Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a very special book called The Moment of Christian Witness (Ernstfall = decisive moment). I like it because it is biblical, theological and exciting. In part the book is an attack on the 'anonymous Christian' idea of Rahner - that somehow, acts of true Christian love can be meritoriously performed by those who are not expressly or openly Christian. Balthasar writes:
The love of Christ is not only the inner core, and the blood of Christ is not only the outer skin; faith is founded on the unity of the two. And for this reason it is not possible to shelve or postpone the decision to an assent of faith. (p.100)
That is, you cannot split away love as if it has not relation to the cross of Christ. The anonymous Christian on the other hand is dispensed from the criterion of martyrdom...he or she can disown or never own Christ and yet still be 'Christian', it would seem... Balthasar shows by his analysis the indispensibility of martyrdom for thinking about Christian identity.
2 comments:
Nice point. I was just reading a Jüngel essay also attacking the anonymous Christian idea along a similarish line.
well this is getting to be a very important issue: especially in aesthetics. That is, can we look at sublime works of art and not talk of some kind of 'inspiration'?
Hmm.
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