34;World Come of Age"
Chapter 9: Religionless Christianity
The concept of Religionless Christianity has been one of the most controversial subjects in Bonhoeffer’s theology. Surprisingly,
Bonhoeffer himself used the expression "religionless Christianity" only in the famous letter of April 30, 1944. Mention has already been made that Bonhoeffer’s theology, especially as it was developed in the prison letters, has been under vigorous criticism. It is disappointing to note that many critiques of Bonhoeffer see him only through the eyes of the so- called "radical theologians" who have misrepresented his thoughts. This is not a fair approach to his thinking. Bonhoeffer should have a hearing on his own merits. If we miss the dialectical nature of his theology we miss the whole point. Paul Lehmann, a good friend of Bonhoeffer during the pre-war days, has pointed out that,
The so-called "Death of God" theologians are perhaps the most conspicuous of Bonhoeffer’s misrepresentation.
They have seized upon the Letters and Papers from Prison with such avid and hasty enthusiasm as to have provided an American parallel to those German
enthusiasts who have, all but launched a "Bonhoeffer School". On the continent, "the world come of age",
"religionless Christianity", "true worldliness" have tempted Bonhoeffer’s former pupils, now in theological
faculties or church administration, towards cultic
passions. In the United States, these same phrases have been appropriated as a kind of quintessential, "new essence of Christianity" which claims Bonhoeffer for the tradition of Nietzsche and celebrates him as a forerunner of a theology without God. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that both cultic and atheistic celebrations of Bonhoeffer are grievous distortions of his thought and spirit. When the prison papers are read and reflected upon, with due regard for Bonhoeffer’s exegetical and
theological writings, there is no informed and responsible way claiming Bonhoeffer for a theology without God.1 The death-of-God theology, in the narrowest possible sense of the term, points to the teachings of the American triumvirate -- Thomas Altizer, William Hamilton and Paul van Buren -- who stirred up quite a bit of public commotion and whose work is now almost of no value. These theologians consider Bonhoeffer as the thinker whose seminal thoughts have provided the basic inspiration for their own theological stand. In his book The New Essence of Christianity, Hamilton says that "My essay as a whole is deeply indebted to Bonhoeffer, and may be taken as a theological response to the coming of age of the world as he has analyzed it."2 Hamilton and associates are surely interested in Bonhoeffer, but whether they understand him rightly is a different question. In any case, Bonhoeffer aficionados will not subscribe to the theory of making him the spiritus rector of the death-of-God theology.
It is not our purpose here to interpret the death-of-God theologians but to examine, as briefly as possible, how their theology is basically different from that of Bonhoeffer.
The death-of-God theologians declare that God is dead. When they speak of the death of God they are not just referring to the God of the Greek metaphysics, or the inadequate imagery that has characterized Christian concepts to speak of God, or the false gods of pagan idolatry.
They are speaking of the death of the Christian God Himself.
At this point we have to question whether these theologians are authentically ‘radical’. The term ‘radical’ (radix) actually means
"pertaining to the roots" or "going to the foundation of something". A Christian theologian, if he is to be radical, should go back to the New Testament roots of Christianity. The death-of-God theologians are not at all radical in this sense, since their starting point would seem to be the
rejection of biblical belief in the living, eternal God. They have carried certain tendencies in theology to their own conclusions, and it would be more appropriate to say that they are radicals in the jargon where that word means ‘extremist’. Whereas the thrust of Bonhoeffer’s theology is his Christocentric concept of reality, it would seem that these self-styled radicals are promoting some kind of "Jesus cult". The title The Christian Century gave to Hamilton’s review of van Buren’s The Secular
Meaning of the Gospel: "There is no God and Jesus is His Son" rightly points out the paradoxical nature of this strange theology.3
In contrast to the death-of-God theologians, Bonhoeffer was a radical theologian, for the scripture was the basis of his theology. In Ethics Bonhoeffer said:
In Jesus Christ we have faith in the incarnate, crucified and risen God. In the incarnation we learn of the love of God for His creation; in the crucifixion we learn of the judgment of God upon all flesh; and in the resurrection we learn of God’s will for a new world. There could be no greater error than to tear these three elements apart; for each of them comprises the whole.4
To interpret this fundamental message of the Gospel to the man come of age was the mission of Bonhoeffer. The expression "death of God"
never appears in Bonhoeffer’s writings. He speaks, instead, of life
"before God" in the world without the God-hypothesis and by means of the "secret discipline" (which Hamilton scarcely mentions and Altizer interprets as a need for silence). It is the ‘metaphysical’ God of religion, the deus ex machina, the "working hypothesis," that Bonhoeffer rejects.
According to Bonhoeffer, to believe in the God of Western theism is to rely upon a false image of God. Therefore he rejects this kind of God- hypothesis. He is very particular to make this rejection, because to him one of the most important aspects of a deeply worldly and committed life is a right theology of God and a clear withdrawal from the false religious outlook of the past. In one of the most significant of all his remarks Bonhoeffer said:
....we have to live in the world esti deus non daretur (even if there were no God) and this is just what we do
recognize-before God. God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true
recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark. 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God.5
There are important points to be noticed in this last statement. First, God is spoken of in conjunction with the "without God". Second, the
intellectual honesty of modern man and the testimony of Christian faith meet in a unique way. This means that the world in its adulthood "is no really better understood than it understands itself, namely on the basis of the gospel and in the light of Christ."6 The meeting of the intellectual honesty of modern man and the testimony of Christian faith is a
necessary theological conformation. The faith is a presupposition for the intellectual honesty; for maintaining one’s ‘adulthood’ and "standing fast", confronting reality with an intellectually honest view, is possible only "before God". It is evident, then, that Bonhoeffer had no intention of constructing a theology by eliminating the living God of the Bible after the manner of the death-of-God theologians. It would be more appropriate to say that while Altizer, Hamilton and van Buren were concerned about the "death of God", Bonhoeffer took the issue with religion.
It is important to realize that Bonhoeffer’s use of the term "religion"
takes its origin from Karl Barth’s treatment of the subject. He was fully in sympathy with Barth’s endeavour to distinguish religion as a human activity from the authentic tidings of the true God. Bonhoeffer also accepted the view that religion as historical phenomenon was the fruit of human speculation.
Barth said that it is only the forgiving and reconciling presence of God in human religion that can give it reality, and that this is to be found only in Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and human being.
He tells us therefore that human religion has no worth nor truth in itself.
Since a way has been opened up into the presence of God in and through Christ, all previous religions, or religions outside of Christ, are displaced and robbed of any claim to truth. Justification by grace reveals that religion can be the supreme form taken by human sin. This applies to Christian religion as well. Through sin and self-will the Christian
religion may become merely a form of man’s cultural self-expression or
be the means whereby man seeks to justify and sanctify himself before God. This is the basis of Barth’s attack upon nineteenth century religion and upon all self-centred, self-conscious pietistic religion.
Barth, however, does not deny the universality of religion. He
emphasizes the need for charity and caution in the evaluation of religion.
God speaks through the Christian faith not because of any superiority of Christian religion, but because of His grace. In contrast to revelation, which is God’s self-offering and self-manifestation, a religion is "a grasping which is not true reception". Barth writes:
If man tries to grasp at truth of himself, he tries to grasp at it a priori. But in that case he does not do what he has to do when the truth comes to him. He does not believe. If he did, he would listen; but in religion he takes something for himself. If he did, he would let God Himself intercede for God: but in religion he ventures to grasp at God.7
According to Barth, faith is the response to God’s revelation of Himself as Lord in Jesus Christ, a revelation in which the initiative rests firmly with God. If through religion man had been able to find God, this revelation would not have been necessary. The very fact of revelation proves religion to be inadequate, and now the whole field of religion must be looked at in the light of this fact. Barth also says that the
theologian’s task is to try to discover what status of religion is from the point of faith.
Apart from faith religion becomes idolatry. In a typically lengthy footnote, Barth goes on to describe with great insight how religion is thought of as idolatry in the Bible. Religion is also unbelief because it is man’s attempt to find justification and sanctification for himself on his own terms. This is a self-centered way of erecting barriers against God.
Our pious efforts to reconcile God to ourselves must certainly be abomination in His sight. Barth makes his position clear in this statement:
unbelief is always man’s faith in himself. And this faith invariably consists in the fact that man makes the mystery of his responsibility his own mystery, instead of accepting it as the mystery of God. It is this faith which is religion.
It is contradicted by the revelation attested in the New Testament, which is identical with Jesus Christ as the one
who acts for us and on us. This stamps religion as unbelief.8
Barth again and again emphasizes that the church exists as the church not insofar as it possesses some inalienable human form but only as it lives by divine grace. Whenever it tries to create an animating principle of its own, the church ceases to be the church of Jesus Christ and
becomes an organ of that religion which is the enemy of faith.
Now we turn to Bonhoeffer. He starts, like Barth, from the fundamental principle of justification of the sinner by grace alone. This justification removes from us all false props, all reliance upon external authorities, and all refuge in worldly securities, and throws us not upon ourselves but upon the pure gracious act of God in His unconditional love, so that the ethical and religious life are lived exclusively with Jesus Christ as the centre.
Bonhoeffer, however, differs from Barth when the issue of the religious a priori becomes more pointed. Barth acknowledges man’s research for God from below as the height of human endeavours. Although man’s reaching out to God, in religion or in philosophy, will not be successful, it still has its place in human achievements. Barth does not deny that man has an inherent tendency for religion. Religion is one rooted in his divine origin in that:
The religious relationship of man to God which is the inevitable consequence of his sin is a degenerate form of covenant relationship, the relationship between the Creator and the creature. It is the empty and deeply
problematical shell of that relationship. But as such it is a confirmation that relationship has not been destroyed by God, that God will not be mocked, that even forgetful man will not be able to forget Him.9
In the midst of all his criticism of religion, Barth still finds religion as an inescapable element in human consciousness. There is an a priori
element behind the manifold expression of religion in human history.
Barth agrees that this a priori element is not important when it comes to the validity and justification of religion. But Bonhoeffer goes a step further. He denies the religious a priori completely, and it is here that he opens up a new dimension beyond Barth’s theology. In contrast to
Barth’s exclusive emphasis upon revelation, Bonhoeffer brings faith and
obedience into focus as the correlatives of revelation. Thus he is able to speak existentially where Barth spoke exclusively in terms of revelation.
It is this focus on faith and obedience that enables Bonhoeffer to reject totally that ‘religion’ which Barth mildly distinguishes from revelation.
Faith and obedience thus emerge as the important existential motifs of Bonhoeffer’s theology, especially in The Cost of Discipleship. By bringing close to faith such a concept as discipleship Bonhoeffer stresses the human side of the event of revelation:
From the point of view of justification it is necessary ... to separate them [faith and obedience], but we must never lose sight of their essential unity. For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.10
We cannot make a chronological distinction between faith and
obedience, nor determine which is the logical consequence of the other.
It is evident from this that Bonhoeffer never denies the theological primacy of the revelation.
Faith for Bonhoeffer is not a priori, not something always there in man waiting to be discovered: "Faith itself must be created in him."11 Just as revelation is an event in time and in a concrete situation, faith also is an event that takes place at the critical moment of man’s decision. It is true that God’s call gives rise to faith, but faith never occurs without man’s being responsible for it. Just as revelation is contingent upon God’s will, faith is also contingent upon man’s responsible decision in response to the call.
This is the reason, Bonhoeffer says, that religionlessness is hopeful. For Bonhoeffer the affirmation of faith is the negation of religion. Freedom from religion liberates faith to be attentive to the call of God; freedom of faith is the freedom received of God. Quoting Barth, Bonhoeffer
effectively asserts that "... the relationship between God and man in which God’s revelation may truly be imparted to me, a man, must be free, not a static relationship..."12 Faith is thus rooted in God’s freedom.
Faith addresses persons with an eye to their humanity and has no other aim than that they should be really human. Being a Christian does not add anything to being a human being, but puts our humanity into force.
"The Christian is not a homo religious, but simply a man, as Jesus was a man. The basis of faith is "enduring reality before God." Thus defined faith is concrete and finds worldliness at once both a necessity and a gift.
(Man) must live a ‘secular’ life, and thereby share in God’s sufferings. He may live a ‘secular’ life (as one who has been freed from false religious obligations and
inhibitions). To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent or a saint) on the basis of some methods or other, but to be a man not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us.13
This is a new thought in Bonhoeffer, whereas he had earlier thought that one can acquire faith by trying to lead some sort of holy life. The
following lengthy quote illustrates the point.
I remember a conversation I had in America thirteen years ago with a young French pastor. We were asking
ourselves quite simply what we wanted to do with our lives. He said he would like to become a saint (and I think it’s quite likely that he did become one). At the time I was very impressed, but I should like to learn to have faith.
For a long time I didn’t realize the depth of the contrast. I thought I could acquire faith by trying to live a holy life, or something like it... I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this- worldliness I mean living
unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world- watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian.14
Thus the enduring of reality makes one a "whole man"-- not "man on his own", but "man existing for others". Bonhoeffer’s main contention is a triumphant assertion that faith works through love to free the Christian for action in the real world. The man of faith is released from self- preoccupation, on the religious level; as well as on other levels, to identify with his neighbour in the day- to- day affairs of the world, the place m which he knows God and enjoys life.
If Bonhoeffer were merely formulating this concept of faith on the basis of premises derived from cultural-historical analysis, he would be
indistinguishable from many liberal theologians. For the weaknesses of liberal theology was that it conceded to the world the right to determine Christ’s place in the world; in the conflict between the church and the world it accepted the comparatively easy terms of peace that the world dictated.
Thus it was Bonhoeffer’s conception of faith that enabled and compelled him to take his stand against religion. He was convinced that theology has a message to the world only when it proclaims, from the perspective of faith, the maturity of the world and the religionlessness of man. The world may certainly grow mature, but "the world must be understood better that it understands itself."15 Bonhoeffer’s critique of religion is actually a call to maturity and religionlessness addressed to the
contemporary man.
Bonhoeffer’s prison letters reveal three themes which are very close to him and which provides a glimpse of what he meant by ‘religionless Christianity". These themes are "Holy Worldliness", "Theology of Responsibility" and "Secret Discipline". We have already touched on these themes, but now we shall examine them more closely as
Bonhoeffer develops them as guidelines for the life style of the
"religionless Christian" who believes, in contrast to Marx, that his humanity becomes meaningful only in obedience to his Lord.
1. Holy Worldliness. For Bonhoeffer, holy worldliness is the only genuine form of holiness possible for the contemporary Christian -- anything else is an illusion. He means by this a complete dedication to life, a commitment to one’s own potential and to the needs of the world.
The idea of holy worldliness can be found early in his thought, in Ethics, where we find the theological presupposition of this concept.
That God loved the world and reconciled it with Himself