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Books by Bonhoeffer
No Rusty Swords /
The Cost of Discipleship /
Letters and Papers from Prison /
Sanctorum Communio
A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings /
Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible /
Ethics
No Difference in the Fare: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Racism
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Letter on
Religion & Mythology
By Dietrich Bonhoeffer I imagine you must be on leave
by now, and this letter will have to be sent on to you.
Unfortunately that will mean it will be out of date by the time
it reaches you, for life is so uncertain nowadays. Yet long
experience suggests that everything remains as it is rather than
suddenly changes, so I should like to write to you all the same.
I'm getting along pretty well, and so is the case, though the
date still hasn't been fixed. But all good things take us by
surprise when they do come, so I'm waiting confidently for that.
A bit more about "religionlessness."
I expect you remember Bultmann's paper on the demythologizing of
the New Testament? My view of it to-day would be not that he
went too far, as most people seem to think, but that he did not
go far enough. It is not only the mythological conceptions, such
as the miracles, the ascension and the like (which are not in
principle separable from the conceptions of God, faith and so
on) that are problematic, but the "religious"
conceptions themselves. You cannot, as Bultmann imagines,
separate God and miracles, but you do have to be able to
interpret and pr~ claim both of them in a
"non-religious" sense. Bultmann's approach is really
at bottom the liberal one (i.e. abridging the Gospel), whereas I
seek to think theologically.
What do I mean by
"interpret in a religious sense"? In my view, that
means to speak on the one hand metaphysically, and on the other
individualistically. Neither of these is relevant to the Bible
message or to the man of today. Is it not true to say that
individualistic concern for personal salvation has almost
completely left us all? Are we not really under the impression
that there are more important things than bothering about such a
matter? (Perhaps not more important than the matter itself, but
more than bothering about it.) I know it sounds pretty monstrous
to say that. But is it not, at bottom, even biblical? Is there
any concern in the Old Testament about saving one's soul at all?
Is not righteousness and the kingdom of God on earth the focus
of everything, and is not Romans 3.14ff., too, the culmination
of the view that in God alone is righteousness, and not in an
individualistic doctrine of salvation? It is not with the next
world that we are concerned, but with this world as created and
preserved and set subject to laws and atoned for and made new.
What is above the world is, in the Gospel, intended to exist for
this world-I mean that not in the anthropocentric sense of
liberal, pietistic, ethical theology, but in the Bible sense of
the creation and of the incarnation, crucifixion, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Barth was the first theologian
to begin the criticism of religion,-and that remains his really
great merit-but he set in its place the positivist doctrine of
revelation which says in effect, "Take it or leave
it": Virgin Birth, Trinity or anything else, every-thing
which is an equally significant and necessary part of the whole,
which latter has to be swallowed as a whole or not at all. That
is not in accordance with the Bible. There are degrees of
perception and degrees of significance, i.e. a secret discipline
must be re-established whereby the mysteries of the
Christian faith are preserved from profanation. The positivist
doctrine of revelation makes it too easy for itself, setting up,
as in the ultimate analysis it does, a law of faith, and
mutilating what is, by the incarnation of Christ, a gift for us.
The place of religion is taken by the Church-that is, in itself,
as the Bible teaches it should be-but the world is made to
depend upon itself and left to its own devices, and that is all
wrong.
I am thinking over the problem
at present how we may reinterpret in the manner 44of
the world"-in the sense of the Old Testament and of John
1.14 -the concepts of repentance, faith, justification, rebirth,
sanctification and so on. I shall be writing to you again about
that.
Forgive me for writing all
this in German script--normally I only use it when making notes
for myself. And perhaps my reason for writing all this is to
clear my own mind, rather than for your edification. I don't
really want to bother you with such problems, for I don't
suppose you will find time to come to grips with them, and
there's no need to worry you unnecessarily. But I can't help
sharing my thoughts with you, for the simple reason that that's
the only way I can clarify my own mind. If this doesn't suit
you, please say so.-Tomorrow is Cantate [the Fourth Sunday after
Easter], and I shall be thinking of you, and enjoying pleasant
memories. Good-bye. Be patient like me, and take care of
yourself.
May 5th 1944
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update 23 June 2008 |
