What do you think?
Rate this book
From Isolation to Community
It is no secret that isolation is one of the key ailments of our age. But less explored is the way the church as it is frequently practiced contributes to this isolation instead of offering an alternative. With the help of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book argues for a renewed vision of the church community as a theological therapy to cultural, moral, and sociological isolation. It offers an account of how familiar church practices, such as Scripture reading, worship, prayer, and eating, contribute to community formation in the body of Christ.
208 pages, Paperback
Published April 12, 2022
3 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 10, 2024
We’re only beginning to see the creative, hopeful works that will eventually emerge from the pandemic. But we are beginning to see them, sometimes even in the guise of academic works of theology. All of which to say, these days I’m especially appreciating From Isolation to Community by Myles Werntz, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University.
A careful, pastoral engagement with the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book speaks to sorrows that preceded the pandemic and to woes that will persist well beyond it. Nonetheless, Werntz started writing during a time when isolation had reached unsustainable extremes. “This book was begun in dark times,” he writes. “It was written in part to remind me of the grace of the Christian community, in a time when many things spoke of isolation, to write myself into hope. May it be something of that for the reader as well.”
Read the rest at timhoiland.com
A careful, pastoral engagement with the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book speaks to sorrows that preceded the pandemic and to woes that will persist well beyond it. Nonetheless, Werntz started writing during a time when isolation had reached unsustainable extremes. “This book was begun in dark times,” he writes. “It was written in part to remind me of the grace of the Christian community, in a time when many things spoke of isolation, to write myself into hope. May it be something of that for the reader as well.”
Read the rest at timhoiland.com
July 29, 2025
Of offering on Baptist ecclesiology with a healthy appropriation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, especially "Life Together." I don't think any theologian ever gets it 100% right, but I think Werntz has the spirit and practice of the church's theological life together pretty well. The church's unity is always in Christ. Together we are a part of his body, but we must be bodily together.
I would love if a more doctrinaire approach of Baptist ecclesiology like 9Marks would wed in the patience and theological anthropology of Werntz's presentation. It's simultaneously more simple and less simple: our relations are more theologically defined yet less rigid on 9 specific points.
I would love if a more doctrinaire approach of Baptist ecclesiology like 9Marks would wed in the patience and theological anthropology of Werntz's presentation. It's simultaneously more simple and less simple: our relations are more theologically defined yet less rigid on 9 specific points.
March 13, 2022
This was an interesting book on several levels. My initial thought was that the author was referencing the isolation of the current pandemic and would talk about how to get folks to come back and attend in person … that is not what this book is about at all and that caught me by surprise. Instead, the basic idea was this: “It is isolation that better describes the complex way in which sin divided human beings from God and one another, distancing them from the goodness and benefit of the God who is our source and from others, through whom we receive these good gifts.” Being separated from God as a result of sin is not an entirely novel idea; however, adding separation from others into that same equation was new for me and it was a profoundly beautify way to view what we need out of community. Even more interesting was how isolation can be seen as either a misplaced emphasis on the individual (or individualism) or an emphasis on conformity with a crowd (tribalism). The former is fairly come to see in the US and the later I have frequently encountered with tween students that never want to do anything that makes them stand out in the crowd. I other words, I felt that I knew exactly what the author was talking about. With the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a Guide, the author reviews a lot of the habits found within our church communities that also suffer from these two issues and tries to come up with proposed solutions.
Chapter 1 explored the nature and origin of isolation within the Christian Communion, with Chapter 2 and 3 tying that isolation to our fallen state (in other words, such is normal and to be expected) and why this is a problem. The most important mistake that I recognized here that is common to many churches is the drive to survive and grow that at times seems counter to the true mission of the church. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 start the process of what we need to do in order to over come this problem; mostly this seems focused on community prayer and action (service) … “to ask not only what we do but how we do it if in fact church practice is about being knit into one body in Christ and overcoming the isolation that is regnant in creation” breaking everything down into communal/common life, provide life and mission/ministry and is in my opinion the heart of the entire book … but was also short on specifics. I must admit to a bit of a struggle here as the analogies and repetition began to blur a bit for me; however, I still came away with what I believe is a good general understanding of the way forward. Most interesting was the exploration of the “days apart” concept and how that should be structured to reinforce the “days together.” Chapter 7 covers confession and communion with a surprising recognition that even within Protestant traditions, confession is important (just not necessarily to clergy). “Without the common confession of faith, we are only a body who knows how to judge in a way that divides, but without confession of sin, we are not a body that is willing to be healed.”
Over all this is a book to come back to as you slowly gain better income into the concepts that it contains and begin to put them into practice.
I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#FromIsolationtoCommunity #NetGalley
Chapter 1 explored the nature and origin of isolation within the Christian Communion, with Chapter 2 and 3 tying that isolation to our fallen state (in other words, such is normal and to be expected) and why this is a problem. The most important mistake that I recognized here that is common to many churches is the drive to survive and grow that at times seems counter to the true mission of the church. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 start the process of what we need to do in order to over come this problem; mostly this seems focused on community prayer and action (service) … “to ask not only what we do but how we do it if in fact church practice is about being knit into one body in Christ and overcoming the isolation that is regnant in creation” breaking everything down into communal/common life, provide life and mission/ministry and is in my opinion the heart of the entire book … but was also short on specifics. I must admit to a bit of a struggle here as the analogies and repetition began to blur a bit for me; however, I still came away with what I believe is a good general understanding of the way forward. Most interesting was the exploration of the “days apart” concept and how that should be structured to reinforce the “days together.” Chapter 7 covers confession and communion with a surprising recognition that even within Protestant traditions, confession is important (just not necessarily to clergy). “Without the common confession of faith, we are only a body who knows how to judge in a way that divides, but without confession of sin, we are not a body that is willing to be healed.”
Over all this is a book to come back to as you slowly gain better income into the concepts that it contains and begin to put them into practice.
I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#FromIsolationtoCommunity #NetGalley
July 11, 2022
This book gave me so much to think about. It's not a how-to-fix-it kind of book, exactly...don't go in looking for lots of practical tips on how to make your church the best church ever. (Those books are almost never as good as this one.) Instead, Myles Werntz offers a theological investigation of the problem of human isolation as a product of the Fall and a thoughtful examination (through the lens of Dietrich Bonhoeffer) of what community as the Body of Christ is supposed to be, in a way that heals this isolation instead of just masking it. The ending almost felt like a plot twist - we should start having more opportunities for confession! That's not where I thought he was going. He's right, though...and even though my tradition offers sacramental Confession already, it's not as widely practiced or as deeply transformative as it could be. His explanation of why confession matters to the Body of Christ is refreshing and offers a different angle than the one commonly articulated by most Catholics in the pews. The idea that sin is corporate and not just personal is still challenging for a lot of people from across Christian traditions--but that doesn't make it less true.
July 17, 2025
A really good companion to Bonhoffer's "Life Together."
Werntz repeatedly comes back to two different forms of isolation. One is the individual, when we isolate ourselves entirely from others. The other is the crowd, where we isolate ourselves by surrounding ourselves with others whom we can lose ourselves in. The reapeated return to these two forms of isolation was really helpful.
I've been thinking a lot about in-person church (which seems to be a subtext in this book) and how a lot of it feels like it could be replicated online because we remain isolated even when we are together. This book does a good job of describing how a church might be a community and neither a crowd nor an unconnected group of individuals.
Werntz repeatedly comes back to two different forms of isolation. One is the individual, when we isolate ourselves entirely from others. The other is the crowd, where we isolate ourselves by surrounding ourselves with others whom we can lose ourselves in. The reapeated return to these two forms of isolation was really helpful.
I've been thinking a lot about in-person church (which seems to be a subtext in this book) and how a lot of it feels like it could be replicated online because we remain isolated even when we are together. This book does a good job of describing how a church might be a community and neither a crowd nor an unconnected group of individuals.
April 10, 2022
Very engaging, thought provoking and what the church needs to hear
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews