Bonhoeffer on "religionless Christianity"

[FireDragon76]

April 30, 1944

To Eberhard Bethage:

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience--and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving toward a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the "religious a priori" of mankind. "Christianity" has always been a form--perhaps the true form--of "religion." But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless--and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any "religious" reaction?)--what does that mean for "Christianity"? It means that the foundation is taken away from the whole of what has up to now been our "Christianity," and that there remain only a few "last survivors of the age of chivalry," or a few intellectually dishonest people that we are to pounce in fervor, pique, or indignation, in order to sell them goods? Are we to fall upon a few unfortunate people in their hour of need and exercise a sort of religious compulsion on them? If we don't want to do all that, if our final judgment must be that the Western form of Christianity, too, was only a preliminary stage to a complete absence of religion, what kind of situation emerges for us, for the church? How can Christ become the Lord of the religionless as well? Are there religionless Christians? If religion is only a garment of Christianity--and even this garment has looked very different at different times--then what is a religionless Christianity?

...The questions to be answered would surely be: What do a church, a community, a sermon, a liturgy, a Christian life mean in a religionless world? How do we speak of God--without religion, i.e., without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness, and so on? How do we speak (or perhaps we cannot now even "speak" as we used to) in a "secular" way about God? In what way are we "religionless-secular" Christians, in what way are we those who are called forth, not regarding ourselves from a religious point of view as specially favored, but rather as belonging wholly to the world? In that case Christ is no longer an object of religion, but something quite different, really the Lord of the world. But what does that mean? What is the place of worship and prayer in a religionless situation?

I love Bonhoeffer. Getting in touch with him again has helped torpedo the funk of Kierkegaard's impossible pietism. Kierkegaard's inwardness has simply been rendered irrelevant.

I don't think mainline churches have begun to take Bonhoeffer's prophetic voice seriously. We are still stuck in 19th century liberalism, still pretending that deep down, people are fundamentally religious. And as Bonhoeffer asserts, this just ain't so. It's an historical contingency. They are offering up kinder, gentler, religion to bewildered grandmas in the pews, when what is needed is a renewed focus on ethics that transcend religion. Only that will inspire people to follow Christ.

 

[Halbhh]

I love Bonhoeffer. Getting in touch with him again has helped torpedo the funk of Kierkegaard's impossible pietism. Kierkegaard's inwardness has simply been rendered irrelevant.

I don't think mainline churches have begun to take Bonhoeffer's prophetic voice seriously. We are still stuck in 19th century liberalism, still pretending that deep down, people are fundamentally religious. And as Bonhoeffer asserts, this just ain't so. It's an historical contingency. They are offering up kinder, gentler, religion to bewildered grandmas in the pews, when what is needed is a renewed focus on ethics that transcend religion. Only that will inspire people to follow Christ.

The words of Christ Himself would be precisely that.

 

[FireDragon76]

The words of Christ Himself would be precisely that.

Which is why the recent Supreme Court tactics of the religious right are a dead letter. Appealing to a "religious" consciousness won't do anymore. You dupe a couple of sentimental old men in robes, but the masses of humanity are craving a healing act beyond the narrow mindset of religion.

Christ in his day spoke in the earthy language of fieldworkers, householders, slaves, even the military. Christians today cloak their language in piety and God, and platonic mysticism, and have become all but irrelevent to anyone who is mentally healthy and intellectually sophisticated.

 

[Doug Melven]

If by religionless Christianity you mean Having Christianity with no ethics or morals, then I would say that is not true Christianity.
But if it means not to have all these dead rote rituals where we just go to church, pay our tithe and go home again and don't bother with Christ till next week. I say get rid of that type of religion.
Christianity can do without it.

To me religion is man seeking God. All the various religions of the world have this in common, even atheism. Atheists are there own gods.
Christianity, on the other hand is God seeking man. This can transform us into people God can have fellowship with.

 

[FireDragon76]

If by religionless Christianity you mean Having Christianity with no ethics or morals, then I would say that is not true Christianity.
But if it means not to have all these dead rote rituals where we just go to church, pay our tithe and go home again and don't bother with Christ till next week. I say get rid of that type of religion.
Christianity can do without it.

To me religion is man seeking God. All the various religions of the world have this in common, even atheism. Atheists are there own gods.
Christianity, on the other hand is God seeking man. This can transform us into people God can have fellowship with.

That's still religion, in my mind, you are talking about. Bonhoeffer was at a stage where he had transcended the language and piety of religion, but still considered himself deeply commited to Jesus as his Savior and ethical ideal. He was at a stage where he genuinely cared about not offending an atheist's conscience, because he knew the atheist did not speak the language of religion, a language he knew the world had grown weary of.

 

[amariselle]

I love Bonhoeffer. Getting in touch with him again has helped torpedo the funk of Kierkegaard's impossible pietism. Kierkegaard's inwardness has simply been rendered irrelevant.

I don't think mainline churches have begun to take Bonhoeffer's prophetic voice seriously. We are still stuck in 19th century liberalism, still pretending that deep down, people are fundamentally religious. And as Bonhoeffer asserts, this just ain't so. It's an historical contingency. They are offering up kinder, gentler, religion to bewildered grandmas in the pews, when what is needed is a renewed focus on ethics that transcend religion. Only that will inspire people to follow Christ.

Honestly, although I’ve hear many wonderful things about Bonhoeffer, in the writings you shared, he sounds very confused and conflicted.

And I do understand that he was living in a very confusing and tumultuous time that would ultimately lead to his death.

True Christian faith isn’t about “religion” in that it’s not a set of rules and ordinances to follow. (Though many have made it out to be just that).

 

[FireDragon76]

Honestly, although I’ve hear many wonderful things about Bonhoeffer, in the writings you shared, he sounds very confused and conflicted.

And I do understand that he was living in a very confusing and tumultuous time that would ultimately lead to his death.

True Christian faith isn’t about “religion” in that it’s not a set of rules and ordinances to follow. (Though many have made it out to be just that).

Unless you are gay... cha-ching...

See, there's that "religion" again. We are expected to take Greek metaphysical thinking as part and parcel of the message of Jesus Christ? No thank you.

 

[amariselle]

Unless you are gay... cha-ching...

See, there's that "religion" again. We are expected to take Greek metaphysical thinking as part and parcel of the message of Jesus Christ? No thank you.

?????

Alright.

Blessings!

 

[Silmarien]

I love Bonhoeffer. Getting in touch with him again has helped torpedo the funk of Kierkegaard's impossible pietism. Kierkegaard's inwardness has simply been rendered irrelevant.

Haha, it was specifically Kierkegaard who first changed my mind about Christianity, and he was the only thinker who would have been able to do so, though I've since abandoned his type of fideism for... Greek metaphysics and Platonic mysticism.

This stuff isn't one size fits all, so I don't think there's any one thing in particular which will inspire people. Though I am disturbed by the extent to which Nietzsche's prophecy has come true and people refuse to even accept the idea of moral truths anymore. I do not know how conversation is even possible with a world that no longer believes in ethics at all.

 

[FireDragon76]

Haha, it was specifically Kierkegaard who first changed my mind about Christianity, and he was the only thinker who would have been able to do so, though I've since abandoned his type of fideism for... Greek metaphysics and Platonic mysticism.

Uggh... Please, for the love of God, read Bonhoeffer first before you decide the Greeks had all the answers.

Bonhoeffer's theology sort of reminds me of the feminist Buddhist who cursed the buddha in his quest for transcendence, for leaving his family and child and the bliss present there. I think that quest for transcendence, is very masculine and imbalanced, and limiting as a perspective. Bonhoeffer presents a spirituality of finding God in life, which is completely different from being detached from the world, negating the world, and denigrating the secular. It's the ultimate answer to Nietzsche. And to top it off, it's sacramental in a way that platonism never could be.

This stuff isn't one size fits all, so I don't think there's any one thing in particular which will inspire people. Though I am disturbed by the extent to which Nietzsche's prophecy has come true and people refuse to even accept the idea of moral truths anymore.

I love Nietzsche. He at least sort of got what was wrong with religion in the 19th century, even if some of his conclusions were premature (he swallowed German higher criticism, uncritically).

 

[Silmarien]

Uggh... Please, for the love of God, read Bonhoeffer first before you decide the Greeks had all the answers.

Oh, I don't think they did, but they had any number of questions that we've forgotten in modernity. And there's a path people take sometimes from Nietzsche, to Heidegger, and then straight back to Plato, followed by the Church Fathers--it's weird, but it makes a certain amount of sense thematically. And if you're going to fall down the rabbit hole of rational justification for the existence of God and reality of morality, there's nothing better than the Greeks and scholastics for that. I don't think this amount of intellectualizing is conducive towards faith as lived (which I am super bad at, since I can't even figure out if I'm Christian or not), but sometimes it's a necessary step along the path.

I am definitely interested in Bonhoeffer, though. Is there anything in particular you'd recommend?

Bonhoeffer's theology sort of reminds me of the feminist Buddhist who cursed the buddha in his quest for transcendence, for leaving his family and child and the bliss present there. I think that quest for transcendence, is very masculine and imbalanced, and limiting as a perspective.

You know, I actually see mysticism as primarily a feminine mode of spirituality. Between the relatively large number of high profile female mystics, from Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena, and Julian of Norwich, to Thérèse of Lisieux and Simone Weil, to Rabi'a Basri, and the picture we get in the Abrahamic traditions of God being perceived primarily as male, mysticism has always struck me as more feminine than masculine. The fact that the word "soul" is feminine in Greek and Latin based languages certainly helps--something like John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul is very gendered in Spanish.

I do agree that out-of-control mysticism is probably not a good thing, though.

 

[FireDragon76]

First you should really delve into Lutheranism. Because Bonhoeffer is actually Lutheran at heart, which is why people like Eric Metaxas (an Episcopalian evangelical) DO NOT interpret him correctly at all. Bonhoeffer just amplifies on the Lutheran tradition.

So Wrong for So Long? (The Problem with Tradition Part One)

I think the above blog is good to read, once you delve a bit into something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Bible-Martin-Luther-Introductory/dp/0801049172

Lutherans do theology more like lawyers and less like philosophers. As our guest pastor joked today at our pastor's 20th anniversary of being ordained, our pastor went from being a state prosecutor to working for the defense. We are less concerned with philosophical aesthetics because we regard the Cross itself as the true source of our theology, and God has chosen to love the unlovely. We regard rationalistic approaches to faith as inadequate. Very different from the medieval approach you seem drawn to, but perhaps a counterpoint perspective?

Once you go after that, I'd recommend this blog as an explanation of Bonhoeffer's greatest work, his Letters and Papers from Prison. This work has been widely influential upon twentieth century mainline theology, especially liberation theologians such as Jurgen Moltmann and the work of Harvey Cox and John. A.T. Robinson.

Experimental Theology: Letters from Cell 92: Part 1, A New Theology

Kierkegaard is often considered by outsiders to be a great Lutheran voice but in reality he is a pietist, which is the platypus of the Lutheran world. And Kiekergaard is never able to interpret Luther correctly because he goes only partially through Johann Georg Hamann, who himself was probably the pre-eminent voice of the Counter-Enlightenment. Kierkegaard misses the sacramental dimension of Luther and Hamann altogether because pietism denigrates the physical world in a quasi-manichean mindset. So in the end Kierkegaard is left more with an untenable, precarious, and anxious perspective on the world, one more preoccupied with the burdens of the individual self. Because Kierkegaard completely rejects grace being mediated through a community.

You know, I actually see mysticism as primarily a feminine mode of spirituality. Between the relatively large number of high profile female mystics, from Teresa of Ávila, Catherine of Siena, and Julian of Norwich, to Thérèse of Lisieux and Simone Weil, to Rabi'a Basri, and the picture we get in the Abrahamic traditions of God being perceived primarily as male, mysticism has always struck me as more feminine than masculine. The fact that the word "soul" is feminine in Greek and Latin based languages certainly helps--something like John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul is very gendered in Spanish.

I do agree that out-of-control mysticism is probably not a good thing, though.

Mysticism is a sideshow in Catholicism that keeps the authentic voice of women quiet and docile by giving them sublimated sex fantasies. That sounds cruel but... I'm unimpressed by the Christian mystical tradition for the most part (I used to take it seriously), and I see the origins of Christian monasticism and mysticism in the Sramanas of Egypt and the Levant that came from India (and not in the historical Jesus). The only one that's worth anything is Therese of Lisieux, in my book, and I'm not sure I'd classify her as a mystic.

I think Buddhism does mysticism better, inasmuch as it is more honest. I will grant a place for some Christian mystics such as Tauller and Eckhart and their influence on Luther through the Theologica Germanica, but that is a decidedly different mysticism in tone than telling women that they are the bride of Christ or that they need to purify themselves. Eckhart/Tauller is more focused on subjectivity, and this carries over into Luther's emphasis as well.

 

[Silmarien]

Lutherans do theology more like lawyers and less like philosophers. As our guest pastor joked today at our pastor's 20th anniversary of being ordained, our pastor went from being a state prosecutor to working for the defense. We are less concerned with philosophical aesthetics because we regard the Cross itself as the true source of our theology, and God has chosen to love the unlovely. We regard rationalistic approaches to faith as inadequate. Very different from the medieval approach you seem drawn to, but perhaps a counterpoint perspective?

Haha, my trauma from law school probably makes a legal approach to Christianity the worst possible option for me, but I'm slowly making peace with the fact that my love affair with those medieval Churches is going to have to remain forever unconsummated. I think the Greeks had things right that we've gotten wrong, but they also had things wrong that we've since gotten right, like that obsession with ancient tradition for its own sake. Does Lutheranism do away with church tradition entirely, or does it take something of a Scripture, Tradition, Reason approach like Anglicanism does?

Kierkegaard is often considered by outsiders to be a great Lutheran voice but in reality he is a pietist, which is the platypus of the Lutheran world. And Kiekergaard is never able to interpret Luther correctly because he goes only partially through Johann Georg Hamann, who himself was probably the pre-eminent voice of the Counter-Enlightenment. Kierkegaard misses the sacramental dimension of Luther and Hamann altogether because pietism denigrates the physical world in a quasi-manichean mindset. So in the end Kierkegaard is left more with an untenable, precarious, and anxious perspective on the world, one more preoccupied with the burdens of the individual self. Because Kierkegaard completely rejects grace being mediated through a community.

Well, coming from outside of the Christian world entirely, he's viewed more as a great existentialist than as a great Lutheran, and an anxious perspective on an incomprehensible world is definitely the hallmark of what we are. Unfortunately. Lutheran pietism does interest me, though, since I've seen it argued that it in specific is what gave form to the later existentialist quest for authenticity (though you can see the roots of this in Nietzsche as much as Kierkegaard, and I would hesitate to attribute any of his ideas to his Lutheran upbringing).

Mysticism is a sideshow in Catholicism that keeps the authentic voice of women quiet and docile by giving them sublimated sex fantasies. That sounds cruel but... I'm unimpressed by the Christian mystical tradition for the most part (I used to take it seriously), and I see the origins of Christian monasticism and mysticism in the Sramanas of Egypt and the Levant that came from India (and not in the historical Jesus). The only one that's worth anything is Therese of Lisieux, in my book, and I'm not sure I'd classify her as a mystic.

Yeah, there is something frenzied and feverish in the character of someone like Teresa of Ávila that I find a bit disturbing, and I do worry to what degree women have been associated with mysticism because it was often the only type of religious expression open to them, but at the same time, I wouldn't write off the somewhat erotic edge of female mysticism as sublimated fantasies. Have you ever looked into the work of the Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley on sexuality and spirituality? It may be the queer theorist in me speaking, but I think we do tend to oversimplify what's the result of patriarchal oppression and what actually is authentic expression.

 

[dms1972]

I love Bonhoeffer. Getting in touch with him again has helped torpedo the funk of Kierkegaard's impossible pietism. Kierkegaard's inwardness has simply been rendered irrelevant.

I don't think mainline churches have begun to take Bonhoeffer's prophetic voice seriously. We are still stuck in 19th century liberalism, still pretending that deep down, people are fundamentally religious. And as Bonhoeffer asserts, this just ain't so. It's an historical contingency. They are offering up kinder, gentler, religion to bewildered grandmas in the pews, when what is needed is a renewed focus on ethics that transcend religion. Only that will inspire people to follow Christ.

I have been thinking for a while of reading something by Dietrich Bonhoffer (had in mind to buy his Act and Being). What did you read of Bonhoffer and what do you recommend?

 

[hedrick]

The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Christianity. They show rather different aspects of his thought (probably due to different times and different situations).

 

[13paxi34]

Back when I was in seminary I remember reading Bishop John Robinson's Honest to God. It had a profound impact on my thinking and got me to begin to look at things in a very different kind of way. I think Bonhoeffer was really starting to get into some good and interesting things... I wish he had been able to survive and to leave more of his writings for us to read...

 

[hedrick]

Back when I was in seminary I remember reading Bishop John Robinson's Honest to God.

That and his book on Christology, "The Human Face of God." When I was in high school I heard him talk about a book where he claimed that that whole NT was written before 70. I was less impressed by that then those two books.

 

[13paxi34]

Ugh. No way... Paul's epistle and the gospel of Mark for sure... Matthew and Luke around 80. John maybe around 90... the rest of it possibly later... oh well, I appreciate Robinson's honesty and willingness to struggle and doubt and ask hard questions. Bonhoeffer's as well... the way I see it is that if Jeremiah yelled at God for duping him and Jesus cried out why have you forsaken me... we are allowed to struggle. Religion gives us stupid rules - relationship is where stuff has to be worked out.