Letters Papers From Prison

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience - and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a

And we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur. And this is just what we do recognize - before God! God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without

I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous on

the power of some needs the folly of the others.

Why is it that in

From the centre of life certain questions, and their answers, are seen to be wholly irrelevant (I’m thinking of the judgment pronounced on Job’s friends). In Christ there are no ‘Christian problems’. - Enough of this; I’ve just been disturbed again.

When we tolerate impudence for the sake of material comforts, then we abandon our self-respect, the flood-gates are opened, chaos bursts the dam that we were to defend; and we are responsible for it all.

Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of wholesome reserve between man and man, we shall perish in an anarchy of human values.

I’m trying to draw a sharp contrast between trust, loyalty, and secrecy on the one hand, and the ‘cynical’ conception of truth, for which all these obligations do not exist, on the other. ‘Falsehood’ is the destruction of, and hostility to, reality as it is in God; anyone who tells the truth cynically is lying. By the way, it’s remarkable how littl