A Jewish friend of mine told me a number of years ago that Judaism is the only monotheistic religion in which one can be both a faithful member and an atheist. It struck me as an obvious overstatement, but over the years I have returned to her observation, because it says something very interesting both about Judaism and faith in general. As I\u2019ve learned more and more about Judaism over the years, my friend\u2019s comment has made more sense. Judaism is an \u201corthopraxic\u201d faith, one based on right practice rather than on right belief, where orthodox religions tend to focus. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth, said in an interrview,<\/p>\n
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[Jews] believe in salvation every day. We believe that salvation comes through good deeds. Not through faith. That\u2019s not to say that God isn\u2019t the fundamental motivation why you do things. But we believe that we have a personal responsibility for our actions and accountability to God . . . Jews believe that God expects you to do good in the world. That you are His partner.<\/strong><\/p>\n Partnership with God is a significantly different perspective than obedience to the divine. Reflecting on this over time has incrementally changed how I conceive of my Christian faith.<\/p>\n I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago as we spent several classes in my \u201cGrace, Truth, and Freedom in the Nazi Era\u201d colloquium on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis in 1945 for his role in a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The execution took place less than a month before the end of World War II. Bonhoeffer spent close to two years in prison before his execution; his letters from prison sketch a very different understanding of Christianity than the Protestantism that he was taught and that he preached in his younger years. In a letter to his friend Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer writes<\/p>\n God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us. The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually.<\/strong><\/p>\n Bonhoeffer also writes that<\/p>\n Our being Christians today will be limited to two things: prayer and action for justice on behalf of people. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action.<\/strong><\/p>\n It is passages such as these that cause people to say that Bonhoeffer was imagining a \u201creligionless Christianity\u201d as he awaited his death in prison. Sort of like my friend\u2019s \u201catheistic Judaism\u201d\u2014out of the traditional box, but food for thought.<\/p>\n For someone raised in a very different religious atmosphere, such ideas can be disorienting. One of the most difficult aspects of my fundamentalist, evangelical Protestant upbringing was its focus on what will happen in the future (after I die, after Jesus returns) rather than on our daily lives. We used to joke about Christians who \u201care so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good,\u201d but it regularly struck me that we were exactly the people we were joking about. Our theology was so cluttered with various apocalyptic and eschatological speculation about the \u201cend times\u201d that, apart from some iron clad rules about what we should not be doing in our daily lives (smoking, drinking, going to movies, dancing), I recall little guidance about how to be a person of Christian faith in the middle of a world that, as we were regularly reminded, we were to be \u201cin\u201d but not \u201cof.\u201d<\/p>\n I was taught that \u201cworks\u201d were useless when seeking to establish a relationship with God, but was surprised to learn as an adult that some Christians agree more with Rabbi Sacks and perhaps even with Dietrich Bonhoeffer than with the evangelicals with whom I was raised. What one supposedly believes is demonstrated not by what one says or \u201cprofesses,\u201d but by what one does\u2014as a former famous Jew once said, \u201cBy their fruits you shall know them.\u201d And the idea of being partners with the divine? Very attractive (and challenging).<\/p>\n Which brings me back to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I first became aware of him several years ago when I listened to Krista Tippett interview him on her NPR show \u201cOn Being.\u201d Since then I have read several of his books and have been attracted by his ability to remain faithful to his own religion while advocating that \u201cno one creed has a monopoly on spiritual truth,\u201d a perspective that I have long wished to find more of among Christians. When asked whether his faith has given him a sense of certitude and truth, Sacks responded \u201cNo, not at all.\u201d On the contrary, his faith has made his life more nuanced and confusing; \u201cI live with ambivalence continuously.\u201d<\/p>\n