[June 2000 journal entry]
How far should Bonhoeffer, the ‘scrapheap’ Job, or ‘Jesus’ be seen as going when measured by ‘non-religious’ criteria? I would argue that, once the threshold separating ‘religious’ from ‘non-religious’ has been decisively crossed, there is no way back across that threshold into the ‘religious’ sphere without violating one’s integrity (analogous to the spikes at a rental car return gate that make it impossible to reverse without damaging the tires). No adult returns to a childish belief in Santa Claus. Once the curtains had been pulled back, the wizard could no longer awe Dorothy and her friends.
