https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1011-76012018000100013
I think I first encountered JAT Robinson (1919-1983) and discussions of his 1963 work 'Honest to God' in the writings of Francis Schaeffer and authors such as Iain Murray of the Banner of Truth. This would have been back in the mid-1990's.
For those unfamiliar with the discussion, Robinson was the Bishop of Woolwich and while in that office he published 'Honest to God' in which he revealed his doubts about conventional theism. It shocked the Christian world at the time (1963) - a bishop who was effectively (at least according to traditional definitions) an agnostic, if not an outright atheist.
Robinson called for a fundamental shift and redefinition of the concept God. No longer to be viewed as a Divine Being, the term 'god' would be used in reference to the ground of being - in other words a touchpoint (or catch-all) for grounding all discussion of transcendent topics.
While the public was shocked, Lloyd Geering (b.1918 and presently the oldest living person in New Zealand) argues that Robinson was expressing nothing new at all. These ideas were were well known and even well established in academic circles. In many respects all that Robinson did was popularize the ideas of three theologians - Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rudolf Bultmann.
In other words, those trained in the academy had already encountered (and to some extent embraced) these notions but they did not broadcast them as it would upset the people in the pews.
I believe something similar is taking place today with regard to the Evangelical community and its views of Scripture and other issues - but that's for another time and an upcoming series.
Tillich (1886-1965) could be defined as an Existentialist who was interested in 'ultimate questions', but that's as far as his theology could take him - and this despite the fact that he was an esteemed theologian of the era. None of the traditional Christian doctrines were true, but Christianity persisted as a venue for Western cultural discussion of transcendent issues. It was a Christianity without a Christ, cross, or resurrection.
Bultmann (1884-1976) is best know for his programme of de-mythologising Scripture - the removal of all supernatural and miraculous elements, leaving instead a system of ethics. It's ironic but these figures were often critical of 19th century Theological Liberalism and yet retained the basic assumptions. They were a new generation of liberal-modernizers. Denying the supernatural elements of Scripture, they tried to retain something of religion and transcendence - a God who does not speak via revelation and a Christ who was not incarnate nor coming again. Obviously then, the notion of his death being an atonement was also out of bounds - and even offensive to modern humanistic sensibilities.
Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) is famous for dying at Flossenburg at the hands of the Nazis near the end of the war. He had joined in the larger network which plotted to assassinate Hitler and while it could be argued he died a political prisoner, contemporary Evangelicals hail him as a martyr and moral example of Christian activism. Evangelical and Trumpite authors such as Eric Metaxas transform Bonhoeffer and his context into an analogy comparable to today's Christian Right in America and thus the Nazis become the liberals that must be opposed. It's completely misleading and either Metaxas does not understand Bonhoeffer, or he has deliberately sought to mislead his audience and appropriate the legacy of the German theologian.
While Bonhoeffer was critical of those who proclaimed the death of God, the later (1960's) 'Death of God' theologians, in many respects advocated similar ideas and spoke of the conventional and historically formulated idea of God as something outdated, something childish that the adult Church must move beyond. God was not 'dead' per se, but the old conception of 'God of the gaps' was certainly to be dispensed with. They certainly viewed Bonhoeffer as their antecedent. Suffice it to say, Bonhoeffer remains a confusing figure - somewhat akin to Karl Barth, thinkers whose breadth allow them to be 'claimed' and utilized by many different factions.
There are times you can read Bonhoeffer and believe he is a Christian and yet at other times it seems fairly clear that (at least by any traditional norm) he did qualify as one who could make any kind of claim to historic Christian orthodoxy. His 'religionless Christianity' is something other than Biblical. That said, there are times when one reads Bonhoeffer and he seems to be a Christian. But a more careful study reveals that while he was not cut from the atheistic cloth of either Robinson or Tillich, his understanding of the faith falls short of the New Testament gospel.
For all these men, the advent of the Scientific age and Biblical criticism had destroyed the 'enchanted' view of reality that the Church had functioned within throughout its history - a world of the supernatural, one even with supernatural or metaphysical primacy. The new technological world no longer could relate to the world of Biblical saints. And yet they wanted to retain Christianity. They believed that in order to do so they must modernise the faith and re-cast the doctrine of God, the nature of faith, and even ethics. It was (and is) the religion of humanism (in which man is the measure of all things) masquerading as Christianity and utilizing its lexicon - even while all the basic terms and concepts are redefined.
Alasdair MacIntyre was certainly correct in perceiving Robinson's efforts as 'a desperate attempt that cannot succeed', and he rightly described the creed of mainstream English society as 'there is no God and that it is wise to pray to him from time to time.' That's a perfect summation of the contemporary Anglican Church and how figures like the King and other leading political figures relate to it. One might describe it as the creed of someone like Winston Churchill. For men of that stripe, their religion was the British Empire and in that model the purpose of the Anglican Church is to reinforce its value and give them a transcendent stamp - and perhaps to bring moderns into contact and communion with their ancestors by means of shared ritual and historic trappings. One can understand their motivations but this is not the faith of the New Testament.
While many found Robinson's 'honesty' refreshing as he communicated a lack of faith they also shared - the end result was a steep decline in religious attendance. It was already well under way in the UK - the world wars had shattered public faith, but by the 1960's it accelerated. Robinson uttered the words that many believed but few dared speak.
The rest of the article treats the rise of liberal theology with the likes of Friedrich Schleiermacher - whose life and letters reveal the already dire state of European Christianity in the late 18th century. The attempt by Karl Barth and others to rescue supernatural Christianity appeals to many in that he forged a system that allows for both a humanistic (and even materialist) worldview and epistemology to exist alongside transcendence and revelation. God can speak through the Bible but the Bible is not necessarily the Word of God.
As Geering suggests, these were attempts to save Christianity from the two unthinkables - traditional belief or rank atheistic unbelief. The problem is the Barthian alternative has far more in common with the latter than the former and ultimately leads to the same dead end. For others like Bonhoeffer, the way of saving Christianity was to turn it into action, a system of living Christ-like ethics divorced from the theology that undergirded it. Unfortunately a strong case can be made that Bonhoeffer's 'action' was not in accord with the New Testament and (as stated) his death was political in nature, not Christian martyrdom.
While Barth's theology is difficult to categorize and always dynamic, Bonhoeffer's understanding seemed to be humanistic - wherein (like Schleiermacher) theology actually becomes anthropology - and thus psychology and ethics.
Further as Geering discusses the democratization of theology, I'm again driven to look at Bonhoeffer and his understanding of social action and Classical Liberalism's casting of rights and social contract vis-à-vis German fascism. Rather than recognize both to be in error, for Bonhoeffer there was (seemingly) a theological-ethical imperative to not just oppose Hitler in terms of witness but in action - to the point he was part of the larger assassination plot.
Geering's article is helpful in that it connects Bonhoeffer and his thought (and by implication his action) to a body of ideas and thinkers that are completely outside not only traditional orthodox understandings of Christianity but certainly the post-war Evangelicalism someone like Metaxas represents. The fact that Metaxas has migrated over into the Christo-Trumpist camp and its fascistic re-casting of Christianity is all the more ironic. Metaxas believes he is living out the faith of Bonhoeffer and clearly wants Christians to entertain such activism - even to the extremes of assassination plots. Again, Metaxas clearly seemed to imply that such action would be warranted in the face of the Obama administration - and no doubt some future Democratic president.
While we must altogether reject Bonhoeffer's theology, the great irony is that were the man alive today, it's most likely that he would be involved in Christian resistance to Donald Trump. I don't think that's even remotely a stretch and so again Metaxas is revealed to be either a completely misled biographer or worse one who has deliberately set out to mislead. Personally I think it's likely to be a bit of both. The fact that the man considers himself some kind of expert on fascism and yet has thrown in with Trump reveals just how far afield his thinking has strayed.
Unlike Geering I cannot celebrate Robinson, Tillich, Bonhoeffer, or any of these figures. I believe Don Cupitt (1934-2025) to be a blasphemer and I think the entire episode also reveals just how far gone the Anglican Church was even a couple of generations ago. The fact that these figures were able to openly work within its ranks and given the subsequent history of Anglicanism (with its embrace of sodomy and now Sarah Mullally), their efforts to exist as 'Evangelicals' within the fold of Canterbury with an eye to reform seem not only misguided and ill-advised but deluded.