Polyphonic presence: Welker, God the Revealed, review part 2

[picture from here, bears no relation to review, but I like it! Listen here if you're into prog rock.]

Welker (MW) begins with Bonhoeffer, and what MW describes as Bonhoeffer's two legacies. First that "only the suffering God can help us" (p16-18) and second that the kingdom of God encompasses all of human life, that Christian life is essentially "multidimensional, polyphonic" in opposition to the "one-track thinking" of those without faith (p24-27).

While the first "legacy" is part of a well worn theology of the cross, dating back at least to Tertullian and continuing after Bonhoeffer with the likes of Heidegger and Moltman (p17), the second legacy has "hardly been discussed" (p23).

However, MW argues that the two legacies taken together provide a solution for Bonhoeffer's perplexing critique of religion. Bonhoeffer, he argues, refers in his critique of religion to the "religious strategy" that tries to maintain a place for God or religion in or against the world and so God becomes "a merely marginal figure, a fringe phenomenon at the boundaries" (p26).

Again MW finishes by raising questions and problems, which hopefully he will solve for us over the course of the book. "How does God encounter us in multidimensional, polyphonic reality–in the suffering Christ and in the inconspicuousness of the coming reign?" (p27).

I feel a little uneasy reading Bonhoeffer's account of the polyphonic life as something uniquely Christian. If Christian faith makes multidimensional life possible, and I think it does, then that doesn't preclude other ways of achieving it. What Bonhoeffer seems to be critiquing is the people around him in extremis and the way they react in survival mode (p24, citing DBWE 8, 404). This seems a little harsh, given the circumstances of wartime Berlin. The ability to have a wider perspective on life than the one thing in front of you is one of emotional maturity, but it isn't dependent on being a Christian. That's not to say I don't think the idea of polyphonic life isn't worth fleshing out from a Christian POV. Or that Christian polyphonic life wouldn't be distinctive. It will be interesting to see where MW goes from here.

My other question, which I'll have to ask someone else for answer to, is if this idea of "polyphonic life " is so significant to B why have so few people explored it? If I find out, I'll let you know.

Let me know what you think :-)