I find this next Bonhoeffer quote of great interest to people sometimes described as “spiritual, but not religious.” Actually, I am a Presbyterian who writes on contemplative spiritual matters that might appeal to those of emerging or blended faith. Despite my interests, I feel vaguely disconnected from the vocally religious, sensing more of a loving kinship with those open to faith but perplexed by it too.

Here’s what Bonhoeffer said. This is also from 1944.

“I often ask myself why a Christian instinct frequently draws me more to the religionless than to the religious, by which I mean not with any intention of evangelizing them, but rather, I might almost say in brotherhood. While I often shrink with religious people from speaking of God by name–because that Name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I strike myself as rather dishonest (it is especially bad when others start talking in religious jargon; then I dry up completly and feel somehow oppressed and ill at ease)-with people who have no religion I am able to speak of God quite openly and as it were naturally.”