Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity

Part 7, Retrospective Reflections

In 2010, when I first shared much of this material about Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity, I was a very different person. I thrilled to Bonhoeffer's vision of Christ as "the man for others." And I wholly agreed with Bonhoeffer's claim that "the church is the church only when it exists for others." At the time, I identified as a liberal, progressive Christian, and Bonhoeffer's vision of a religionless Christianity, our "being there" for others, resonated with my humanistic values and social justice concerns.

And yet, if you've followed this series, I was alert enough in 2010 to attend to Bonhoeffer's discussion of the arcane and secret discipline in his theological letters. This aspect of Bonhoeffer's thought has been largely ignored. But this part of Bonhoeffer's vision has taken on increased importance in my own life since 2010. I now identify as a post-progressive Christian. My season of deconstruction, evidenced in the early years of this blog, gave way to a season of reconstruction. I still believe, with all my heart, that the church is only the church when it exists for others. But more and more, I think the discipline of the secret is necessary to sustain that vision. 

As we've seen, Bonhoeffer was alert to the temptations of liberal humanism. As Bonhoeffer wrote, he didn't want his religionless vision of Christianity to become "the shallow and banal this-worldliness of the enlightened, the busy, the comfortable, or the lascivious." Rather, faith was to be "characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection."

However, it's fair to ask, what is the connection between discipline and being there for others?

Here's my best answer.

Bonhoeffer's vision of "being there for others" is radical. Bonhoeffer is calling for a radical availability to the world. The vision is deeply kenotic and cruciform. Christ, as the man for others, gives his entire life away. And we, as the church, are called to do the same. But what can possibly sustain such radical self-offering, self-giving, and self-donation? As I describe in The Slavery of Death, as finite creatures in a world of scarcity, our worries about self-protection and self-preservation are real and pressing. Consequently, we hesitant at the boundary of sacrificial love. We recoil at the demands of love. The costs are too steep. 

What we require, at the boundary of love, is a metaphysics of hope and a community of support and care. As Bonhoeffer says, we need constant knowledge of death and resurrection. For if love only ever involves my diminishment and death how can that love become joyous and sustainable?

This is why I believe the discipline of the secret is absolutely necessary for a church seeking to exist for others. If Christ calls us to die in existing for others that call is sustained by the hope of the resurrection and in our shared life together. Prayer and righteous action go hand in hand, each sustaining the other. 

I think those who want to reduce Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity to ethical social justice action in the world miss the radical Christological vision of "being there" for others, the cruciform nature of this lifestyle and its associated cost. Missing this cruciformity, they overlook all that is necessary to make a lifetime of self-donation sustainable, joyful, and hopeful. Back in 2010, when I first wrote this series, as a deconstructing, progressive, social justice Christian, I thrilled to how Bonhoeffer's letters and papers described a church that existed for others. This remains my vision. And yet, fourteen years later, I'm increasingly aware of how our life together in the church, as we celebrate the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, makes our radical availability to the world joy-filled and hopeful and, therefore, sustainable. 

And finally, looking back at this series here in 2024, I would also observe that all is not ethics. Since 2010, and largely due to my prison work, I have rediscovered grace. On Easter I shared a bit of that story in a video at church. You can watch it here at the 50:53 mark.

One of the problems I discern in the progressive Christian turn against penal substitutionary atonement is the eclipse of grace, reducing the cross to ethics. To be clear, I share concerns with certain expressions of penal substitutionary atonement. But when you work with a prison population you come to see, first-hand, the transformative power of forgiveness and grace. A Christianity that is reduced to ethical action in the world misses the gospel of grace. Your shame has been overcome. Your guilt undone. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God does not treat us as our sins deserve. As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. You have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. By his wounds you have been healed. 

Beyond ethics, this too is the gospel. And I've come to believe that our "being there" for others means inviting a soul sick world into this grace.