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Christianity essay plans for OCR Religious Studies
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OCR Developments in Christian Thought essay plansBonhoeffer
What should a Christian do when a key part of their religion is undermined by the
law?
Hitler: 1933 signed a Concorde with the pope to say that he wont interfere with
the church
- 1937: started attacking the churches, creating Hitler youth
- 1939: merged the Protestant and nazi’s together.
Nazi ideology was infiltrated into the church. Hitler was seen as the leader
alongside jesus. National socialism.
Even the Nazi Aryan case was promoted by church: no ministers with Jewish
ancestry
Difference between faith and religion
Faith: persons belief in God
Religion: institutions and power structures
Religion less faith: a new age where Christianity would exist without corrupted
ideas
No rusty swords.
Bonhoeffer created a breakaway church to keep his core values
- Value church community
- Promote ethical responsibility for others
- Focus on discipleship and what this sacrifices
He accused German Christian’s of
- Not confessing their faith
- Not being a disciple
- Not following the commands of God
The confessing church rejected anti Jewish laws.
In Finkenwalde: establish seminary for priests to be trained free from Nazi regime
Bonhoeffer lived under the word of God in the confessing church, it was a way to
provide the caring service of the church. A place for community to help spiritually
damaged and persecuted.
He still didn’t think the church was going far enough to voice the concerns of
treatment of Jews
Discipleship: exclusive obedience to the will of God and leadership of Jesus.
‘Cost you your life’ – not comfy Christianity
- Required action (no time for thoughts just action) single minded obedience
- Conscience, reason and responsibility all prevent this
- E.g. civil disobedience
- True disciples are like:
Salt; preserve world from evil and sin, enhance society
Light; the light in the darkness, stand for truth
True discipleship is uncomfortable, involves suffering
- Commit yourself alongside those
,OCR Developments in Christian Thought essay plans
- Adopting the cross, solidarity (existence for others)
Argued Hitler was the anti-Christ, believed to have joined plot to assassinate him
He said one must break the Christian decision of following the authority.
Grace: Gods love and mercy given free to people
- Forgiveness of sins
- Afterlife
- Not a reward but a gift
Cheap grace: the view that God will save everyone (Christian’s)
- Those who live an easy and comfortable Christian life
- The enemy of the church
- Must drop everything for God
Costly grace:
- ‘the treasure in the hidden field’
- You should gladly sacrifice anything for God
- Grace has to be truly earned
Solidarity: living in existence for others
Wanted to suffer with the people
Why he got involved with resistance – lead to his killing by Gestapo (linked to
Jesus)
The Barmen Declaration
The church should resist any attempts to subordinate the gospel to political
ideologies of human authorities (Nazi)
He thought our minds are too finite to understand God, therefore Hitler shows
this corruption of human sin
Must stick to bible
, OCR Developments in Christian Thought essay plans
The Bible is the only way to truly know God
Definitions
The bible as…
- Verbally inspired = word-of-word from God directly
- Divinely inspired = based off God in conjunctions with ideas of the period
Response
The bible is not the only way to truly know God as he can be accessed via
Natural Theology or our human reason instead
Point 1
The natural world can be a ‘point of contact’ between God and humanity
Evidence
Calvin coined the term ‘point of contact’ which argues that nature is the link
between humans and God
Calvin used two metaphors depicting the natural world
1. ‘Is a mirror in which we can contemplate god’
2. ‘a theatre for the display of divine attributes’
Brummer would support Calvin’s theology as Calvin’s ‘sparks of the divine’ made
Brummer believe that these sparks, found in nature, are an essential element of
coming to know God
Analysis
Strong = accounts for the epistemic distance that separates humanity, but does
not (as a by-product) make knowledge of God unattainable, which is important
for most Christians
‘sparks’ means that there are ubiquitous opportunities to understand God
through nature, which is strong as nature, too, is everywhere, so accessible to all
Therefore, knowledge of God can come from other aspects of the world and not
only the bible
Counter
Barth argues a concept known as fideism (belief that nothing can be known
about God except what is directly revealed)
Barth argues that NT relies too heavily on interpretation which does not fit with
humanity’s sinful and corrupt natures that can never obtain knowledge of God
Rather, Christians should look to Jesus as the Word of God, thus the New
Testament reveals knowledge of God since Jesus is the final revelation and the
incarnation of god’s logos
Evaluation
Weak = the idea that we cannot ever know God is nonsensical
Calvin in his Principle of Accommodation states god wants humans to know him
and displays himself in a way in which is accessible to our finite minds which is
stronger as is accounts for the obvious dissimilarity between humans and god
without alienating god from humanity (which in turn may reduce number of
followers as Christians would never have any idea as to what they are following,
so beliefs seem somewhat meaningless)
Thus, natural theology is important, and the bible gives only accounts of
attitudes of the time rather than knowledge of God that is not in-sink with
modern day society
Point 2
God gave humans the ability to reason for knowledge of God to be obtained
Evidence
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