In his foreword to Project 2025, Kevin D. Roberts has dragged Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of grace through a slough of hatred and fear.
Today’s progressive Left so cavalierly supports open borders despite the lawless humanitarian crisis their policy created along America’s southern border . . . no matter how much crime increases or resources drop for schools and hospitals or wages decrease for the working class. Open-borders activism is a classic example of what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace”—publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal inconvenience. . . . “Cheap grace” aptly describes the Left’s love affair with environmental extremism. Those who suffer most from the policies environmentalism would have us enact are the aged, poor, and vulnerable. It is not a political cause, but a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.
At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human. . . . They would stand human affairs on their head, regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature. [Emphases added]
Roberts thinks that “cheap grace” consists of virtue signaling in which someone can stand for a just cause, appear to be virtuous, but not actually take any personal risk. He might be right in his definition of “cheap grace,” but does he really understand Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer’s source (the Apostle Paul), or the issues of our time? Is Roberts “bastardizing” the idea of grace to promote his own callous agenda, thereby not only proving to be a hypocrite but also theologically illiterate?
In his letter to the community in Galatia, Paul states that grace—charis—is a free gift from God in Christ. “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1), Paul claims, but the nature of freedom in Christ lives in the integrity of the body of Christ. To live in the body of Christ, to be involved in grace, is to live a nonviolent life centered on distributive justice. Life in the body of Christ affords a grace that counteracts the escalatory violence of “normal” Roman culture. Paul’s refusal to honor the emperor of Rome prior to partaking in the community meal (Gal 2:11–21 ) is what sparked heated arguments between Paul and the “so-called” pillars (leaders) of Jerusalem.[1] Peter sided with the Jerusalem leaders, and Paul called Peter a hypocrite for bowing to imperial customs. Paul called Peter out on what Bonhoeffer would call “cheap grace.” Peter talked the talk, but as soon as the leaders from Jerusalem showed up, he did not walk the walk.
As Bonhoeffer would define it, to follow Jesus into a life of nonviolent distributive justice is costly grace. In Bonhoeffer’s words, “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy, [for] which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”[2]
In simple words, grace is the confidence that regardless of who one is or what one believes, all of humanity is worthy of inclusion in a universe where nonviolent distributive justice prevails. Distributive justice is radical fairness. No one is left out. No one is exploited for the personal gain of someone else. When Jesus’ disciples wondered what to do about the hungry crowd on a hillside near the lake, Jesus said, “You feed them” (Mark 6:37). The metaphor of feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish is a preposterous parable of sharing what one has with those who have nothing, of assuring the health and safety of others. In Project 2025, Roberts turns this basic Christian teaching upside down. In Roberts’ version of Christianity, when you see the poor, the desperate, and the hungry, deport them! How is this grace? This is rather cheap grace because it amounts to the act of acknowledging a crisis and finding the solution in fear.
The foreword to Project 2025 presents the argument that since Jesus paid the price for our sins, we are free to undertake self-serving actions with his blessings. This duplicity is directly contrary to Bonhoeffer. Costly grace requires self-sacrificial service, but Roberts advocates cheap grace where selfish gains are acquired at the expense of others’ suffering.
Cheap grace is 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. (Ibid.)
Choosing to live within the grace of God is not easy.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. . . . Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow . . . Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life. . . . It is costly because it condemns sin. . . . Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son . . . and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. (Ibid.)
In Genesis 1:27, humanity is created in the image and the likeness of God, which means all human beings share in the very essence of the universe. We all participate in radical fairness where God shows no partiality and where the sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Life is the gift of the universe, and we all participate in that gift, that charis, that free grace. Cheap grace takes hold when the risk of sharing with others is changed to the threat of others. This is cheap grace because it takes no effort and no risk to blame others for our problems. This is the exact opposite of what Bonhoeffer spoke about when he spoke about grace, but blaming others is exactly what Project 2025 is all about.
[1] Brandon Scott, The Real Paul: Recovering His Radical Challenge, Salem: Polebridge Press, 2015, pp. 79–87.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Macmillan, NY, 2nd edition 1976, p. 47.
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