Recently I was struck by a note I wrote to myself in a journal nearly 3 years ago. I scrawled, “See Bonhoeffer. Religionless Christianity.” As synchronicity would have it, Bill also came across something related to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Nazi Germany over the last few days, so we dive into the notion of what it might mean to have such a faith - a religionless Christianity.
Endlessly generative, religionless Christianity is “a fully functional theology, rather than a fragment, or historical artifact.” More than anything, Bonhoeffer suggests that the life of Jesus ought to convince us not to believe in a new way, but to live in a new way - “a way of being for others” - in a post-religious era.
In our being-ness, we are to take the form of Jesus, to live as an inclusive humanitarian with a radical belief in the sacred, and I would push that to say in the sacredness of all things. We ought not wait for an exterior prophetic voice but embody prophetic-ness ourselves. Our union with the All is discovered through radical love, so everything that is not love works against our potential for union. What do you think it means to live with a religionless Christianity? One friend of mine, a pastor, wrote that he believes Christianity has forsaken its prophetic voice in favor of identity politics and exclusivity. Can we right this ship? Or do you believe there is a new path upon which we must walk?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
