Copyright: © 1997 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

For almost thirty years I've been making speeches and leading workshops with that title as a kind of "teaser." I'm aware that Bonhoeffer has become a kind of saint among Lutherans and others; I'm also aware that, in much of what he said and did, he was right.

But he was wrong on at least one major issue: his suggestion that in a radically secularized future, the Christian faith would be "religion-less." His influence, in this respect, has been pernicious with regard to Christian worship, which is why I bring it up here -- and why I've brought it up in teaching and in workshops since the early 1970's. In all modesty, I have come to believe that my shocking proposal in those earlier years -- "Bonhoeffer was wrong!" -- carried a good bit of prophetic truth. Let me re-visit that issue with you, as it relates to worship and its aberrations, particularly among my favourite whipping boys these days, the "word-reductionists" among us.

It's my guess that Bonhoeffer is following (Calvinist!) Karl Barth, in his distaste for "religion." I can remember my own seminary professors long ago (1952-56) repeating -- and endorsing -- Barth's critique of "religion," and clucking their tongues at the notion that Christian faith might be a "religion" alongside other religions.

Well: yes, yes, yes. From one perspective, Barth and the Barthians are surely right. We must always be on guard against any description of Christian faith that suggests the kind of "religion" Barth was decrying: the "we-are-climbing-Jacob's-ladder" type of "works-righteousness" that seems characteristic of many other "religions". In that respect at least, the Christian faith is surely not a "religion". And Barth and Bonhoeffer were both right in warning against that kind of piety. "Religion", in that sense, is another name for pelagianism, isn't it?

But that's not the end of the matter. I am convinced the term "religion" can be rescued, even among Christians, when it's applied simply as an aspect of the First Article of the Creed; when, that is, it's used simply as an elaboration of what I would call the incarnational principle in Christian faith. Barth himself speaks of God's presence among us as always a "mediated immediacy"; it's a pity he (and Bonhoeffer) did not see the incarnational implications necessarily inherent in the role of "religion" as mediator for faith, particularly as regards worship.

If you smell here a reference to the old "nature versus grace" controversies, or the old distinctions between "natural theology" and "revealed theology", you're right: I'm re-visiting that territory. I'd be willing to argue that all theology is "natural theology", in the sense that even the "revelation" must be incarnated -- mediated in a human voice. Why should we be surprised, then, to discover that the voices of "religion" are also part of that necessary mediation?

I am suggesting here -- I suggested it 25 years ago! -- that "religion" is simply part of the human package: human beings remain irrepressibly "religious." It was ever thus; it will ever be thus. Even in this "radically secularized" age, which Bonhoeffer correctly foresaw, human beings cannot do away with "religion".

By "religion" here, of course, I mean what I have called the four C's: creed, code, cult, and even constitution. There are no real atheists, in my view: every human being, that is, lives by some creed (doctrine, philosophy of life); acts out that belief within a moral or ethical system (code). Further: all human beings ritualize their beliefs in repeated conventions or "rites" (cult) that give meaning and coherence to life.

We would not be human, that is, without "religion," as I am using the term. We would be speechless without the witness of the arts -- architecture, drama, dance, music, poetry, artifacts -- particularly as they give us voice in worship. But we have our "secular" rituals as well: the patriotic parade, the opening night of symphony orchestra season, the academic convocation, the conventions and rituals of the Superbowl. All of these give meaning and coherence to human life; human life would not be human without them.

Of course, as in every human endeavour, some of our ritualizing is God-pleasing, and some is not. Some of our ritualizing is transparent to our Gospel; some is not. It's the business of those who study and conduct Christian ritual to know the difference, or at least to reflect on the difference. But you'll never do away with the need for ritual -- "religion" -- in Christian life. Bonhoeffer was simply wrong.

And so are the word-reductionists among us, who follow his disdain for "religion." "Religion" is the home of ritual. Cultural anthropology, ritual studies, phenomenology: these are simply, irreplaceably, part of the flesh the eternal Word assumes when it comes to dwell among us.

My gripe with the "word-reductionists" is centred here, in this issue. As I see it, their contempt for subtleties in ritual -- distinctions and nuances in rites, roles, and rubrics -- signals a contempt for (at the least, a carelessness about), ultimately, incarnation, and the "mediated immediacy" of biblical faith. They have, in effect, denied or disregarded the Doctrine of Creation, the First Article of the Creed. They are unitarians of the Second Person.

Attention to liturgical niceties will not save you: God's grace alone saves you. But surely there is a place for loving, devoted attention to nuance and distinctions and fine points of meaning, in the study of Christian liturgy -- as in the study of Christian history, or Christian systematics, or Christian ethics. To love Jesus is not enough, if you intend to lead Christian corporate worship: you've got to learn something you didn't know before, and gain some competence in its skills. Why should that surprise us?

The word-reductionists I have known are lovely people; you'd want your daughter to marry one. Just don't ask 'em to lead corporate worship!