Like many of Bonhoeffer’s concepts, religionless or worldly Chrsitainty has been used to make a range of points. Recent scholarship, which I have been sifting through, makes a strong case that he was talking about what anabaptists (like Hauerwas) refer to as post-Christendom theology rather than post-church or post-Christian. So the church must give up power and status, repent, be renewed and abandon its old ways of chaplincy to the empire, allignmrnt with the powers that be, stop being a conservative pillar of society. As Bonhoeffer continued to pray, hear confessions, write sermons and take services in prison, the chruch is called to live from the underside of selfhood, on the margins of society and power, lin weakness and suffering, practicing the ancient Christian disciplines and above all be there for others. At least a strong case can be made for this in his writings. So, a detachment from Christian roots is not a good srtategy or inevitable, I think, though clearly the Church will be much smaller and less powerful in future (perhap more like the early Church) and yet more able to withstand what 1930s Christendom Germany was not able to withstand: wrongheaded notions of success, scapegoating, false messiahs (all of which Bonhoeffer addressed). Bonhoeffer shows that it is possible and desirble to have a robust orthodox Christain faith which is also all about serving and loving the other. Or so it seems.

Thanks for the pingback! You may have seen from the comments on my essay that ‘inevitable’ surprised quite a few Quakers. That’s lead me to think carefully about whether ‘inevitable’ was too strong a word. However, I think I stand by the proposition for the moment.

I think the next ten years will tell if I am right, as Quakers in Britain begin to revise their Quaker faith & practice. The current fourth edition was last revised in 1994, so is reasonably current, but as with any printed text (especially one drafted and agreed by the whole Yearly Meeting) it lags behind the actual picture of beliefs a little.

My own belief is that if we do it in the right way, Quakers can expand beyond one set of language and experiences. But this is a tricky process, challenging for people new to the Quaker way, and certainly unsettling for those who have grown up with it.

Rpdney

Case-in-point is the worldwide honor accorded the Dalai Lama, who has an essay on religious tolerance in today’s New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html
Religious tolerance today means not only not mistreating people of other religions but also recognizing that relgious truths are all relative and derive their meaning from specific places and histories, i.e. none are universal.

The Dalai Lama, as Gandhi did, encourages people to practice tolerance but also explore the depths of their own religious tradition. The feasability of that option is one of the primary questions facing Christianity today. Rollins seems to be saying the Christian religious tradition is beyond redemption. He may be right.

Or he may be helping the church to loosen its grip on that tradition and reappropriate it with a nonrealist perspective. It does seem that myth and ritual remain important for many people. So a goal might be 1) to enable religious people to recognize their tradtions as true for them but not necessarily for anyone else yet also 2) to recongnize the commonalities of relgious tradtions so as to unite their followers in a common endeavor of creating a world of freedom and peace.

In any case, it seems increasingly obvious that days of orthodox Christianity are growing shorter.

Rodney