Religious Christianity

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Religious Christianity and non-religious interpretation are two catchphrases that the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer used between April 30, 1944 and August 23, 1944 in letters that he sent from the Wehrmacht investigation prison in Berlin-Tegel to his close friends Theologian Eberhard Bethge sent. They mark a new conception of the Christian faith , which Bonhoeffer outlines in these letters.

Biographical background

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested on April 5, 1943 after a piece of paper was found during the arrest of Hans von Dohnanyi , which also connected Bonhoeffer to circles of the resistance. He had to face grueling interrogations by the Chief Justice of the War, Manfred Roeder , for months and initially suffered a shock due to the inhumane conditions in the Wehrmacht prison in Berlin-Tegel. A note written shortly after the posting even documents thoughts of suicide: "Continuity with the past and future interrupted [...] Suicide, not out of a sense of guilt, but because I am basically already dead, bottom line, conclusion." Eberhard Bethge also points this out that one of the conditions of conspiracy was to contemplate suicide in order to avoid disclosure of information through torture.

After the intercession of the Berlin city ​​commandant Paul von Hase , who was related to Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer was treated better. From May 23, 1943, his parents were allowed to visit him regularly and provide him with books, among other things. Contact with Bethge became possible on November 18, since Bonhoeffer had found three friends in the NCOs Holzendorf, Knobloch and Linke, who regularly smuggled letters into and out of prison at the risk of their own lives. On January 1, 1944, Roeder was transferred. His successor Helmuth Kutzner pushed the proceedings against Bonhoeffer far less energetically. In April 1944, Karl Sack informed Bonhoeffer that he should not expect a quick trial but should be prepared for a longer period of time in custody.

It is controversial to what extent Bonhoeffer's theological thoughts developed in Tegel were shaped by his situation in prison. Some critics, including Karl Barth , attribute the radicalism of Bonhoeffer's ideas to the detention shock. Others, such as Eberhard Bethge, point out that the first shock had long since been overcome when the letter of April 30, 1944 first spoke of “non-religious Christianity”. The argument that Bonhoeffer appeared sober and collected in his letters to his parents is sometimes countered by the fact that his style also reflects the effort to protect his relatives from worry. Letters to Bethge and poems written in Tegel indicate that Bonhoeffer was often able to cleverly hide the psychological stress that the imprisonment and separation from his fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer meant for him.

It is undisputed that Bonhoeffer's experiences and human acquaintances in the resistance and in prison contributed to the further development of his theology. When making a comparison with Bonhoeffer's earlier scientific publications, it must also be taken into account that he did not have a suitable library at his work in Tegel and that he could not develop his thoughts as usual in conversation with a theologically educated counterpart.

After the unsuccessful assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Bonhoeffer saw his life threatened again more directly. Nevertheless, he continued his theological work and announced an approximately 100-page long text to clarify his position, of which he sent a four-page handwritten draft to Bethge on August 3. In the last received letter from Tegel, dated August 23, Bonhoeffer reported that his work was progressing hesitantly. Eberhard Bethge had to destroy the later letters when he was also arrested.

On September 22, 1944, files were found that Ludwig Beck had hidden and that revealed that Bonhoeffer was more deeply involved in the activities of the resistance than previously known. Bonhoeffer came up with an escape plan, but gave it up after his brother Klaus was arrested on October 1 so as not to endanger the family any further. On October 8, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was transferred to the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, where neither correspondence nor visits were allowed. He gave most of his papers to his father beforehand; However, he kept the manuscript for his drafting with him and, according to statements from fellow prisoners, worked on it until shortly before his death. After Bonhoeffer's execution on April 9, 1945, the text was lost.

Concept of religion

Following Paul de Lagarde , Bonhoeffer saw the roots of the concept of religion that was still prevalent at the time in English deism in the mid-18th century. This was introduced against the Church's belief in revelation .

“In the post-Copernican world, the word religio appears instead of“ belief ”(from the English Deists). It signifies the last, finest possibility of man. Man is discovered to be related to God. The Reformation is seen as the discovery of this person. "

As a result, religion was no longer understood as an inferior virtue of justice, i.e. as observing traditional rules, but as love, union with God. Friedrich Schleiermacher defined "intuition and feeling", "sense and taste for the infinite" as the essence of religion. Goethe is indifferent to conceptual distinctions. For the crucial question , there are two versions of "How do you feel about religion" and "Do you believe in God?". The end of Faust's answer expresses an emphatic-religious feeling:

“Call it luck! Heart! Love! God!
I don't have a name for it
! Feeling is everything; Name is smoke and
mirrors , fogging the glow of the sky. "

Strongly influenced by Wilhelm Dilthey while in custody , Bonhoeffer saw such a religion as historically outdated.

For him, the moments of metaphysics as a continuation of the world and the division of reality into sub-areas, of which religion is viewed as only one, were connected with religion as a retreat to inwardness . "Religious a priori " means an " human ability and readiness understood as an anthropological constant [...] to become aware of the absolute truth of a transcendent God."

Bonhoeffer's approach

Bonhoeffer started from the question of how the Gospel could be preached to autonomous people in a world that had come of age through the Enlightenment in such a way that they could live intellectually honestly in the Christian faith: “What moves me continuously is the question of what Christianity is or who Christ actually is for us today. "

He observed that the war had no longer provoked a “religious” reaction and analyzed that the time of classical metaphysics and inwardness was over: for most of them it was no longer relevant to seek God behind things, in the hereafter , with oneself to deal with individual distress of conscience and to ask questions about salvation and redemption . In response to this, Bonhoeffer developed a "secular, religious" understanding of Christian teaching.

Like Karl Barth , he differentiates between faith and religion and thereby radicalizes the Protestant opposition between law and gospel . Faith in God is as little in question for him as the communion of a church . However, he suggests a negative theology and asks whether anything can be said of God at all. At best, statements about God can be made with the greatest caution, and beliefs can be guarded as a secret in the sense of an arcane discipline : "Before God and with God we live without God." Norms and laws, as their creator or perfecter in the future. “God is no longer a religiously or metaphysically available reality” and is not “internally demonstrable”. This god died for Bonhoeffer on the cross. Belief in the God of Jesus Christ means spirit ( pneuma ) against flesh ( sarx ) and thus criticism of existing religion and also of the church.

While Barth was “perplexed” by Bonhoeffer's later ideas and their implementation, there are parallels in his early writings. In the first edition of the Romans commentary on “Circumcision, Religion and Church” he wrote in a very similar way to Bonhoeffer: “For Abraham it was not the condition of salvation , but only an expression of that between himself and himself in the time of his pure worldliness Community founded by God. ”Bonhoeffer had also been opposed to a separation of“ God and the world, religion and reality ”since 1928. In his dissertation Sanctorum communio 1930 he diagnosed the bourgeoisie distant church, criticized an empty religiosity within the church and urged it to be more serious and community. Using a term by Friedrich Nietzsche , he rejected both religious flight from the world and complete Christian adaptation in a lecture in 1932:

“We are backworlders or we are secularists; but that means we no longer believe in God's kingdom. "

In resistance and resignation , Bonhoeffer then wrote that he wanted to apply Bultmann's program of demythologizing not only to terms such as “miracle, ascension, etc.”, “but that 'religious' terms are simply problematic”, such as “God” or “faith”. On the other hand, he did not want to reduce the Bible to abstract, timeless statements, but to penetrate to the core of mythological stories and religious concepts, which are also understandable to a person shaped by contemporary culture - the attitude of faith. "Bultmann's approach is basically liberal (ie shortens the Gospel), while I want to think theologically."

Bonhoeffer emphasized the this-sidedness of the Christian God through the presence of Jesus Christ in the world. Christ is not the subject of a religion that is understood as a special area to which Christians have preferential access, but faith in Christ encompasses all areas of life. The world is “God's shell” and one can only speak of God in a worldly way, not bypassing the incarnate Christ. As the center of Christian faith practice, he considered following Jesus through a life that is oriented towards one's neighbor . He made profound demands on the Christian church, which should proclaim the word of God less through words than through human example: "The church is only church when it is there for others." As a first step, it should give away all property to those in need . Pastors should make a living from voluntary donations from their parish or a secular profession. Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer asks about a new meaning of church practice such as worship , sermon and prayer , but does not formulate any answers.

The incarnation and death of Christ led Bonhoeffer to think of a God who suffers from the world, who stands by, forgives and invites people to sympathize. He condensed this idea in his poem Christians and Gentiles , which starts out from a prayer “for salvation from sickness, guilt and death”. This poem reflects a mystical experience that arose in a historical situation of extreme inhumanity. On the other hand, in his letter of April 30, 1944, Bonhoeffer criticizes a religious language that tries to persuade people to be weak, failing and limited in knowledge in order to fearfully spare space for God. However, even death and sin are no longer real limits today. Recalling the Old Testament and the God manifested throughout the history of the Jewish people , he writes:

“[…] - and I don't want to speak of God at the limits, but in the middle, not in the weaknesses, but in the strength, not in death and guilt, but in the life and good of man. At the borders, it seems to me better to be silent and leave the unsolvable unsolved. Belief in the resurrection is not the "solution" to the problem of death. The "beyond" of God is not the beyond of our knowledge! The epistemological transcendence has nothing to do with the transcendence of God. God is in the middle of our life on the other side. "

Bonhoeffer does not pose the theodicy question in an abstract way. Suffering and death do not dissolve in a wise and necessary arrangement of God, but keep their often absurd and despairing reality. In the death of Jesus, however, the "promise of God's reality, which does not shatter even in suffering." His concrete experience and the solidarity of others can lead to the freedom to love life but to accept death. In addition, and in tension with the above quote, the poem “ Stations on the Way to Freedom ”, Bonhoeffer's parting words before the transport to the execution and the following sentences at Easter 1944 seem to prove that he believed in a resurrection in the literal sense until the end:

“To cope with dying does not mean to cope with [death]. Overcoming dying is within the realm of human possibility, overcoming death is called resurrection. "

Reception and classification

Although Bonhoeffer's statements remained fragmentary, numerous theologians found his ideas a challenge. After Eberhard Bethge published the letters from Tegel, there were often controversial attempts to interpret and develop the relevant passages.

John AT Robinson

In 1963 the London suffragan bishop John AT Robinson caused a sensation with his book Honest to God . In it he quoted Bonhoeffer in detail and carefully tried to develop non-religious language. His attitude was boldly referred to as " God-is-dead-theology ". On the other hand, he declared that personally he had few difficulties with traditional religious and moral ideas, but had liked to openly discuss parting with a certain image of God: “If atheism actually does away with an imagined God and we can do without a God 'outside the world' and even have to? Have we ever realized that the abolition of such a divine being could be the only way in the future to give the Christian faith meaning and meaning? ”Robinson criticized the approach of the classical proofs of God : A being whose existence is problematic would be a Being next to others, not God. In contrast, he interpreted the ontological proof of God in a language-critical manner: “God is by definition ultimate reality. Essentially there can be no argument for the existence of God as the ultimate reality. One can only ask what this ultimate reality is, whether, for example, what lies in the heart of things and what keeps them alive must be described in personal or non-personal categories. "

As a new approach, Robinson saw a connection between Paul Tillich's conception of God as the depth of reality with Bonhoeffer's criticism of a “deus ex machina”, a god for stopgaps who intervenes at the limits of human knowledge or capabilities. "God is in the middle of our lives beyond" he brought in connection with a text by DH Lawrence :

“And then, when you recognize yourself as a man and as a woman ... then you know that this is not yours and that you cannot do what you want with it, because you have not received it from yourself. It comes from the middle - from God. Beyond me, in the middle is God. "

In the sense of a non-religious understanding, real encounter with and devotion to other people could be prayer. Contemplation can deepen this encounter afterwards, but the most important thing is not fixed times of prayer, but the whole of life, the world and history should be seen before God. Ethical guidelines could no longer be timeless laws derived from the nature of God, but rather Augustine 's difficult maxim "Love God and do what you want".

Weißensee working group

Hanfried Müller and the Weißenseer Arbeitskreis , a group of Protestant theologians in the GDR, also referred to Bonhoeffer . Her Seven Sentences of the Church's Freedom to Service from 1963 stated:

“In obedience to faith we will not confuse our knowledge of reality with the truth of God, nor will we seek God's truth in nature and history instead of in his word. Therefore we will not equate the opposition between natural knowledge of God - theism - and natural ignorance of God - atheism - with the opposition between belief and unbelief.
We will only be able to witness God's love for the world revealed in Jesus in such a way that we are no longer fixated by the ideological-philosophical counterpart of theism and atheism. So we live daily out of God's grace in carefree serenity and obey God's philanthropic word freely in relation to all world views and systems of thought, in relation to all human and thus also socialist moral commands. "

Gerhard Ebeling

The Protestant theologian Gerhard Ebeling met Dietrich Bonhoeffer during his training in the Finkenwalde seminary and dealt intensively with his theology. He defines religion as “historically shaped, multifarious worship of a manifestation of the mystery of reality”. Despite Bonhoeffer's warning against speaking of God primarily in human weakness, he sees the “place in life” of religion as “where open life problems are experienced and a transcendent situation is present”. But transcending is only religious if it is not a projection or a creative act of one's own, but rather "precedes a manifestation as an experience and grant", i.e. H. Revelation . Ebeling sees a religion understood in this way as a primordial phenomenon of humanity. He takes the new phenomena of irreligion (including "speechless" religion substitute), privatization of religion and secularization seriously and comes to the conclusion:

“Despite the factors mentioned, the prognosis that we are approaching a time completely devoid of religion has little probability. Symptoms of the opposite nature are numerous. But that doesn't change the fact that the phenomenon of religion is in a state of profound upheaval, which makes it necessary to reflect on its basic moments. "

What is important to Ebeling is the critical power of faith, which he distinguishes from religion in the tradition of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer . "Faith is not self-certainty, but rather a person's being displaced outside of himself, an acceptance, an affirmation, a being loved". Nevertheless, religion is a vital condition of faith: "The gospel [can] only exist and be effective in relation to the law", and "the religious dimension [is] indispensable for an appropriate interpretation of the law". He sees the claim to truth emphasized in Christianity ("vera religio") not initially in dogmatic statements, but in the relativization of religions - explicitly also Christian ones - to the gospel:

“Ultimately, only one name can be given as an unambiguous instance of the gospel. Through the concentration of the Christian on faith in Jesus Christ, it is fundamentally established that Christianity as a religion is not identical with truth, rather that truth is external to itself. Only to the extent that everything in Christianity is related to Jesus Christ and relativized to him does it participate in the truth. "

The inner being touched in faith urges to make public not a ruling, triumphant, but the loving and crucified Christ, whereby the win for Christianity as a religion is not the decisive factor. Ebeling also recognizes the problem of the connection with the “cultural and political superiority of the missionary”, even with the intention of helping development policy. The truth meant in the Gospel is at odds with religions, and the Christian truth is therefore not a condition of salvation. In this sense, even the radical criticism of religion is a consequence of the idea of ​​“vera religio”.

Recent Bonhoeffer research

Without addressing the criticism of conceptions of the afterlife, Ernst Feil concentrates on Bonhoeffer's understanding of religion, which he has worked out, and shares the diagnosis of a break in tradition: “The phase of a specifically modern, namely a particularly experienced and felt“ religion ”did not survive the crises began with the First World War ”, and a“ Christianity that is no longer Goethean ”will continue to develop. While the outbreak of war in 1914 was enthusiastically welcomed by intellectuals, including religious philosophers such as Ernst Troeltsch and Max Scheler , the Second World War, according to Bonhoeffer's analysis, did not trigger any major religious movement. His path in life also reflects this development: while in the Barcelona Lectures of 1928/29 he still had a fundamentally positive stance on the defensive war, but already combined it with a criticism of religion, at the time of his questions about a non-religious Christianity he was a decided pacifist become.

According to Feil, the very controversial definitions and positions on the subject of religion show that there is no religious a priori inherent in human nature . Faith cannot be founded on it, but conversely, every conviction is ultimately based on faith. Since Karl Popper, belief and reason are no longer opposites, and belief is initially an undemanding, non-Eurocentric word that is much easier to translate than religion. It is therefore suitable as a “basic concept for the shape of Christianity in the 21st century”. This essentially includes following Jesus and taking responsibility for the world, but faith can also be associated with an old or renewed form of religion. Feil advocates keeping his future shape open.

Sabine Dramm also notes an - despite fluctuations - since the 1950s "increasing distance from God, church and religion". Phenomena of new religiosity are not mass movements either, and even for people who are church-bound or otherwise spiritually interested, the contrasts between the worlds of life are so great that religion, belief or church hardly play a role in everyday life, at least in the white Western European world. Dramm therefore considers Bonhoeffer's claim to a Christianity encompassing all of reality to be unfulfilled. Even if he did not want to forego prayer, mystery and worship, a functionalization of religion for integration, legitimation and compensation should be rejected. It should not become the “ideology of romantic subjectivity” ( Jürgen Moltmann ). The Church of the present must "resist the temptation to adapt excessively to the feared and beloved Zeitgeist in order to be acceptable to the unexpected flare-up of the religious" and address all people, including those not affected by religiosity and spirituality. Bonhoeffer stands for a political, resistant, stubborn, poorer and more powerless Christianity. As examples, she cites the movement of worker priests , which started in 1943 and was banned by the Vatican in 1954 , ecumenical grassroots groups of the hospice movement , actions by religious for peace in the Frankfurt banking center and the rediscovery of church asylum .

Eurocentricity

Hubert G. Locke criticizes a white, western-oriented perspective. In the religiously influenced Afro-American civil rights movement and radical theology , Bonhoeffer was interpreted in opposite directions. While the latter emphasized the maturity of the world, which can do without God, those heard his call to suffer with Christ in history and drew their political motivation from their belief in the God of the Exodus .

No general death of religious traditions could be observed worldwide in the second half of the 20th century. Bonhoeffer developed his theses against the background of European-American philosophy and in its more recent history established that the classical metaphysical world view was overcome, the meaninglessness of the concept of a god beyond, which - in Wittgenstein's terminology - goes beyond the limits of language ultimately determined by experience that are the limits of the world.

Such a theoretical image of God is a controversial topic mainly in Christianity and is pointedly represented by official Catholic pronouncements such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . Central questions are about Jesus Christ as God and man , the Trinity or the doctrine of transubstantiation . The understanding of religious statements, which is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, does not play a decisive role in Judaism , Islam , Hinduism , Buddhism , Daoism , Confucianism or in ethnic religions . An exception is - similar to Bonhoeffer - the idea of ​​a life after death or rebirth , which however also does not refer to an abstract being of God, but to the future of man and the world. Rather, practice, attitudes towards life and shared values ​​are in the foreground, and religious festivals and rites are also celebrated by people who are shaped by science, the division of labor, specialized economy, the media and world culture. The accepted forms of religion are changing, but this remains with varying degrees of importance in all societies, regardless of political systems.

New spiritual movements

An example of congregations that want to revive the traditions of Christian churches and other religions “without religion” and also on an atheist basis is the “Sunday Assembly”, which was spread in 28 cities at the end of 2014. In London she meets on one Sunday a month for singing, pop songs, readings, lectures and silence. Mutual help and social commitment are also important.

Openness to different world views and religious beliefs also features the Churches of Truth , some communities in the US and Canada, as part of the new thought ( New Thought Movement understand). There is, however, a tendency towards a deistic , pantheistic understanding of religion, which Bonhoeffer saw as outdated and opposed faith: With the help of meditation, contemplation and conscious living, a “direct and personal experience of God” is sought. This awakening of spiritual energies is said to lead to health, harmony and abundance. The Church of Truth in Victoria , which has been jointly organized since the 1990s without a pastor and then no longer belongs to the new spirit movement, also emphasizes the appreciation for nature and advocates peaceful political change.

literature

  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
  • Resistance and Submission: Letters and Notes from Detention ; ed. by Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge and Renate Bethge in collaboration with Ilse Tödt; DBW 8; Chr. Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-01878-7 (critical edition as part of the complete edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer works )
  • Resistance and submission. Letters and notes from detention ; ed. by Eberhard Bethge; Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005 18 , ISBN 357907119X ; First edition: Christian Kaiser, Munich 1951 (classic edition, paperback)
  • Peter HA Neumann (ed.): Religious Christianity and non-religious interpretation by Dietrich Bonhoeffer . Research Paths 304; Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3534052757
  • John AT Robinson: God is different ; Ch. Kaiser, Munich 1965 10 (used here: 1964 5 )
  • Ferdinand Schlingensiepen: Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945. A biography . C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53425-2 On the biographical background, briefly also on the theological content and reception of the letters from Tegel

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistance and Surrender , DBW 8, p. 64
  2. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking ; Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-579-05183-0 , p. 217
  3. ^ Ferdinand Schlingensiepen: Dietrich Bonhoeffer ; P. 364
  4. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The history of systematic theology in the 20th century (lecture 1931/32), DBW 11, p. 145
  5. ↑ Ernst Feil: Religion instead of belief - belief instead of religion? Historical-systematic excursus on Bonhoeffer's plea for a "religionless Christianity" . In: Christian Gremmels and Wolfgang Huber (eds.): Religion im Erbe: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the future viability of Christianity , Gütersloh 2002, pp. 39–47
  6. ↑ Enst Feil 2002, p. 47f.
  7. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's »Religious Christianity« - an outdated figure of thought? . In: Religion im Erbe , Gütersloh 2002, p. 310
  8. ^ Letter of April 30, 1944, DBW 8, p. 402.
  9. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking ; Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-579-05183-0 , p. 235
  10. ↑ DBW 8, p. 405.
  11. ^ A b Jean-Loup Seban: Dietrich Bonhoeffer . In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 1, London / New York 1998
  12. ↑ Jochen Bohn: Reservation. Draft of a theology of politics. Chapter irreligion: as if God were (not) given. Lit-Verlag, Berlin 2013, pp. 71–80. Online excerpt , accessed on January 1, 2015.
  13. ↑ Andreas Pangritz: Karl Barth in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology - a necessary clarification . Alektor-Verlag, Berlin (West) 1989, p. 92
  14. ↑ Eberhard Bethge (ed.): Resistance and surrender. Letters and notes from prison . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1978 10 , p. 134.
  15. ↑ Karl Barth: The Letter to the Romans ; Bern, 1919 1 , p. 88.
  16. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking ; Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-579-05183-0 , p. 226, cf. DBW 10, pp. 302-321
  17. ↑ DBW 12, p. 264
  18. ↑ a b Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistance and Surrender , DBW 8, p. 136.
  19. ↑ "... how are we [...] called out without understanding ourselves religiously as privileged ones, but rather as belonging entirely to the world? Christ is then no longer the subject of religion, but something completely different, really master of the world. "(DBW 8, p. 405)
  20. ^ Draft for a work , August 3, 1944, DBW 8, p. 560.
  21. ↑ DBW 8, p. 405. Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An introduction to his thinking ; Kaiser / Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, ISBN 3-579-05183-0 , p. 234 f.
  22. ↑ Summer 1944, DBW 8, p. 515. Online with 3 English translations in a blog by Jason Goroncy.
  23. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistance and Surrender , DBW 8, p. 135
  24. ↑ Sabine Dramm, at the specified place, p. 256 f.
  25. ↑ Sabine Dramm, at the place indicated, p. 263 f.
  26. ↑ DBW 8, p. 368
  27. ^ In the volume Resistance and Surrender , 1951
  28. ↑ John A. T. Robinson: Honest to God . John Knox Press, 1963; reprint edition ISBN 0664244653 , 40th anniv. edition 2003 ISBN 0664224229
    German: God is different . Ch. Kaiser, Munich 1963
  29. ↑ God is Different , 1964 5 , p. 27
  30. ↑ God is Different , 1964 5 , p. 38
  31. ↑ God is Different , 1964 5 , p. 27
  32. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistance and surrender ; ed. by Eberhard Bethge. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1978 10 , p. 135
  33. ↑ DH Lawrence: The Plumed Serpent ; Phoenix Ed .; P. 70; quoted from John A. T. Robinson: God is different ; 1964 5 , p. 124
  34. ↑ John AT Robinson: God is different ; 1964 5 , p. 108
  35. ↑ Jens Bulisch: Evangelical press in the GDR: "The signs of the times" (1947-1990) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-55744-2 , pp. 287 ff .
  36. ↑ Hanfried Müller: On the specifics of the Weißenseer Blätter - On the theology and understanding of the church of the Weißenseer working group . In: Weißenseer Blätter issue 3/2006
  37. ^ Gerhard Ebeling: Dogmatics of Christian Faith , Vol. I; Tübingen: CB Mohr, 2 1982, p. 117
  38. ↑ ibid., P. 117f.
  39. ↑ ibid. P. 116
  40. ↑ ibid., P. 136
  41. ↑ ibid., P. 139
  42. ↑ ibid., P. 135
  43. ↑ ibid., P. 134
  44. ↑ ibid., P. 130
  45. ↑ Ernst Feil: Religion instead of belief - belief instead of religion? Historical-systematic excursus on Bonhoeffer's plea for a "religionless Christianity" . In: Christian Gremmels and Wolfgang Huber (eds.): Religion in the Heritage: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the future viability of Christianity , Gütersloh 2002, p. 48
  46. ↑ DBW 10, pp. 335-338
  47. ↑ DBW 10, pp. 296, 315–322
  48. ↑ Ernst Feil: Religion instead of belief - belief instead of religion? Historical-systematic excursus on Bonhoeffer's plea for a "religionless Christianity" . In: Christian Gremmels and Wolfgang Huber (eds.): Religion in Heritage: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the future viability of Christianity , Gütersloh 2002, pp. 48–52
  49. ↑ Sabine Dramm: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's »Religious Christianity« - an outdated figure of thought? . In: Religion im Erbe , Gütersloh 2002, p. 312f.
  50. ^ Hubert G. Locke: The Death of God: An African-American Perspective . In: Stephen R. Haynes, John K. Roth: The Death of God Movement and the Holocaust ; Greenwood Press, Westport 1999, pp. 91f.
  51. ↑ cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus . In: writings ; Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1960, 5.6, 5.61
  52. ^ Sunday Assembly website , accessed December 28, 2014.
  53. ↑ Helmut Frank: Christians and Heiden. An atheist community meets in a church in London. Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt für Bayern 08/2013 from February 17, 2013. Retrieved on December 28, 2014.
  54. ↑ International Alliance of Churches of Truth ( Memento of the original of July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . With a historical overview. Retrieved December 28, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.churchesoftruth-alliance.ca
  55. ^ Church of Truth. Center for Awakening Consciousness , Pasadena, California. Retrieved December 28, 2014.
  56. ↑ What we believe ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Church of Truth. Center for Awakening Consciousness. Retrieved December 28, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.centerforawakeningconsciousness.com
  57. ^ Church of Truth. Community of Conscious Living , Victoria, Canada. Retrieved December 28, 2014.