Calvin Synod Herald, 2017 (118. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2017-01-01 / 1-2. szám
the Roman Empire as the best possible state in the current circumstances, but not as an end, or even an ally toward the end. He believed that Christianity was powerful enough to influence the society without being compromised. The other theological genius, I want to touch upon briefly here, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He and his writings have become quite popular in the past decade or so. The following thoughts are mostly based on his Letters and Papers from Prison.8 The following is by no means an excursus on Bonhoeffer’s later theology, but inspired and stimulated by it, and thus connected to it, in many ways. One of the issues, Bonhoeffer was evidently struggling in prison, is to find a new way to identify the church. But he approached the question from the “opposite side.” Instead of asking “who we are (as church) today?” — he asked: “who is Christ actually for us today?” Now, even just endorsing the view that this is a question for the church today, is a statement about the church. He argues indeed, that we do not know who is Christ for us today, because we only know Him from a religious point of view. Which means that, although we have a “religious” notions about this highest, most powerful, and best imaginable person, but no real encounter with Him. Our relationship with Christ grew to be hollow as theses phrases became meaningless for our society. He already sensed (60 years ago!) that Western society is approaching a completely religionless age.9 Already, in his time, society became autonom, because of the success of scientific method. This success seemed to allow society to manage its affairs in science, economy, government, ethics (etc.) without outside help (i.e., without any reference to God). On his words: “Human beings have learned to manage all important issues by themselves, without recourse to ‘Working hypothesis: God.’” 10 One of the prevalent misconceptions about European history is that the church held back modernity and represented a reactionary view of life." There is some truth to this misconception. Above, I made a point about the Augustinian view of church-society relationship. One keystone of this vision was that the church is responsible for the upkeeping of the society. In other words, the church plays a kind of guardian role for society. Unfortunately, it also meant that sometimes church leaders felt that they needed to save society from itself. It caused many clashes between the church and state (and even more, between representatives of the church and revolutionary thinkers). One of Bonhoeffer’s most brilliant insights is the realization of the world “coming of age” (Ger., Mündigkeit). It has become obvious that society needs no guardian anymore. Nowadays people want to know for themselves, and want to believe in their own terms. This is how they are trained to engage with life from their childhood. They want to have their faith (just like everything else) in their disposal. This CALVIN SYNOD HERALD_____________________________ is a fact with which the church needs to face with. So, what shall we do? Are we going to follow the elitist/separatist notion of Donatus and Pelagius, and became isolated; or, do we have strong enough faith to believe that our God is not surprised by this outcome? Augustine believed that the church is predestined to prevail in any kind of situations. Let it be the Vandals of the fourth century Roman Empire, or the new circumstances we face with today. Do we have the same kind of faith? It seems that Bonhoeffer had. Sitting in an SS prison cell, waiting for his execution, he was busy, working on a visionary view for the church in a totally new world. Doing so, he realized that the way is not to accept the liberal theology of most his contemporary colleagues in the field of Theology.12 He endorsed many of their views, but also believed that “mythology (resurrection and so forth) is the thing itself.” Meaning that if we leave out belief in those things we lose Christianity. As a matter of fact, he located the demythologizing tendency as one of the main problems of the church. He maintained the absolute importance of the Bible without any need for “correction.” But, at the same time, he called to read the Bible without a religious lens. He realized that one of the most important tasks of the renewed church is to learn to communicate God’s message in a society that now became entirely anti-religious. The old, “religious” interpretation of the Bible is not resonating with society anymore, because the religious-worldview is no longer credible. He also pointed out that, so far, the church’s only reaction to the new circumstances is to give number one priority to self-preservation. So much so, that it became an end. But he also gives prophetic advice: “we can be Christians today only two ways, through prayer and in doing justice among human beings. All Christian thinking, talking, and organizing must be bom anew, out of prayer and action.”141 believe that “prayer” and “action” goes together here to define a kind of life. So, it is not two separated acts, but one act rooted in the other: “action based on prayer.” Bonhoeffer believed that living such life will provide naturally powerful encounters with God and genuine transcendence. He describes this new kind of relationship with God as “being there for others,” through participation in the being of Jesus. And he concludes that the “transcendent is not the infinite, unattainable, task, but the neighbor within reach in any given situation.”15 So, the new question is, can we become neighbors with the “host society” coming of age? Can we face with the fact that we are not called to be guardian helpers anymore but neighbors on an equal level? I would like to finish with another quotation from the German theologian: “if one wants to speak of God ‘nonreligiously,’ then one must speak in such a way that the godlessness of the world is not covered up in any way, but rather precisely to uncover it and surprise the world by letting light shine on it. The world _____________________________________________________7
