The Reformational

Religion, Myth, and Christian Faith: Bonhoeffer Reads Bultmann

In one of his letters, Bonhoeffer writes, "My opinion of it today would be that [Bultmann] went not 'too far' as most people thought, but rather not far enough." He is speaking of Bultmann's emphasis on demythologizing the New Testament. What does Bultmann mean by mythology, and how does it relate to Bonhoeffer's call for a religionless Christian faith? That's the focus of this episode.

The God of Unbelievers: Bonhoeffer and Religionless Christianity

In one of his letters, Bonhoeffer says that he finds it easier to talk about God with unbelievers than religious people. Religion, for Bonhoeffer, is an abstraction that distracts us from human life. In Jesus Christ, we discover God at the center of human life, not the periphery. In Jesus Christ God calls us to live as human beings, which means taking responsibility for our lives. This episode explores what he means, and wonders whether Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity provides an antidote to the shallow spirituality of our present age.

Bonhoeffer and the Future of Christian Faith

Bonhoeffer writes a letter to his friend’s baby on the day of his baptism. The letter explores the future of Christian faith—how the church must change following the violence of war. He focuses on the language of faith—how do we talk about Christian faith using words and concepts that have been rendered meaningless? What happens when phrases, practices, and institutions, are co-opted by ideology? Bonhoeffer’s questions apply just as much to today as they did at the end of the war. How will we talk about Christian faith after the election of 2024 with the polarization, violence, and co-opting of religion? This episode explores all this and more.

Religionless Christianity: Bonhoeffer, Faith, and Following Jesus into the World

As he sat in prison, Bonhoeffer asked important questions about what the war and its aftermath would mean for Christianity. Belief in God had provided justification for World War I, and the result was catastrophic as Christians violently tore each other apart. Sitting in prison, Bonhoeffer had no such illusions about this war. Hitler had co-opted the institutional churches in Germany, but religion was not used as justification for war in the same way. The question for Bonhoeffer: How do we talk about God after the “death of God”?

Chalcedon and the Doctrine of the Trinity

How do the views of the person of Jesus Christ relate to the doctrine of the Trinity? This episode explores how early Christians made sense of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, and how this shaped the Trinitarian views in the East and West. 

Liberation Theologies

In the middle of the 20th century, a Peruvian priest names Gustavo Gutierrez wrote an important book A Theology of Liberation that provided a critique of Western theology. This episode explores a few of the main themes of this book and the importance of liberation theology.

Theology After the Death of God: Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann

How do we do theology after the death of God? This episode focuses on the meaning of Nietzsche's proclamation of God's death, and how both Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann provide a theological perspective grounded in the 20th century.

Liberal Theology and the Fundamentalist Response

What does theology look like in a post Cartesian / post Kantian world? How do we makes sense of "liberal theology" and its "fundamentalist" response? This episode talks about the developments in theology post reformation. 

The Radical Reformation and the Council of Trent

The Anabaptist wing of the Reformation did not believe Luther and Calvin went far enough. They believed that every part of life, not just the church, should be reimagined according to the New Testament pattern. This episode will explore these ideas, as well as the Catholic response to the Reformation known as the Council of Trent.

John Calvin's Theology

John Calvin was a Frenchman trained in law who became a big player in the Reformation. Who was John Calvin and what did he believe? This episode explores central themes of Calvin's theology.