CHEAP GRACE

This reflection, an introduction, aims to explore Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the term because he articulated it most famously in his 1937 “Nachfolge”, translated as “The Cost of Discipleship”, written as a critique of Nazism and a complacent Lutheran church. Another reflection will explore the Catholic understanding of the term. 

Independent of differences, the need to discuss this theme is obvious, because God’s graciousness is abused by transforming it into a comfortable, easy commodity whereby a faith that challenges our affirmations, lifestyles and values is downplayed. It is mistaken to limit this laissez-faire attitude to the laity: the real crisis underlying religious life and priesthood is our complacency, which prevents a radical rethinking of our charisma.   

Cheap grace concerns “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship). 

What Bonhoeffer intends by ‘cheap grace’ concerns an inability to establish or sustain an inter-relationship with Christ: indeed, for many, it’s not even considered; many experience Christ as a one-night stand where love is neither desired nor sought.  

This affirmation is not far-fetched: long queues for communion but not for confession; presuming the right to baptise but not the intention to pass on the faith. Our complacency as a believing community reduces faith to cultural identity, where personal conversion is not emphasised.  

Cheap grace manifests itself in the grace we bestow on ourselves, which does not necessitate the values and choices demanded by faith. Lacking humility, convinced of our righteousness, dismissing our prideful attitude, we disdain others (Luke 18,9-14). 

As a believing community, we must be careful not to offer reassurances that ignore sin: the need for repentance, which challenges us to responsible accountability by gratifying our conscience through religious practices, that ignore our need to identify with Christ through personal conversion..

God’s grace is primarily manifested in wealth and good health: a costless transaction for personal gain, no questions asked. We focus on being nice to others without considering how this implies a call for holiness illumined by the cross. Hence, our identity as Christians is determined by tradition and cultural identity, rather than by a transformative commitment to Christ. 

Bonhoeffer warns us that a costless grace is worth nothing: a deceptive understanding of faith that prohibits a personal relationship with Christ because it creates the illusion that we can follow Him without the cost involved in our search to love as He loved, to be just in our dealings, merciful in our interpersonal relationships, to seek holiness in our fragility.


Martin


  

  


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