amen, amen, and amen.

“We can be easily deceived by human love, imagining it to be the love of Christ. This happens because human love often “surpasses genuine Christian love in fervent devotion and visible results. It speaks the Christian language with overwhelming and stirring eloquence,” but it is the love condemned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:3. The true evil of human love is its desire to push Christ to the sidelines of fellowship in order that I may connect directly with the brother or sister.

Human love is directed to others for their own sake; spiritual love loves them for Christ's sake. Human love seeks direct contact with the other persons; it loves them not as free persons but as those whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistable, to rule. (Bonhoeffer) 

When the selfish agenda and manipulative techniques of one's Christian brother and sisters are discovered, as they eventually will be, the fellowship is destroyed. We withdraw in distrust from Christian community, fearing that intimacy will mean exploitation. 

The only salvation for the Christian community when the masquerade of human love has been exposed is to return to Christ as mediator of our relationships.

Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves. ...Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love...Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ's; I must meet him only as the person he already is in Christ's eyes. (Bonhoeffer)

Fellowship is his to maintain or desove as he bids. Christ is the bridge to others but also the barrier preventing fallen eros from devouring one another.

...Because Christ stands between me and the church, he leads me to suffer with it in its weakness and to work patiently for its healing and reformation.”