Dietrich Bonhoeffer - man as radically religionless?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is remembered for his membership of the German resistance and part in the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler in 1943. He is also remembered for his part in the confessional church, organised in order to become separarated from Nazi factions within the church. Through the war years, Bonhoeffer made various stands against the Nazi regime and was increasingly restricted by the authorities. He made one of the first public criticisms of Hitler as chancellor on the radio saying that “the image of the leader will become the image of the misleader, this is the leader who makes an idol of himself and his office and who thus mocks God”, the broadcast was shut down halfway through. Bonhoeffer was aquainted with Reverend George Bell, an English bishop who aided refugees from the continent during the war;  the two met in neutral Sweden in 1942 and Bonhoeffer gave Bell information about the planned assassination, who then passed it to Eden. The pair were united in trying to stress to the allied government the need for distinction between German citizens and Nazis, a plea against area bombing.

In theological circles, his most remembered work is his published letters from prison published by his friend Eberhard Bethge. In his letter (April 30 1944) he considers the future of religion and its place in the world. This is a letter that shows theological thinking affected by the writer’s context; the context being the year before the surrender of the Nazis, written during his imprisonment.

He considers “who Christ really is for us today”, in light of the change in Germanys religious landscape since 1933 when Hitler became chancellor. He points out the shift in society from predominantly Christian to more secular “the time when people could be told things by means of words ... is over... and that means the time of religion in general” People under the Nazi regime were encouraged not to think or feel but to act and follow loyalty to the state rather than God. In a “religionless time” he cannot understand how people can possibly be religionless as they do not act upon it; this he argues means that people understand religion as something quite different. How can people talk about Christianity in a secular context? How can the church help guide religionless people? Before his imprisonment, in his work on ethics, Bonhoeffer was then reassessing the value of religion in the context of Nazism arguing that ethics are no longer applicable as they have been warped by national socialism, that the only hope a person has is to throw themselves on the mercy of God and do what they think is right.

More controversially, he tries to understand why religion seems to be falling short in the present; he describes religion as reliant on the “religious a priori of makind” if this a priori does not exist, why does religion exist and what is its future? Perhaps it is a “historically conditioned and transient form of human self expression” he reasons. Looking from a modern perspective, this could arguably be the case. Religion is perceived as strongest through history when its ties with the state were tightest and when the church was at its strongest, people were conditioned from a young age to accept faith as the norm or even the only option for salvation. As this view has been contested more and more, church going has declined and religion in general is perceived to have “lost its touch” in the west where reason and science is favoured. This is in concurrence with Bonhoeffers statement that it is more or less the case that man has become radically religionless.

However, Bonhoeffers writing must be looked at in its context; people have been religionless since before the second world war; the “crisis of religion” in the 19^th century as a result of the age of enlightenment. During this time, though thinking about religion was changing, there was still a huge amount of church goers and people of faith. In 1851 a religious census was taken, churches and chapels were asked to record attendance on that particular Sunday. Though there was a rise in non-anglican denominations it showed that 7.8million people attended a church of 18 million in england and wales, though the census also estimated that 30% of the population (5.4 million) had a legitimate reason not to attend (elderly, infirm, small children etc) meaning 13.2 million attended church (73.3%). From our context the fact that over 50% of "eligible attendees" attended church is a high number, but from a mid nineteenth century perspective these figures would show an "ungodly country". Though was a time when the garment of religion looked different and that the garment is being removed from Christianity.