About Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity

So what exactly did religionless Christianity mean to Bonhoeffer?  He didn't have any hard and fast answers.  He was in the pondering stage.

How this religionless Christianity looks, what form it takes, is something that I'm thinking about a great deal, and I shall be writing to you again about it soon. It may be that on us in particular, midway between East and West, there will fall a heavy responsibility.

.......but he did say some things about it.  For one, he thought it would be religionless but not faithless.  

It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming as was Jesus' language; it will be the language of a new righteousness and truth, proclaiming God's peace with men and the coming of His kingdom.

That's pretty cool, don't you think?  Quite "non denominational."  In prison, he was drawn to the non denominational.....the religionless....

I often ask myself why a "Christian instinct" often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, by which I don't in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, "in brotherhood."

One thing that strikes me again and again: here one meets people as they are, away from the masquerade of the "Christian world", people with passions, criminal types, little people with little ambitions, little desires and little sins, all in all people who feel homeless in both senses of the word, who loosen up if one talks to them ~ a friendly way, real people; I can only say that I have gained the impression that it is just these people who are much more under grace than under wrath, and that it is the Christian world which is more under wrath than under grace .

It occurs to me that much of the Christian world is under wrath because they put themselves under wrath....with their "do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign"  theology. 

I've picked Beth up a couple of times near a run down "church" called "Freedom House." It advertises "spiritual deliverance" and "spiritual counseling." 

Somehow, I think freedom is not on the agenda at Freedom House.  There is this heavy aura surrounding it. The place gives me the creeps. 

Only half in jest, I told Beth she should not dilly dally when she passes by Freedom House...with her blue hair, tight, low riding jeans....octopus tattoos, a skull ring on her finger....wearing her "your God is dead" t-shirt.  Oh...and carrying a long board. (kidding...kidding....just using a bit of poetic license.  Her hair is not blue anymore.  It is a respectable shade of damaged brown.  And she hasn't worn the "dead God" T-shirt for ages...but we certainly made some memories with it in its heyday)  I think Freedom House might consider her a perfect candidate for a dose of spiritual deliverance...

But I digress.....

Bonheoffer goes on to say.....

While I'm often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people - because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it's particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable) - to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course. 

So it seems Bonhoeffer was looking beyond traditional Christianity and has been called a heretic by some. I think his faith remained to the end even though his foundations were being shaken.  The Holocaust and a year in a Nazi prison camp tends to rattle one's beliefs hard enough so only what cannot be shaken remains...

Last Bonhoeffer post tomorrow....