Beyond Safe Religion: When Two Prophets Challenge Our Comfortable Faith
See-Judge-Act
Introduction
What if the Christianity we’ve inherited is more about preserving our own comfort than truly practicing the courageous, demanding discipleship found at the core of authentic faith?
That unsettling question is at the heart of this message, as it is raised through the lives of two unlikely prophets. One was a German pastor who plotted against Hitler and paid with his life; the other was a Kentucky monk who seldom left his monastery but spoke radically against war and racism in 1960s America. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton never met and died twenty-three years apart, yet each realized that much of “Christianity” as practiced is cultural religion—safe, comfortable, and complicit. Both called for real Christianity: a dangerous, transformative faith that disrupts comfort and demands sacrifice, action, and genuine transformation.
We’ll explore how these two men—a contemplative and a conspirator—converge on four urgent themes that challenge safe, comfortable religion: peace that isn’t passive, justice that requires real sacrifice, the spiritual crisis of racism, and Bonhoeffer’s idea of ‘religionless Christianity.’ At the heart is one question: Is our faith too safe to be genuinely Christian, or are we willing to step into costly, uncomfortable discipleship?
As we begin, identify and write down the one thing that makes you uncomfortable—the one invitation you’d rather avoid. This week, commit to taking one small, concrete action in that area. Share your step with someone you trust, and challenge yourself to follow through, knowing this discomfort may be exactly where God is calling you to respond.
1. Peace That Costs Something (See/Observe)
Let’s focus on peace first, because both Merton and Bonhoeffer challenge the conventional idea of peace as simply avoiding trouble. Their lives ask: What is real peace, and what does it require?
Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison, waiting to die, about something he called “costly grace.” He was furious at Christians who treated faith like cheap insurance—say the right prayers, show up on Sunday, but don’t let it actually change anything. He wrote: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
From the other side of the world, in the quiet of a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, Merton was writing something remarkably similar. His essay, “The Root of War is Fear,” argues that war springs not just from bad politics but from a deep spiritual sickness. Fear grips us. We fear losing what we have, fear those who are different, and fear that there may not be enough to go around. Out of that fear, we see enemies everywhere. Real contemplation and prayer, Merton writes, should lead us to nonviolence. We’re not called to nonviolence because we’re naive. Rather, we face the fear in our hearts and choose love instead.
The key takeaway from both men’s lives: peace demands active, courageous engagement. Real peace isn’t just being nice or avoiding conflict; it means stepping into wounds, risking comfort, and taking action rather than avoiding trouble. If we want authentic peace, we must be willing to pay its cost.
Let’s pause here. Talk to yourself for just two minutes:
Where do you see fear driving conflict today—in our country, our church, maybe even in your own family?
Choose one specific, ‘costly’ peacemaking action for your daily life this week. Make it concrete—then immediately set an intention, write it down, and tell someone so they can keep you accountable. Act on it boldly.
2. Justice, Race, and the Religion of Privilege
Now let’s turn directly to their challenge regarding injustice, especially racism: both Merton and Bonhoeffer make us face how deeply these issues are bound up in the practice of our faith, not just ‘out there’ but within religious life itself.
During the 1960s, Merton wrote two books that white Christians mostly ignored: Seeds of Destruction and a brutal essay called “Letters to a White Liberal.” His argument is still uncomfortable today. Racism isn’t a ‘Black problem’ that Black people must solve, he says. It is a white problem. Spiritual crisis among white people who have built identity, comfort, and power on keeping others down. Merton claims that legal reforms are not enough. Passing laws is easy; what is hard is actually giving up advantage or letting go of accustomed privilege.
He writes to his white liberal friends—and I’d put myself in that category, probably most of us here—and basically says: you want to feel good about yourselves, you want to be on the “right side,” but you don’t actually want to lose anything. Real justice, Merton says, requires “complete reform of the social system.” Not just better attitudes. Structural change.
Now, Bonhoeffer was dealing with something even more extreme—the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jews. What killed him was not just Nazi evil. What broke his heart was that the German church went along with it. There was a movement called the ‘German Christians’ who fused Christianity with nationalism, Hitler, and racial purity. Most churches simply stayed quiet.
Bonhoeffer helped form the Confessing Church to resist this, and he wrote one of the most famous lines in Christian history: “The church is the church only when it exists for others.” Not for its own comfort, not to bless the status quo, not to make us feel good. The church exists for others—especially for those who are suffering, for those being crushed by injustice.
The key takeaway here: Both Merton and Bonhoeffer saw racism and injustice as not just social problems but deep theological failures. Ignoring suffering or injustice is, in effect, rejecting Christ, who is present in the suffering neighbor.
These are hard questions, but stay with me:
Merton wrote to “white liberals” who wanted to support civil rights but didn’t want to lose anything. Where do you hear echoes of that in yourself, in our parish, in our wider church today? In Social Media?
Select one practical step for our community to ‘exist for others’ around racial justice—through schools, policing, neighborhood engagement, voting, or spending. Decide together, make a plan, and hold each other accountable. Take the first action within one week.
Having explored their teachings on justice and race, let’s move into the most provocative theme for both men: “religionless Christianity.” They ask us to examine faith without the comforts of cultural religion. (Judge/Discern)
In his last letters from prison, Bonhoeffer used the phrase “religionless Christianity.” When Merton encountered Bonhoeffer’s writings in the 1960s, he found them immediately resonant.
So let’s clarify what ‘religionless Christianity’ means, since it’s a provocative term and central to both thinkers’ arguments.
Here’s what Bonhoeffer was getting at. He saw that in the modern world, people were outgrowing the old sense of ‘religion.’ They didn’t need God as a cosmic problem-solver or as the answer to questions science could now answer. God was no longer just a security blanket when things got scary. The world had, as he put it, ‘come of age.’ People could handle their own problems.
And instead of panicking about that, Bonhoeffer said: Good. Because that old kind of religion—where God is basically a useful tool we manage and control and pull out when we need something—that was never real faith anyway. That was just human projection, making God in our own image.
Real Christianity, he said, is about encountering the God who doesn’t guarantee our comfort or success. It’s about following the crucified Christ, who is for others, who doesn’t lord power over people but suffers with them. It’s about worldly responsibility, service, and solidarity. Not “religion” as a private feeling or a set of rituals we do to feel safe. But discipleship that takes the world seriously, that enters into its suffering, that doesn’t need religious privilege or power to justify itself.
Now, here’s where Merton comes in. You might think a cloistered Trappist monk would not appreciate ‘religionless Christianity.’ But Merton saw the monastery as a prophetic witness, not an escape. He loved the desert fathers who went into the wilderness, not to run away, but to strip away all religious noise of the empire and find what was real. He practiced Zen meditation and corresponded with atheists and Marxists. He believed real contemplation and deep, silent prayer do not make us showy. Instead, they help us become fully human, present to suffering, and available for others.
After reading Bonhoeffer’s prison letters, Merton recognized a kindred spirit. Both men moved past ‘religion’ as performance or comfort, seeking a Christ-centered life that did not rely on public attention or religious privilege but was quietly, deeply, and dangerously for others.
Here’s the main takeaway: Christianity that serves only comfort or identity, without cost or transformation, is empty religion. Real discipleship must change us and impact the world in tangible ways—not merely repeat routines.
4. So What Do We Actually Do? Yeah, we are at that time to ACT
Okay, I don’t want to end here with just big ideas floating around. Merton and Bonhoeffer weren’t armchair theologians. One was executed. One lived a life of radical simplicity his whole life. And then he was accidentally electrocuted. They were all in.
So let me try to pull the threads together and then give you something concrete to take home or to the bank, whichever you prefer.
The four threads:
Peace isn’t being nice. It’s costly, nonviolent love that confronts evil instead of staying silent.
Justice demands structural change and solidarity, especially around race. It’s not enough to have good opinions. We have to actually lose something, give something up, change how we live.
Race is a spiritual crisis, not just a social problem. For white Christians especially, it requires genuine conversion—of heart, mind, and the systems we benefit from. (Study the history of Black Catholics and open your eyes)
Religionless Christianity means moving beyond comfortable cultural religion to a Christ-centered life that exists for others in a real, messy, suffering world.
One small next step—pick one:
This week, commit to one intentional act “for others” that actually costs you something, and I am not talking money here, that you would rather save or Time you’d rather spend on yourself. Comfort you’d rather protect. Reputation you’d rather keep spotless. Do one thing that takes you out of your comfort zone for the greater good.
Take home one brief text—a page from Merton on race, or a couple of paragraphs from Bonhoeffer’s prison letters. Read it slowly this week, maybe every day. And ask: “What is Christ saying to our community through this voice? What is he asking of me?”
Quietly reflect on these questions we covered in this blog and, before the end of today, share one specific realization or commitment with a trusted person—spouse, best friend, or church companion. Commit to one concrete step and hold yourself accountable. Follow through this week and revisit your progress.
Where in your life is Christianity mostly “religion”—habit, identity marker, comfort—rather than actual discipleship?
How might God be calling you, like Merton and Bonhoeffer, into a more vulnerable, more loving, giving Christianity that you come to realize you exist “for others”?
What does ‘religionless Christianity’ mean for you and your spouse and or best friend?
Let me close with a prayer, something we often forget to do and don’t do all that much:
God of the prophets, God of the martyrs, God of the monks and conspirators who loved you enough to risk everything:
Give us the grace to move beyond safe religion into courageous discipleship. Help us face our fears, our comfort, our privilege. Show us where you’re calling us to exist “for others,” even when it costs us something.
Make us people of peace who aren’t afraid of conflict. Make us people of justice who don’t just talk but change. Make us people of costly grace, following the crucified Christ into the wounds of the world.
Through the same Christ who lives and suffers and loves with us. Amen.
Now I really want to say: thank you for staying with these hard thoughts and questions throughout the blog post. The world desperately needs Christians willing to be uncomfortable. I think Merton and Bonhoeffer would tell us that discomfort is the beginning of real faith.
And remember the words of Louis J Putz CSC.
“The apostolate must not be thought of as ‘religion’, but a life of charity in all phases of daily behavior is the objective to be achieved.”