Brian,

	You asked for Ray Anderson's message to be reposted

Regards

John




Dear Collegues:

At the risk of offering what might seem like a rather tendentious lecture, I
offer the following comments as a response to the recent discussion of
spirituality by John S. and John D. 

In a work that is extraordinary in light of his youth and precocious insight,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, at the age of 21, wrote his doctoral dissertation at the
University of Berlin. In my judgment, this dissertation accomplishes what no
other work since has achieved in the integration of spirituality, sociality,
and human personhood. Spirit, he wrote, is necessarily created in community,
and the general spirituality of persons is woven into the net of sociality.
"In summary, human spirit in its entirety is woven into sociality and rests on
the basic-relation of I and You. (Sanctorum Communio [Communion of Saints],
1927, first published, 1930 (Fortress Press; 1998 edition, pp. 73f; pp. 43-44
1st edition)
Because spirit is first of all a social reality  rooted in the nature of human
personhood, Bonhoeffer can argue that the social structure of human personhood
is intrinsically spiritual. The Spirit of God does not constitute something
alongside of, or merely inside of, a person as an individual. Rather, the
Spirit of God joins the human spirit at the core of its social reality. Human
spirituality is the core of the self as it becomes a self through social
relations with others. The bi-directional nature of human spirituality is
represented by the two great commandments first stated in the Old Testament
and then reiterated by Jesus (Matthew 22:38-39; Deut 6:5; Lev. 19:18).
As originally created by God, social spirituality reflects the divine image
and likeness constitutive of human personhood. Even as the individual self
exists as structurally open to the spirit of another person, it is
structurally open to the Spirit of God. When we speak of spirituality as a
relation with God we are speaking of the social spirituality which is
constitutive of the human person, not a religious instinct, feeling or
practice. Social spirituality is what makes religion possible. Social
spirituality is not only the source of authentic relation with God, it is the
first casualty of sin and in need of redemption. God, therefore, is not a
reality added to the social relation, but the reality of God constitutes that
relation; consequently, God, persons and community intrinsically cohere in the
concrete social relation. 

As to the ecological construct of spirituality, alluded to by John Swinton and
expressed more fully by John Drane, Bonhoeffer said this: 

"Without God, without his brother, man loses the earth. In his sentimental
backing away from dominion over the earth, man has always lost God and his
brother. God, our brother, and the earth belong together. . . . From the
beginning the way of man to the earth has only been possible as God's way to
man. . . . Man's being-free-for God and the other person and his being-free-
from the creature in his dominion over it is the image of God in the first
man." (Creation and Fall, London: SCM Press, 1959,  p. 38} "Body is the

existence-form of spirit, as spirit is the existence-form of body. . . . The
human body is distinguished from all nonhuman bodies by being the existence-
form of God's Spirit on earth." (Creation and Fall, p. 46).

Later, Bonhoeffer was to develop his concept of spirituality more fully
through his lectures on Christology. The "truth," them, as John Drane
suggested, is not dispensable along with a "modern" view of reality, but is
grounded in God’s "real presence" in authentic human spirituality. Bonhoeffer
might be considered to be somewhat of a postmodernist—don’t you think?

Ray Anderson



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