Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins

Author:Peter Rollins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Published: 2008-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Toward a religionless Christianity

The problem that Nietzsche was pointing out was that once the truths of a religion such as Christianity are viewed as referring to certain facts, then what becomes important in faith is the embrace of certain beliefs that have no necessary connection with a passionate, moral life. This was something that Dietrich Bonhoeffer deeply understood and that caused him to write, near the end of his life, about the possibility of a religionless Christianity, a Christianity that rejects a faith that speaks only to those who cannot embrace existence without some kind of religious ideology. Bonhoeffer returned to the Scriptures in order to uncover a Christianity that is able to speak to the wide-eyed, intelligent adult in us, or indeed to rediscover a Christianity that can actually help to bring us into adulthood, rather than keeping us as infants.

In reading Nietzsche he too became concerned that Christianity had become an anemic ideological expression that not only appealed to the infant within humanity but that fundamentally stood in the way of our becoming strong, intelligent, and courageous human beings who reflect our dignity as being formed in the image of God. He wondered how to express the relevance of God (the God of faith) to those who do not feel the need for God (the Cartesian God that provides a matrix of meaning), while encouraging those who embrace such ideological religion to grow beyond it—helping those who have forsaken God (the Cartesian God) to find God (the God of faith) and those who have found God to forsake God.

By exploring these issues he was responding to the idea that Christianity for a long time has been aimed at responding to a need in people (such as the feeling of guilt). As such it has been expressed as good news that can only be heard once a person has been brought low by the bad news. This self-centered approach to the faith that he rejected is caricatured in an anecdote that speaks of two friends walking past a church that has a large sign that reads, “Become a Christian and receive $100.” Upon seeing the strange advertisement one of the friends dares the other to go inside and get the money. The friend agrees and enters the building. After about half an hour he comes back out. “Well,” says his friend, “did you get the cash?” In response the man looks down at his friend, shakes his head in disapproval, and replies, “Is money the only thing you non-Christians ever think about?”

How many of us have treated the gospel as an object that can answer a deep-seated need (for acceptance, happiness, companionship, a clear conscience), and in so doing have approached Christianity in self-interested weakness, hoping that it will be the pill that will cure us, the liquid solution that will provide the ultimate solution. Bonhoeffer wondered whether it is possible to embrace God out of love and lightness of heart, out of a seduction that is caught up in the call of God rather than the need of God.

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