in public resistance.

The deployment of military forces into a civic setting is the extreme form of domination: transferring coercive power into the realm of civil governance. The TRO’s insistence that the protests did not justify military intervention pushes back, in constitutional terms, against coercive overreach.

The court’s decision signals that public order cannot simply be achieved by the threat or presence of force beyond what is justified; the civic order must preserve the dignity and constitutional rights of persons. Overuse of military power in domestic settings risks degrading community life, substituting fear and dominance for real dialogue and accountability.

A final reflection: Bonhoeffer’s discipline of solitude is ultimately about aligning one’s inner life with God’s truth. But in politics and law, there are structural forces, institutional pressures, and collective dynamics that cannot be mastered by one individual’s solitude alone. The struggle is always between the inner and the institutional. The court’s decision is a provisional check (a temporary restraining order) it doesn’t settle everything. Institutions will push back; higher courts, appeals, and political maneuvering lie ahead.

We talked in our last class this week about whether mediating for a half hour a day was reasonable. Most of us in my small group thought it was dependent on what you considered meditation. The Narrative Lectionary scripture was God calling Samuel. Eli teaches Samuel a new posture for hearing: “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

 Is this posture meditation, as Bonhoeffer defines it?

The contrast is stark: Bonhoeffer’s solitude is a secure grounding (in God) that enables a person to act with integrity even when institutions fail; but in civic life, that inner grounding must be translated into robust alliances, legal argument, procedural discipline, and public accountability. The Christian (or any conscientious citizen) must live in both spheres: the solitude of moral center and the complexity of public structures.

Obviously, Bonhoeffer’s text is spiritual, not political; it won't assume political authority is illegitimate per se. The case over troop deployment involves complex constitutional, statutory, and factual questions (federalism, war powers, domestic use of force) Bonhoeffer does not directly address in "Life Together."

Yet, bringing Bonhoeffer and a high-stakes constitutional case together is not about drawing literal one-to-one correspondences, but about how spiritual vision can inform our civic imagination. We are reminded that public actors (judges, officials, citizens) need the discipline of inner solitude to resist the pressures of power, noise, and ideological urgency. We learn that resistance must not become withdrawal. We see that a healthy polity resists domination, even (especially) when masked in the name of “law and order.”

I can't help but meditate on how much more complex Bonhoeffer's "day alone" discipline is within an environment dominated by social media and, what many now see as, Martin Luther King Jr.'s justice demand to be addressed in the "fierce urgency of now." 

Finally, perhaps this moment in Portland (and Oregon) calls not just for legal rulings but for deeper civic conversion: a public ethos in which power is held in check, moral witness is cultivated, and community is fostered rather than coerced.