Reflections from Journal Entries
Now for another set of reflections. These reflections have been selected/adapted from journal entries written during our years in New Orleans (January 1995-November 1997).
46 [8/96] To be ‘non-religious’ is to let ‘religion’ go as a working hypothesis.
[Note: ‘Religion’ – as defined in my journal entries – is analogous to the large oak tree in the backyard of my childhood home. My neighborhood friends, my brothers, and I spent hours in that tree – swinging, climbing, jumping, building, chasing, talking, . . . – day after day, year after year. We loved the tree. We took the tree for granted. I remember when my parents decided the branches had become too weak to support our activities. We protested. Then with sadness, we began to relocate our activities. The large oak tree remained for a time, providing shade for play underneath. Eventually, the risks of injury or damage to the house necessitated cutting the tree down. It was finished, though it still had branches and leaves suggestive of life. Another analogy I think about is a person who is pronounced dead by neurological criteria (i.e., ‘brain dead’) though cellular life continues naturally for a time after the pronouncement and could be sustained by artificial life-support technologies for an indefinite time.]
47 [8/96] As I work through Letters and Papers yet again, I am noticing afresh that Bonhoeffer saw the ‘world’ with which he was resolved to be ‘face to face’ (primarily Germany and Western Europe) as having reconstituted itself without ‘religion’ (esp., without ‘religion’ as a working hypothesis, without ‘religious’ tutelage, without ‘religious’ inwardness, without ‘religious’ ultimate questions, without a ‘religious’ focus on weakness, without . . .). He saw evidence of this reconstitution in/among the ‘ordinary’ people around him. He considered this reconstitution as irreversible. United States history before, during, and after World War II varies in significant ways from Bonhoeffer’s assessment the ‘world’ he faced. In the United States, ‘religion’ remained/s institutionalized, wielding significant social power. For me, be(com)ing ‘non-religious’ is not a tactic or one choice among many choices. Bonhoeffer spoke of ‘religion’ as a historical phase as well as a failure. I see ‘religion’ as an ever-present phenomenon that dies because it cannot participate in a radical (i.e., to the root) and vigorous search for truth, because it fails to respect innocent sufferers, because it cannot be near innocent sufferers without threatening/harming them.
48 [8/96] For some ‘religion’ bursts; for others it deflates by a slow leak.
49 [8/96] In addition to Bonhoeffer’s critique of and nuances for ‘religion’ in his prison correspondence, I would propose that ‘religion’ discriminates by excluding individuals, groups, and life experiences that challenge and/or threaten the ‘religious’ paradigm/assumptions (e.g., the profoundly abused children removed from their homes to be sheltered at the K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, chronic illness victims, poverty-ridden situations, . . .). ‘Religion’ retreats from and/or avoids such individuals. Note the ‘partiality’ (discrimination) in hymns, sermons, prayers.
50 [9/96] As my family and I continue to meet each Sunday morning with the tragically scarred children at the K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, I renew my commitment to hold/propose only those ideas that can be pondered/considered by or in the presence of such individuals. Bonhoeffer’s ‘religion as partiality’ is evident in the way churches have approached and then recoiled from the K-Bar-B children. ‘Religion’ is built on ideas that have been formed separate from and without attention given to such individuals and settings. ‘Religion’, therefore, retreats to theological safety and, if onsite with the children at a K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, is not truly or genuinely present with them.
51 [11/96] Being ‘before God as if without God’ involves a self-sufficiency in ethics and spirituality in that to be ‘without God’ is to be without evidence or expectation that ‘God’ is obviously acting ‘outside’ or independent of me in my life experiences. One must be prepared to be without the experience of ‘community’ (human or divine), the absence of which must not deter one from maintaining integrity in being ‘with the world face to face’.
52 [11/96] A key to the ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following is the search for a simple statement of my ‘self’, unambiguous and unconditional. This simple statement of my ‘self’ has always to be severely tested, the result of which is often the discovery (1) that ambiguity yet remains in the statement, (2) that the simple statement has not yet been found, and/or (3) that the simple statement so tested cannot yet survive the demands of being ‘with the world face to face’. The simple statement of my ‘self’ – unambiguous and unconditional – that presently centers my life has to do with my resolve to be(come) the sort of person who can be truly present with individuals in the worst of human experiences.
[Note: I was at this time leading a cross-section of the medical staff, support staff, executive staff, and board members of the East Tennessee rural Appalachia community health center where I would eventually work through an intense process of crafting a mission statement. I had first visited this health center a few months before our move from Vermont to New Orleans. I had been invited to return every six weeks or so to spend long weekends with the medical staff members and their families as they attempted to embrace meaningfully/radically the experience of living among and practicing with disproportionate attention given to poor/uninsured Appalachia families. They recognized the need for a simple yet potent statement of mission that would center/steer the health center’s direction, decisions, actions by answering five questions – (1) What are we? (2) What do we do? (3) For whom do we do what we do? (4) To what end do we do what we do? (5) By what values do we do what we do? After reviewing stacks of health center material and interviewing numerous representatives, I deduced a first draft. On each of my visits over the next eighteen months, I guided the participants in the process of crafting a statement with ‘pause effect’ as they pressed every word in the latest draft. Between visits I would circulate yet another revised draft. Here is the eventual mission statement the health center adopted -- ]
[We constitute] a not-for-profit community health center founded on the conviction that everyone should have access to affordable quality healthcare. We are committed to providing our patients comprehensive medical care in a fair and gentle manner. A healthy community is one in which all of its members begin life with hope, experience life with joy, and end life with dignity. We are convinced that many health problems have community causes and community solutions. Therefore, our ultimate purpose is to promote the full health – physical, spiritual, mental, and economic – of the communities we serve.
53 [12/96] What are the origins/beginnings of the core vocabulary of my ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality? Is my core vocabulary traced to a ‘religious’ association at some point? In some instances, the answer is ‘yes’ at least to a degree. My personal narrative includes being born into and raised within the ‘religious’ sphere. However, much of my present vocabulary -- e.g., mercy, justice, peace, autonomy, grace, innocent suffering, holocaust, silence, . . . -- did not come from the ‘religious’ language I inherited by birth. I did find such vocabulary through reading seriously the more liberal theological literature of the ‘religious’ sphere (especially during and after my doctoral studies). Other language sources included (1) Boy Scouts, (2) team sports, (3) parental examples of simple living and care for orphans, (4) experience among the chronically ill, (5) English literature, (6) political leaders representing social justice causes, (7) philosophy literature, (8) art, theatre, music, (9) medical ethics literature, . . . .
54 [12/96] I am wary in most ‘church’ settings (e.g., the ‘religious’ assumptions, the ‘religious’ discourse, my struggle to maintain my integrity in conversations, . . .).
[Note: ‘Wary’ conveys caution, defensiveness, anxiety. Images such as ‘hair on end’ or ‘pupils enlarged’ or ‘stepping into a minefield’ are not far off the mark. My face reddens and my forehead breaks out. Why enter such settings if my expectations are low? Why, if nourishment or encouragement so rarely result? My journal entries return frequently to this question.]
55 [12/96] To be ‘non-religious’ is to cease ‘religious’ exclusivity and evangelistic intent (and the implied prejudgment of others). If I reject ‘religious’ exclusivity and evangelistic intent – and I do – am I a ‘Christian’? Is the term ‘Christian’ restricted to the term’s use/meaning within the ‘religious’ sphere? If so, when did I cease to be a ‘Christian’ in a ‘religious’ sense – (1) when the failure of ‘religion’ became evident during my first wife’s illness/death? (2) when my unique ‘friendship in the singular’ with my Jewish friend Dr. Korones formed? (3) when . . . ? To no longer see myself (or be seen by others) as a ‘Christian’ in a ‘religious’ sense does not imply that I am no longer a serious/diligent student of ‘Jesus’.
I prefer ‘student’ to ‘follower’ because my trust/confidence in ‘Jesus’ is rooted in deep (and, therefore, life influencing) respect for his approach to living life well. I study his life as closely as historically possible. However, I accept personal and final responsibility for making decisions in my life. ‘Follower’, on the other hand, suggests – to me at least – that someone else ahead of the follower is responsible for decisions about where to go and what to do. A ‘follower’ model may have been viable if/when one could actually/literally be living and traveling with ‘Jesus’. (Whether or not ‘Jesus’ would have accepted/expected to shoulder such responsibility for others living and traveling with him is a question with substantial implications for ethics and spirituality.) Such a ‘follower’ model ceased to be viable for anyone once ‘Jesus’ was killed. Instead, a spectrum of options existed in his time and since that time – i.e., (1) with the ‘follower’ end of the spectrum represented by those who expect ‘God’ to make decisions for them (either communicated directly or accomplished indirectly through sanctioned leaders) and with the ‘student’ end of the spectrum represented by those who willingly accept responsibility for making decisions about their lives; (2) with the ‘follower’ end of the spectrum represented by those who withdraw as much as possible from embracing or participating in the present culture (which calls for decisions about how to think and what to do that are far different from the time/place in which ‘Jesus’ lived) and with the ‘student’ end of the spectrum represented by those ready to embrace and participate in the present culture.
56 [12/96] In his prison correspondence, Bonhoeffer discussed ‘the religious a priori’ as a historical (rather than an ever present) phenomenon. He seems to have been thinking that a form/experience of Christianity predated ‘the religious a priori’ period. I do not think a critique of ‘religion’ is complete if the concept of a ‘religious a priori’ is understood only as a time-bound presupposition characteristic of the era immediately antecedent to the ‘modern’ period. In other words, I would argue that a ‘religious a priori’ is evident before and during as well as after Christianity’s origins.
57 [12/96] I am listening again to Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Among the proposals from 20th-century physics that have been introduced and are gradually spreading more widely/deeply into scientifically educated societies are: (1) that the micro- and macro-dimensions of the phenomenal realm do not fit a Newtonian/static model (with a dynamic/unpredictability model better representing the edges of the phenomenal realm), (2) that time is relative rather than absolute, (3) that there are millions of galaxies, ours being a rather insignificant one, (4) that the universe is expanding. Bottom line -- ‘Religion’ is incompatible with and antagonistic toward such ‘modern’ cosmological propositions.
[Note: This entry is a good place to repeat that my references to ‘religion’ in these journal entries have in mind the specific traits/nuances of ‘religion’ I am identifying and critiquing in the search for a ‘non-religious’ spirituality and ethics. I find the incompatibility/antagonism re the listed illustrations from 20th-century physics to increase as I look across the ‘religious’ spectrum from the liberal end to the evangelical/fundamentalist end. A March 2005 NBC poll of 800 adults randomly contacted nationwide indicated that 44% (+/-3.5% margin of error) of the American public accepts the Genesis stories of human origins as literally true. A June 2005 Harris poll of 1000 adults randomly contacted nationwide indicated that 23% (+/- 3% margin of error) of the American public thinks only a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories of human origins should be taught in public schools. Recent disclosures of the perspectives of the Dover, PA, school board members who are pushing for ‘intelligent design’ to be introduced in public school science courses suggest they would agree with these respondents to the two polls.]
58 [2/97] In his prison correspondence, Bonhoeffer was critical of the assumption/expectation within the ‘religious’ sphere that ‘religion’ is society’s tutor. As evidence that he was early in his thinking through the implications of a ‘religionless’ path, it seems to me that the ‘unconscious Christian/ity’ alternative he introduced late in the prison correspondence retained a subtle form of the tutelage characteristic of the ‘religion’ he was questioning.
59 [2/97] The proposition that we are ‘before God as if without God’ (as Bonhoeffer realized in his prison correspondence) is a wedge that, if driven forcefully enough, can distinguish ‘religious’ from ‘non-religious’.
60 [2/97] A place to start for anchoring/centering a ‘non-religious’ spirituality is with the conviction that there is ‘more’ to being human than empirical understandings/interpretations of being human can detect or assess.
61 [4/97] I have experienced very few exceptions to the premise that ‘religion’ (Christian, in my experience) is on a bad-worse-worst spectrum. The few exceptions I have found were/are marginal within the ‘religious’ sphere and hardly had/have the minimal identifying ‘religious’ marks to be considered representative. ‘Religious’ organizations/groups are essentially (i.e., the core/center that influences and defines the whole) analogous to businesses that sell ‘religion’. Being invested (usually with substantial debt), ‘religious’ organizations face the task of determining the percent of the budget that can go for non-overhead matters without risking financial failure. The point -- investments/debts are at the core of ‘religion’. The objective of ‘religion’ becomes holding onto the constituency that covers/insures the financial obligations.
62 [5/97] ‘Religion’ is so high-maintenance that either the adherents do not think seriously about how high-maintenance ‘religion’ is or the adherents are convinced such is necessary. ‘Religion’ has at least three distinguishable sub-groups – (1) those contentedly inside the ‘religious’ sphere, (2) those with the task of keeping those inside the ‘religious’ sphere convinced (e.g., clergy, theologians, etc.), (3) those who sense that the ‘religious’ sphere is analogous to ‘the emperor has no clothes’ story but are not sufficiently disturbed to bear the costs and run the risks associated with speaking up or stepping away.
63 [8/97] To be ‘religious’ is to expect life events to reveal/represent the intentional will of ‘God’. This expectation breeds insecurity and leads to forcing interpretations on events to support this expectation. This process cannot seriously consider individuals whose life experiences cannot be forced into conformity with this expectation. This process diminishes the ability to be grateful for ‘surprises’ in life. This process devalues all other factors possibly operative in life experiences.
Now for another set of reflections. These reflections have been selected/adapted from journal entries written during our years in New Orleans (January 1995-November 1997).
46 [8/96] To be ‘non-religious’ is to let ‘religion’ go as a working hypothesis.
[Note: ‘Religion’ – as defined in my journal entries – is analogous to the large oak tree in the backyard of my childhood home. My neighborhood friends, my brothers, and I spent hours in that tree – swinging, climbing, jumping, building, chasing, talking, . . . – day after day, year after year. We loved the tree. We took the tree for granted. I remember when my parents decided the branches had become too weak to support our activities. We protested. Then with sadness, we began to relocate our activities. The large oak tree remained for a time, providing shade for play underneath. Eventually, the risks of injury or damage to the house necessitated cutting the tree down. It was finished, though it still had branches and leaves suggestive of life. Another analogy I think about is a person who is pronounced dead by neurological criteria (i.e., ‘brain dead’) though cellular life continues naturally for a time after the pronouncement and could be sustained by artificial life-support technologies for an indefinite time.]
47 [8/96] As I work through Letters and Papers yet again, I am noticing afresh that Bonhoeffer saw the ‘world’ with which he was resolved to be ‘face to face’ (primarily Germany and Western Europe) as having reconstituted itself without ‘religion’ (esp., without ‘religion’ as a working hypothesis, without ‘religious’ tutelage, without ‘religious’ inwardness, without ‘religious’ ultimate questions, without a ‘religious’ focus on weakness, without . . .). He saw evidence of this reconstitution in/among the ‘ordinary’ people around him. He considered this reconstitution as irreversible. United States history before, during, and after World War II varies in significant ways from Bonhoeffer’s assessment the ‘world’ he faced. In the United States, ‘religion’ remained/s institutionalized, wielding significant social power. For me, be(com)ing ‘non-religious’ is not a tactic or one choice among many choices. Bonhoeffer spoke of ‘religion’ as a historical phase as well as a failure. I see ‘religion’ as an ever-present phenomenon that dies because it cannot participate in a radical (i.e., to the root) and vigorous search for truth, because it fails to respect innocent sufferers, because it cannot be near innocent sufferers without threatening/harming them.
48 [8/96] For some ‘religion’ bursts; for others it deflates by a slow leak.
49 [8/96] In addition to Bonhoeffer’s critique of and nuances for ‘religion’ in his prison correspondence, I would propose that ‘religion’ discriminates by excluding individuals, groups, and life experiences that challenge and/or threaten the ‘religious’ paradigm/assumptions (e.g., the profoundly abused children removed from their homes to be sheltered at the K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, chronic illness victims, poverty-ridden situations, . . .). ‘Religion’ retreats from and/or avoids such individuals. Note the ‘partiality’ (discrimination) in hymns, sermons, prayers.
50 [9/96] As my family and I continue to meet each Sunday morning with the tragically scarred children at the K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, I renew my commitment to hold/propose only those ideas that can be pondered/considered by or in the presence of such individuals. Bonhoeffer’s ‘religion as partiality’ is evident in the way churches have approached and then recoiled from the K-Bar-B children. ‘Religion’ is built on ideas that have been formed separate from and without attention given to such individuals and settings. ‘Religion’, therefore, retreats to theological safety and, if onsite with the children at a K-Bar-B ‘ranch’, is not truly or genuinely present with them.
51 [11/96] Being ‘before God as if without God’ involves a self-sufficiency in ethics and spirituality in that to be ‘without God’ is to be without evidence or expectation that ‘God’ is obviously acting ‘outside’ or independent of me in my life experiences. One must be prepared to be without the experience of ‘community’ (human or divine), the absence of which must not deter one from maintaining integrity in being ‘with the world face to face’.
52 [11/96] A key to the ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following is the search for a simple statement of my ‘self’, unambiguous and unconditional. This simple statement of my ‘self’ has always to be severely tested, the result of which is often the discovery (1) that ambiguity yet remains in the statement, (2) that the simple statement has not yet been found, and/or (3) that the simple statement so tested cannot yet survive the demands of being ‘with the world face to face’. The simple statement of my ‘self’ – unambiguous and unconditional – that presently centers my life has to do with my resolve to be(come) the sort of person who can be truly present with individuals in the worst of human experiences.
[Note: I was at this time leading a cross-section of the medical staff, support staff, executive staff, and board members of the East Tennessee rural Appalachia community health center where I would eventually work through an intense process of crafting a mission statement. I had first visited this health center a few months before our move from Vermont to New Orleans. I had been invited to return every six weeks or so to spend long weekends with the medical staff members and their families as they attempted to embrace meaningfully/radically the experience of living among and practicing with disproportionate attention given to poor/uninsured Appalachia families. They recognized the need for a simple yet potent statement of mission that would center/steer the health center’s direction, decisions, actions by answering five questions – (1) What are we? (2) What do we do? (3) For whom do we do what we do? (4) To what end do we do what we do? (5) By what values do we do what we do? After reviewing stacks of health center material and interviewing numerous representatives, I deduced a first draft. On each of my visits over the next eighteen months, I guided the participants in the process of crafting a statement with ‘pause effect’ as they pressed every word in the latest draft. Between visits I would circulate yet another revised draft. Here is the eventual mission statement the health center adopted -- ]
[We constitute] a not-for-profit community health center founded on the conviction that everyone should have access to affordable quality healthcare. We are committed to providing our patients comprehensive medical care in a fair and gentle manner. A healthy community is one in which all of its members begin life with hope, experience life with joy, and end life with dignity. We are convinced that many health problems have community causes and community solutions. Therefore, our ultimate purpose is to promote the full health – physical, spiritual, mental, and economic – of the communities we serve.
53 [12/96] What are the origins/beginnings of the core vocabulary of my ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality? Is my core vocabulary traced to a ‘religious’ association at some point? In some instances, the answer is ‘yes’ at least to a degree. My personal narrative includes being born into and raised within the ‘religious’ sphere. However, much of my present vocabulary -- e.g., mercy, justice, peace, autonomy, grace, innocent suffering, holocaust, silence, . . . -- did not come from the ‘religious’ language I inherited by birth. I did find such vocabulary through reading seriously the more liberal theological literature of the ‘religious’ sphere (especially during and after my doctoral studies). Other language sources included (1) Boy Scouts, (2) team sports, (3) parental examples of simple living and care for orphans, (4) experience among the chronically ill, (5) English literature, (6) political leaders representing social justice causes, (7) philosophy literature, (8) art, theatre, music, (9) medical ethics literature, . . . .
54 [12/96] I am wary in most ‘church’ settings (e.g., the ‘religious’ assumptions, the ‘religious’ discourse, my struggle to maintain my integrity in conversations, . . .).
[Note: ‘Wary’ conveys caution, defensiveness, anxiety. Images such as ‘hair on end’ or ‘pupils enlarged’ or ‘stepping into a minefield’ are not far off the mark. My face reddens and my forehead breaks out. Why enter such settings if my expectations are low? Why, if nourishment or encouragement so rarely result? My journal entries return frequently to this question.]
55 [12/96] To be ‘non-religious’ is to cease ‘religious’ exclusivity and evangelistic intent (and the implied prejudgment of others). If I reject ‘religious’ exclusivity and evangelistic intent – and I do – am I a ‘Christian’? Is the term ‘Christian’ restricted to the term’s use/meaning within the ‘religious’ sphere? If so, when did I cease to be a ‘Christian’ in a ‘religious’ sense – (1) when the failure of ‘religion’ became evident during my first wife’s illness/death? (2) when my unique ‘friendship in the singular’ with my Jewish friend Dr. Korones formed? (3) when . . . ? To no longer see myself (or be seen by others) as a ‘Christian’ in a ‘religious’ sense does not imply that I am no longer a serious/diligent student of ‘Jesus’.
I prefer ‘student’ to ‘follower’ because my trust/confidence in ‘Jesus’ is rooted in deep (and, therefore, life influencing) respect for his approach to living life well. I study his life as closely as historically possible. However, I accept personal and final responsibility for making decisions in my life. ‘Follower’, on the other hand, suggests – to me at least – that someone else ahead of the follower is responsible for decisions about where to go and what to do. A ‘follower’ model may have been viable if/when one could actually/literally be living and traveling with ‘Jesus’. (Whether or not ‘Jesus’ would have accepted/expected to shoulder such responsibility for others living and traveling with him is a question with substantial implications for ethics and spirituality.) Such a ‘follower’ model ceased to be viable for anyone once ‘Jesus’ was killed. Instead, a spectrum of options existed in his time and since that time – i.e., (1) with the ‘follower’ end of the spectrum represented by those who expect ‘God’ to make decisions for them (either communicated directly or accomplished indirectly through sanctioned leaders) and with the ‘student’ end of the spectrum represented by those who willingly accept responsibility for making decisions about their lives; (2) with the ‘follower’ end of the spectrum represented by those who withdraw as much as possible from embracing or participating in the present culture (which calls for decisions about how to think and what to do that are far different from the time/place in which ‘Jesus’ lived) and with the ‘student’ end of the spectrum represented by those ready to embrace and participate in the present culture.
56 [12/96] In his prison correspondence, Bonhoeffer discussed ‘the religious a priori’ as a historical (rather than an ever present) phenomenon. He seems to have been thinking that a form/experience of Christianity predated ‘the religious a priori’ period. I do not think a critique of ‘religion’ is complete if the concept of a ‘religious a priori’ is understood only as a time-bound presupposition characteristic of the era immediately antecedent to the ‘modern’ period. In other words, I would argue that a ‘religious a priori’ is evident before and during as well as after Christianity’s origins.
57 [12/96] I am listening again to Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Among the proposals from 20th-century physics that have been introduced and are gradually spreading more widely/deeply into scientifically educated societies are: (1) that the micro- and macro-dimensions of the phenomenal realm do not fit a Newtonian/static model (with a dynamic/unpredictability model better representing the edges of the phenomenal realm), (2) that time is relative rather than absolute, (3) that there are millions of galaxies, ours being a rather insignificant one, (4) that the universe is expanding. Bottom line -- ‘Religion’ is incompatible with and antagonistic toward such ‘modern’ cosmological propositions.
[Note: This entry is a good place to repeat that my references to ‘religion’ in these journal entries have in mind the specific traits/nuances of ‘religion’ I am identifying and critiquing in the search for a ‘non-religious’ spirituality and ethics. I find the incompatibility/antagonism re the listed illustrations from 20th-century physics to increase as I look across the ‘religious’ spectrum from the liberal end to the evangelical/fundamentalist end. A March 2005 NBC poll of 800 adults randomly contacted nationwide indicated that 44% (+/-3.5% margin of error) of the American public accepts the Genesis stories of human origins as literally true. A June 2005 Harris poll of 1000 adults randomly contacted nationwide indicated that 23% (+/- 3% margin of error) of the American public thinks only a literal interpretation of the Genesis stories of human origins should be taught in public schools. Recent disclosures of the perspectives of the Dover, PA, school board members who are pushing for ‘intelligent design’ to be introduced in public school science courses suggest they would agree with these respondents to the two polls.]
58 [2/97] In his prison correspondence, Bonhoeffer was critical of the assumption/expectation within the ‘religious’ sphere that ‘religion’ is society’s tutor. As evidence that he was early in his thinking through the implications of a ‘religionless’ path, it seems to me that the ‘unconscious Christian/ity’ alternative he introduced late in the prison correspondence retained a subtle form of the tutelage characteristic of the ‘religion’ he was questioning.
59 [2/97] The proposition that we are ‘before God as if without God’ (as Bonhoeffer realized in his prison correspondence) is a wedge that, if driven forcefully enough, can distinguish ‘religious’ from ‘non-religious’.
60 [2/97] A place to start for anchoring/centering a ‘non-religious’ spirituality is with the conviction that there is ‘more’ to being human than empirical understandings/interpretations of being human can detect or assess.
61 [4/97] I have experienced very few exceptions to the premise that ‘religion’ (Christian, in my experience) is on a bad-worse-worst spectrum. The few exceptions I have found were/are marginal within the ‘religious’ sphere and hardly had/have the minimal identifying ‘religious’ marks to be considered representative. ‘Religious’ organizations/groups are essentially (i.e., the core/center that influences and defines the whole) analogous to businesses that sell ‘religion’. Being invested (usually with substantial debt), ‘religious’ organizations face the task of determining the percent of the budget that can go for non-overhead matters without risking financial failure. The point -- investments/debts are at the core of ‘religion’. The objective of ‘religion’ becomes holding onto the constituency that covers/insures the financial obligations.
62 [5/97] ‘Religion’ is so high-maintenance that either the adherents do not think seriously about how high-maintenance ‘religion’ is or the adherents are convinced such is necessary. ‘Religion’ has at least three distinguishable sub-groups – (1) those contentedly inside the ‘religious’ sphere, (2) those with the task of keeping those inside the ‘religious’ sphere convinced (e.g., clergy, theologians, etc.), (3) those who sense that the ‘religious’ sphere is analogous to ‘the emperor has no clothes’ story but are not sufficiently disturbed to bear the costs and run the risks associated with speaking up or stepping away.
63 [8/97] To be ‘religious’ is to expect life events to reveal/represent the intentional will of ‘God’. This expectation breeds insecurity and leads to forcing interpretations on events to support this expectation. This process cannot seriously consider individuals whose life experiences cannot be forced into conformity with this expectation. This process diminishes the ability to be grateful for ‘surprises’ in life. This process devalues all other factors possibly operative in life experiences.
