"What is Christianity, and who is Christ, for us today?"

Bonhoeffer's last letters from prison contain some radical and controversial ideas about the future of Christianity and the church, which he based on his growing conviction that Christians must follow Christ by being in the world for others--even when it required them to suffer hardship and death. From his cell in Tegel he wrote that "it is only by living completely in the world that one learns to have faith" and that "the church is the church only when it exists for others." Bonhoeffer also had some radical suggestions for renewing the church to serve in the modern world: "To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. . . . The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating but helping and serving." Are these the wild thoughts of homesick prisoner, or is there something we can learn from Bonhoeffer's descriptions of a "religionless Christianity"? What would this kind of Christianity look like and what would it be good for? How are our churches serving as Christ's body in the world, and when are they merely self-serving? What would our home congregations look like if they woke up "religionless" next Sunday?

Suggested Readings:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers from Prison
18-23 November 1943 (128-138); 26-29 November 1943 (144-150); 15 December 1943 (160-164); 21 February 1944 (216-218); 30 April 1944 (279-283); 5 May 1944 (285-287); 29 May 1944 (310-312); 27 June 1944 (335-337); 16 July 1944 (357-361) 28 July 1944 (374-375); “Outline for a Book” (380-383); 21 August 1944 (391-394); 23 August 1944 (392-394). Poem: “Stations on the Road to Freedom” (370-371)