tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post3182905986433823327..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: "The struggle is real"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-50426788634066575462014-02-27T21:59:12.725-06:002014-02-27T21:59:12.725-06:00It has been a very, very long time since I've ...It has been a very, very long time since I've read Bonhoeffer (you probably remember I took a course in his work as an undergraduate). But I will rush in where...well, you know.<br /><br />In the last of the previous I named Bonhoeffer, along with Barth, as the two I considered the greatest Protestant theologians of the 20th century. But not because of the "religionless Christianity" proposal.<br /><br />I think that the Thought Criminal, if I understand him correctly, is pretty much right that removal of the foundation will eventually pretty much remove whatever rests on the foundation. Yes, I said, in the last of the previous, op. cit., that assent is different from obedience, and less costly. Though I still say it's true, it's also true that each of us is one person, and that, if we separate intellect and will, belief and act, that's still an abstraction from the single person that each of us is, and that what we believe is ultimately the source of how we act and relate.<br /><br />I think of Camus' characters in The Plague as a counterexample. They act heroicly, selflessly, without any underlying belief. They give of themselves despite the absurdity, the voidness that, if pressed, they would acknowledge underlies everything. I don't doubt that that kind of action, in those circumstances, actually exists. I'm just not sure if it's sustainable in the long run, that eventually Sisyphus won't say, "Oh, the hell with it."<br /><br />I think Bonhoeffer's central conception of Christianity as radical obedience to the command of Christ in God falls under most people's definition of "religion." If it's "religionless," it's religionless in the sense that religion was defined by the older "liberal" theologians, as the "best in man," not as our Dawkins would define it. So it's kind of ambiguous, and my sense, long ago, reading the letters from prison, was the idea partly stemmed from Bonhoeffer's disappointment that a nation of professed Christians didn't rise up against the depredations of the Nazis. Hard to blame him for his disappointment, but also not so hard to understand how most of us wouldn't rise up if it cost us much of anything--most certainly if it was sure to bring a quick and ignominious death.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-22609354084232412012014-02-27T19:02:12.882-06:002014-02-27T19:02:12.882-06:00What would a "religionless religion" loo...<i>What would a "religionless religion" look like?</i><br /><br /><br />It might look something like Freemasonry. <br /><br />Freemasonry requires a belief in a Divine Creator; is based on moral teachings, many of which are rooted in the bible, but does not require religious observance; is built upon on using the tenets of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth to build a better society; is involved in many charitable endeavors such as hospitals, burn centers, nursing homes, community relief, et al: puts God at the "center" of life and not the periphery, as Bonhoeffer suggests, while celebrating Him in "strength" and "weakness"; is ecumenical; contains an involved metaphysical system but does not set that system above living out its highest principles in the world, and so forth.<br /><br />I'm just throwing that our there. <br /><br />Windhorsetrexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16838170190127187564noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-83801892231502962922014-02-27T17:42:19.490-06:002014-02-27T17:42:19.490-06:00I think that when the question is how people behav...I think that when the question is how people behave in societies, how they can act according to the teachings of the prophets and Jesus that what they need to do that is essential. I have come to the conclusion that they won't do it without a real and effective belief that they are required to do that and I don't think that can happen without a belief in God. By chance, I tried to produce a Peter Maurin style Easy Essay on that theme last night and this morning, failing at Maurin's brevity because so much more needs to be explained today as opposed to Maurin's time when the language of religion was presupposed to be understood. If there's one thing I've found out in the past decade or so, it's that the most basic ideas in that direction are unknown to the educated class today. <br /><br />I doubt that the idea of Christianity without religion is viable or that people in any kind of numbers will follow the teachings of Jesus without religious belief. No doubt the expression of Christianity will change as it has ever since the beginning of it, the understanding of those teachings will change. But I think circumstances will force those into a form closer to the original instead of away from it. The churches that Bonhoeffer addressed had departed drastically from the original form of Christianity and they had departed from it for most of the history of Christianity. I look at the history of the Anglican religion and what it is today and I'm not convinced that it isn't actually closer to the teachings of Jesus in many ways than it was before. You can say the same about many denominations. I think that this Pope is bringing it closer after the last two Popes led it into a clericalist heresy after Vatican II restored something closer to real Christianity as read in the gospels and Acts. The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.com