Religionless Christianity and the political implications of theological speech: What Bonhoeffer’s theology yields to a world of fundamentalisms

Abstract

This is the author's PDF preprint of an article published in International Journal of Systematic Theology© 2009. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comThis article seeks to utilise Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity in a formative and constructive way to aid theological speech in the complexly secular and multi-faith setting of the twenty-first century. It will begin by seeking to highlight trends in unhelpful contemporary theo-politics, and to locate these in the interconnection of secular and religious forms of fundamentalism. It will then consider how a theological interpretation of Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity might assist in undermining such fundamentalisms. A further section identifies a three-fold positive benefit that Bonhoeffer’s thought offers in the contemporary situation: a distinction between God and religion; a genuine understanding of the sovereignty of God; and an inability to separate secular-religious concerns from inter-faith concerns