Bonhoeffer ~ Cardijn and the Paradox
There are interesting and often head-scratching comparisons between people in history. As a cultural historian, I always look to the situation in time, when people say or write something that inspires me or motivates me to take action. We call this the "Sitz Im Leben."
Joseph Cardijn and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are two of those people for whom we need to always remember the situation in time, the culture they were immersed in, the medium they used, and the message they conveyed.
Bonhoeffer, in his prison letters, specifically from his July 16, 1944 letter to Eberhard Bethge, is all about the message. Let me break down what he's getting at:
The quote emerges from Bonhoeffer's concept of 'religionless Christianity,' a term he used to describe a faith that is not bound by traditional religious structures and rituals. He was wrestling with what it means to be Christian in what he called a 'world come of age' - a modern, secular world where traditional religious answers no longer seemed sufficient.
When Bonhoeffer states, "Live as those who manage their lives without God," he is not advocating atheism. Instead, he suggests that authentic Christian faith requires us to confront the world's challenges directly without relying on God as a "deus ex machina" - a magical solution to all problems. We shouldn't use God to fill our knowledge or abilities gaps. God is always with us, even when we walk in the shadow of death, despair, and defeat.
The reference to Mark 15:34 is crucial. It's Jesus' cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This highlights the central paradox: Even Jesus experienced God's absence. Bonhoeffer suggests that this experience is a vital aspect of authentic faith.
The line—"Before God, and with God, we live without God"—encapsulates the paradox. We live "before God" (in God's presence) and "with God" (in a relationship with God), yet simultaneously "without God" (taking full responsibility for our actions and decisions in the world). This reflects Bonhoeffer's belief that Christian maturity means engaging directly with the world's problems, not retreating into religious comfort or waiting for divine intervention.
For Bonhoeffer, writing from a Nazi prison, this was not merely theoretical - it was profoundly personal. He grappled with what it meant to follow God in a world where God appeared absent, evil seemed triumphant, and traditional religious answers felt insufficient. His personal struggle in the face of such adversity is a testament to the depth of his faith and the challenges he faced.
What makes this particularly interesting is how he reframes weakness and abandonment as potentially sacred experiences, suggesting that feeling God's absence might be a way to experience God's presence on a deeper level.
The connection between Bonhoeffer's paradox and Joseph Cardijn's approach is fascinating, especially considering their shared emphasis on Christian engagement with the secular world. Here's how they relate:
Joseph Cardijn's work with the Young Christian Workers (JOC) embodied a paradox similar to Bonhoeffer's 'living without God.' Cardijn's 'See-Judge-Act' methodology, a key aspect of his work, encouraged young workers to analyze their conditions, make judgments, and take action. This approach essentially asked them to operate as if they were 'managing their lives without God' in Bonhoeffer's sense—not waiting for divine intervention but taking direct responsibility for transforming their world. Think of waiting for the sea to split open as an example.
Both men were responding to cultural challenges, highlighting the universality of the issues they faced:
The secularization of modern life, what Bonhoeffer called the 'world come of age,' and what Cardijn saw as an extension into the 20th century of the 'Gilded Age,' a period of rapid economic growth in the United States from the 1870s to the early 1900s.
Both Bonhoeffer and Cardijn recognized the urgent need for Christians to engage directly with social and political realities, a call to action that is as relevant today as it was in their time.
These great thinkers share the understanding that the Christian faith must be lived out in the concrete realities of daily life. Cardijn's insistence that young workers should be "missionaries to their peers" parallels Bonhoeffer's concept of "religionless Christianity." Both recognized that authentic Christian witness had to occur within the secular sphere, not apart from it.
However, there is a key difference in their contexts: Cardijn worked primarily with working-class youth in an industrialized society, while Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison cell. Again, always remember the situation, the cultural influences, and the cause/effect on thinking. Yet both arrived at similar conclusions about how Christians must engage with the world - fully present in secular reality while maintaining a deeper spiritual awareness. (Fast forward to Vatican II and especially Gaudium et Spes.)
Bonhoeffer speaks of living "before God and with God; without God we live," Cardijn might express this idea as the worker-priest fully immersed in labor while preserving their priestly identity. Both recognized that Christian witness necessitates complete engagement with the world's challenges rather than retreat into religious consolation.
This illustrates how both men grasped the incarnational nature of Christianity—God becoming present precisely in what seems to be God's absence, whether on the factory floor (Cardijn) or in a prison cell (Bonhoeffer).