In a letter to his friend Eberhard Bethge (included in Letters and Papers from Prison) Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked why he is instinctively drawn more to religionless people than to the religious -- an affinity he feels in his language, in the naming of God before these two groups of people. He doesn't, in the letter, answer his own question, but rather describes the differences: When he is among the religionless the name of God emerges easily in his speech, but among the religious the name tastes plastic, feels forced, and induces in him a sense of dishonesty.
What Bonhoeffer described is something I feel everyday.
I wish I knew exactly why Bonhoeffer thought the difference existed between the two. Maybe then I'd have a better sense of why it is I feel that difference so deeply in my own soul. But as it is, the difference I sense runs something like this ...
The secular world is not, in fact, my family -- not in the most intimate sense. Nevertheless, when in formal, public speech before that world I name God, that name comes from my lips naturally, spontaneously, and full of substance. When I speak of God, God is -- because the secular world permits me to use God’s name in what may be called a signifying way. I need do no more, I can in good faith do no less, than signify.
The Christian community, on the other hand, is my family intimately and spiritually -- people whom I need. We confess one God. What's more, this one God we confess has lots and lots of content: That content is "Jesus Christ". Yet when I name that God formally in that community, I often find myself checking the names before speaking them. I "watch my mouth". I objectify the speech itself in order first to analyze it -- so that when I speak of God it is the speech, the words, the names, which exist most prominently between us -- not God. God, rather, is discussed. And often in ways that look so unlike Jesus Christ.
In the Christian community I sense a requirement which the religionless don't impose (because, of course, the religious care so much for the God they already know): I must use the name of God in a qualifying way -- to explain, to define the deity. This qualifying of the deity becomes a sort of running catechetics: Formal, public speaking tends to be, among us, theologizing. But (and here's the rub) catechetics puts the catechumen under examination. The focus subtly shifts from the subject of the names of God to the speaker of the names of God. A tight, self-conscious, self-defining society needs means to identify its own -- who does and who does not belong -- and thus its most consecrated language becomes species-specific (however universal it declares its truths to be), becomes a standard for judgment. And the names of God become a kind of shibboleth, either admitting or dismissing the speaker.
Among the religionless, this is possible: That the naming of God is a matter of being.
Among the religious, this is possible: That the naming of God is a matter of being right.
Signifyin' (as we say it in the South) is an intense, dramatic street speech, a poetry with precise purposes. The person who uses it falls into rhyme so that the focus is on the talk itself and therefore on the talker himself. This language flashes with imagery and metaphor, with assonance and alliteration: Such are the prosodic rules, because signifiers know that speech actually creates something. My speech is a thing, das Ding an sich: It's a name.
So in order to make Christian speech Christian, a signifer adornes speech with figures, phrases and metaphors which are fresh and arresting; that is, they are his own or his group's invention, but they are memorable, repeatable enough to be carried from his mouth out into the world. Here, then, our English finds its newness and its generation. I think this is what makes me so identifiable with younger generations: I'm willing to risk all the Christian speak with the newness of human speech. (That was Luther's genius as a preacher and Scripture translator, too.)
The religionless, you see, allow my speech to be an artwork, not as theologizing or teaching (doctrina) -- and I'm content with that. Art has strict rules as to form, but as to substance it's willing to honor anything. There's a risk in art-work that mirrors the risk in theo-logos. That's a risk that lots of religious simply don't honor. They're more concerned with the possession of Truth than the pursuit of it.
All that the religionless require of my speech is that it be skilled, engaging, delightful, moving, that it interest and satisfy them as spoken language. This single human element -- talk -- creates community between us. And as long as it builds upon experience familiar to the religionless; it's enough. What Bonhoeffer calls "evangelizing" would be too much for them: The demand that they more than admit a communal likeness to me, that they be me. But they are very willing to allow me to be, to be what I am, and to name that being before them. And that is fully enough for me, because it invites signifyin'. What am I? Why, I am one in relationship with God. Whom do I choose to signify, then? God.
Under these conditions, when I name the names of God I do an extraordinary thing: I invoke the presence of God as well. I sign God's existence. The names coming from my mouth are more than referents, more than symbols; they have the personal authority of a signature: The names contain my God.
Moreover, the names impress God's existence, upon the audience, which laughs or weeps, applauds or in some manner responds. These people are not threatened by the names (nor am I threatened by how they might receive them) , because they have prepared themselves for art by making, in artistic terms, "a willing suspension of disbelief". There's a fine irony in their suspension of disbelief; it gives considerable room to my own beliefs, and in that theater my words become their experience and their truth. I signify: I name God's being. God, in the naming, is.
In the context of the religionless, then, the names of God are very powerful: They are existential, a matter of being. They emerge easily and feel very satisfying, being in perfect harmony with my own being.
If I'm being honest, I recognize that what I've just called "signifyin'" happens in the Christian community, too. And it has double the strength. Because the whole community of the Church becomes at once a poet and finds itself more tightly bound in the Spirit of its confession. All sing one song, naming and signifying one God, who is graciously present in the naming. This communal song, when it is purely performed among us -- no single person standing separate from the others to signify, no group of people suspending disbelief to listen -- is art and more than art: It is worship. Worship is the existential (i.e., invocational) naming of God. Like any fast and sassin' street kid, we signify -- we perform an extraordinary service when we mouth the awe-full names.
But much, much of the God-talk of our community is not worship -- and that which is not has commanded so much of our attention and energies that it pervades and compromises even that which is.
I'm a theologian and (like Bonhoeffer) I'm concerned with doctrinal truth. But that concern isn't afraid to use the names of God that we've come to know in Jesus Christ. Mercy. Kindness. Love.
The problem is that other names take the form of definitions and don't leave open some of the Mystery that is at the heart of God. To speak the name of God among the religious doesn't invite God to be among us. Rather, it tries to define God.
Note that the same names perform these different functions in different contexts. God Almighty! In the signifyin' context -- whether worshipful or religionless, in the context of art -- that is simply a cry, explosive, and needful. But in the doctrinal context -- the context of a self-defining community -- it is a proposition or a thesis.
I remember, as a student, my theology prof spending days lecturing on what it meant to confess "I believe in God the Father, almighty". That confession just wouldn't be complete until it was understood. And likewise with all kinds of other ways of speaking about God. Lord. Son of God. Father. Savior. Jesus. In the context of the non-religious, they raise nothing but relationship. But in the context of the religious, you're expected to explain and have exhaustive discussions.
So the religious learn to quantify their speech even more. Monophysite. That's a word that's thrown around to define what you mean when you say "Jesus".
My point is twofold, since there are two kinds of qualifying which the church accomplishes by the names of God.
1. Qualifying God: Commonly the religious community requires of my language that it define God; it listens to my use of the divine names in order to understand our God the better. This clearly is not signifyin', nor is it worship. My audience is learning, and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to teach. But teaching seems rather to overwhelm art in our Protestant circles, and it seems to be given a place superior to pure signifyin'; also, educational naming objectifies both the deity and the divine relationship to us. I feel faintly lonelier when I interpret God by the names than when I invoke God by the names -- slightly more plastic in the pronunciation -- and thus my experience creeps close to Bonhoeffer's.
2. Qualifying the speaker: Once the deity behind the names has been objectified, and once the Christian community has systematized the truths referred to by those names, the question put to the Monophysite takes on a whole new import. "What do you mean when you say 'Jesus'?" becomes: "Do you mean what we mean?". Which in turn becomes, "Are you right or wrong?"-- which is as much as to say, "Are you with us or not?"
With this in mind, I continually find myself feeling like a confirmand; with Bonhoeffer, I find myself "reluctant to mention God by name to religious people" for fear that I may get it wrong. I expend energy to discover what, in the particular religious subgroup which I am to address, is the "right" name of God. (You'd be surprised at how often what people mean when they say God changes -- even among Christians.) I do this in order that I may be heard, that my message will not be dismissed because I used unacceptable terms. But when I do this, when I qualify myself by the subgroup's approved deific title, I am re-enacting Bonhoeffer's experience precisely: "That name somehow seems to me not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest".
Among the religionless I use all the names of God that the Scripture has bequeathed to me. I also use names which the holy peoples of the world have lifted unto reverence. I can use those names with a freedom. Because, in the using of those names, the naming itself is a matter of being.
Among the religious, I grow careful and wary -- precisely because I love them and hunger for their community. Until I am assured a worshipful freedom, I learn circumlocutions. Until I am catechized, I pinch my speech. Until then, it is a matter of being right.
What Bonhoeffer described is something I feel everyday.
I wish I knew exactly why Bonhoeffer thought the difference existed between the two. Maybe then I'd have a better sense of why it is I feel that difference so deeply in my own soul. But as it is, the difference I sense runs something like this ...
The secular world is not, in fact, my family -- not in the most intimate sense. Nevertheless, when in formal, public speech before that world I name God, that name comes from my lips naturally, spontaneously, and full of substance. When I speak of God, God is -- because the secular world permits me to use God’s name in what may be called a signifying way. I need do no more, I can in good faith do no less, than signify.
The Christian community, on the other hand, is my family intimately and spiritually -- people whom I need. We confess one God. What's more, this one God we confess has lots and lots of content: That content is "Jesus Christ". Yet when I name that God formally in that community, I often find myself checking the names before speaking them. I "watch my mouth". I objectify the speech itself in order first to analyze it -- so that when I speak of God it is the speech, the words, the names, which exist most prominently between us -- not God. God, rather, is discussed. And often in ways that look so unlike Jesus Christ.
In the Christian community I sense a requirement which the religionless don't impose (because, of course, the religious care so much for the God they already know): I must use the name of God in a qualifying way -- to explain, to define the deity. This qualifying of the deity becomes a sort of running catechetics: Formal, public speaking tends to be, among us, theologizing. But (and here's the rub) catechetics puts the catechumen under examination. The focus subtly shifts from the subject of the names of God to the speaker of the names of God. A tight, self-conscious, self-defining society needs means to identify its own -- who does and who does not belong -- and thus its most consecrated language becomes species-specific (however universal it declares its truths to be), becomes a standard for judgment. And the names of God become a kind of shibboleth, either admitting or dismissing the speaker.
Among the religionless, this is possible: That the naming of God is a matter of being.
Among the religious, this is possible: That the naming of God is a matter of being right.
Signifyin' (as we say it in the South) is an intense, dramatic street speech, a poetry with precise purposes. The person who uses it falls into rhyme so that the focus is on the talk itself and therefore on the talker himself. This language flashes with imagery and metaphor, with assonance and alliteration: Such are the prosodic rules, because signifiers know that speech actually creates something. My speech is a thing, das Ding an sich: It's a name.
So in order to make Christian speech Christian, a signifer adornes speech with figures, phrases and metaphors which are fresh and arresting; that is, they are his own or his group's invention, but they are memorable, repeatable enough to be carried from his mouth out into the world. Here, then, our English finds its newness and its generation. I think this is what makes me so identifiable with younger generations: I'm willing to risk all the Christian speak with the newness of human speech. (That was Luther's genius as a preacher and Scripture translator, too.)
The religionless, you see, allow my speech to be an artwork, not as theologizing or teaching (doctrina) -- and I'm content with that. Art has strict rules as to form, but as to substance it's willing to honor anything. There's a risk in art-work that mirrors the risk in theo-logos. That's a risk that lots of religious simply don't honor. They're more concerned with the possession of Truth than the pursuit of it.
All that the religionless require of my speech is that it be skilled, engaging, delightful, moving, that it interest and satisfy them as spoken language. This single human element -- talk -- creates community between us. And as long as it builds upon experience familiar to the religionless; it's enough. What Bonhoeffer calls "evangelizing" would be too much for them: The demand that they more than admit a communal likeness to me, that they be me. But they are very willing to allow me to be, to be what I am, and to name that being before them. And that is fully enough for me, because it invites signifyin'. What am I? Why, I am one in relationship with God. Whom do I choose to signify, then? God.
Under these conditions, when I name the names of God I do an extraordinary thing: I invoke the presence of God as well. I sign God's existence. The names coming from my mouth are more than referents, more than symbols; they have the personal authority of a signature: The names contain my God.
Moreover, the names impress God's existence, upon the audience, which laughs or weeps, applauds or in some manner responds. These people are not threatened by the names (nor am I threatened by how they might receive them) , because they have prepared themselves for art by making, in artistic terms, "a willing suspension of disbelief". There's a fine irony in their suspension of disbelief; it gives considerable room to my own beliefs, and in that theater my words become their experience and their truth. I signify: I name God's being. God, in the naming, is.
In the context of the religionless, then, the names of God are very powerful: They are existential, a matter of being. They emerge easily and feel very satisfying, being in perfect harmony with my own being.
If I'm being honest, I recognize that what I've just called "signifyin'" happens in the Christian community, too. And it has double the strength. Because the whole community of the Church becomes at once a poet and finds itself more tightly bound in the Spirit of its confession. All sing one song, naming and signifying one God, who is graciously present in the naming. This communal song, when it is purely performed among us -- no single person standing separate from the others to signify, no group of people suspending disbelief to listen -- is art and more than art: It is worship. Worship is the existential (i.e., invocational) naming of God. Like any fast and sassin' street kid, we signify -- we perform an extraordinary service when we mouth the awe-full names.
But much, much of the God-talk of our community is not worship -- and that which is not has commanded so much of our attention and energies that it pervades and compromises even that which is.
I'm a theologian and (like Bonhoeffer) I'm concerned with doctrinal truth. But that concern isn't afraid to use the names of God that we've come to know in Jesus Christ. Mercy. Kindness. Love.
The problem is that other names take the form of definitions and don't leave open some of the Mystery that is at the heart of God. To speak the name of God among the religious doesn't invite God to be among us. Rather, it tries to define God.
Note that the same names perform these different functions in different contexts. God Almighty! In the signifyin' context -- whether worshipful or religionless, in the context of art -- that is simply a cry, explosive, and needful. But in the doctrinal context -- the context of a self-defining community -- it is a proposition or a thesis.
I remember, as a student, my theology prof spending days lecturing on what it meant to confess "I believe in God the Father, almighty". That confession just wouldn't be complete until it was understood. And likewise with all kinds of other ways of speaking about God. Lord. Son of God. Father. Savior. Jesus. In the context of the non-religious, they raise nothing but relationship. But in the context of the religious, you're expected to explain and have exhaustive discussions.
So the religious learn to quantify their speech even more. Monophysite. That's a word that's thrown around to define what you mean when you say "Jesus".
My point is twofold, since there are two kinds of qualifying which the church accomplishes by the names of God.
1. Qualifying God: Commonly the religious community requires of my language that it define God; it listens to my use of the divine names in order to understand our God the better. This clearly is not signifyin', nor is it worship. My audience is learning, and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to teach. But teaching seems rather to overwhelm art in our Protestant circles, and it seems to be given a place superior to pure signifyin'; also, educational naming objectifies both the deity and the divine relationship to us. I feel faintly lonelier when I interpret God by the names than when I invoke God by the names -- slightly more plastic in the pronunciation -- and thus my experience creeps close to Bonhoeffer's.
2. Qualifying the speaker: Once the deity behind the names has been objectified, and once the Christian community has systematized the truths referred to by those names, the question put to the Monophysite takes on a whole new import. "What do you mean when you say 'Jesus'?" becomes: "Do you mean what we mean?". Which in turn becomes, "Are you right or wrong?"-- which is as much as to say, "Are you with us or not?"
With this in mind, I continually find myself feeling like a confirmand; with Bonhoeffer, I find myself "reluctant to mention God by name to religious people" for fear that I may get it wrong. I expend energy to discover what, in the particular religious subgroup which I am to address, is the "right" name of God. (You'd be surprised at how often what people mean when they say God changes -- even among Christians.) I do this in order that I may be heard, that my message will not be dismissed because I used unacceptable terms. But when I do this, when I qualify myself by the subgroup's approved deific title, I am re-enacting Bonhoeffer's experience precisely: "That name somehow seems to me not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest".
Among the religionless I use all the names of God that the Scripture has bequeathed to me. I also use names which the holy peoples of the world have lifted unto reverence. I can use those names with a freedom. Because, in the using of those names, the naming itself is a matter of being.
Among the religious, I grow careful and wary -- precisely because I love them and hunger for their community. Until I am assured a worshipful freedom, I learn circumlocutions. Until I am catechized, I pinch my speech. Until then, it is a matter of being right.