Angus Harley

Bonhoeffer is one of many sacred theologians in the Evangelical pantheon who has reached the vaunted status of ‘saint’. He is an untouchable one, who has spiritual immunity. Whatever evidence is brought to bear of his theological malfeasance is ignored, because to these devotees he has written such wonderful books that say so many deep and godly things.

In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer comments on Christian myth in the NT. He writes:

“A bit more about ‘religionlessness’. I expect you remember Bultmann’s paper on the demythologizing of the New Testament? My view of it to-day would be not that he went too far, as most people seem to think, but that he did not go far enough. It is not only the mythological conceptions, such as the miracles, the ascension and the like (which are not in principle separable from the conceptions of God, faith and so on) that are problematic, but the ‘religious’ conceptions themselves.” [LPP, 125.]

Let’s break this comment down:

•              He believed Bultmann’s demythologizing program was weak.

•              Miracles, the ascension, and “the like” are myths.

•              The phrase “religionlessness” indicates not only an attack on the acts of God’s supernatural power in time (history), but the denial of the ‘theology’ (aka, ‘religious conceptions’) that they indicate in traditional teaching.

Now, the reader might not be familiar with Bultmann’s demythologizing program. It taught that the bible was full of myth, and it had to be separated from ‘true Christianity’, that is, the faith-interpretations of these myths by the community of faith (the apostles and co.). Bonhoeffer, on the other hand, was of the opinion that Bultmann did not go far enough, meaning that Christianity (that is, the community of faith) was fully dependent for its faith on both the myth and that which was its interpretation. The mythology was absolutely vital to inspiring faith, in other words. So, Bonhoeffer adds:

“Bultmann would seem to have felt Barth’s limitations in some way, but he misconstrues them in the light of liberal theology, and hence goes off into the typical liberal reduction process (the ‘mythological’ elements of Christianity are dropped, and Christianity is reduced to its ‘essence’). I am of the view that the full content, including the mythological concepts, must be maintained. The New Testament is not a mythological garbing of the universal truth; this mythology (resurrection and so on) is the thing itself but the concepts must be interpreted in such a way as not to make religion a pre-condition of faith (cf. circumcision in St. Paul).” [LPP, 149. Parentheses are his]

•              Barth, too, strongly divided between myth and theology, and Bultmann was influenced by him.

•              In Bultmann’s case, he followed Liberal path of getting rid of all the myth in history to be left with the true essence of Christianity.

•              Bonhoeffer, however, ‘re-purposed’ the mythology as integral to the NT witness as a faith document of the community of faith (the assembly).  

•              These myths include the resurrection and so on.

It is a common response to these criticisms of Bonhoeffer to say that his views changed over the years. However, Letter and Papers from Prison were his final works (1944 & published 1972), presenting the maturation of his thought (he died April, 1945). Another counterresponse is that Bonhoeffer is not necessarily saying that if something is myth it is unhistorical, but that it cannot be proven by science. This is plainly nonsense as far as the above comments are concerned, for he divides between the myths and their faith-interpretation, and describes his position as being more radical than the master of demythologizing, Bultmann.