Letters and Papers from Prison is a collection of notes and correspondence covering the period from Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's arrest in 1943 to his execution by the Gestapo in 1945. The book is probably most famous, and most
important, for its idea of "religionless Christianity"--an idea Bonhoeffer did not live long enough fully
to develop, but whose timeliness only increases as the lines between secular and ecclesial life blur. Bonhoeffer's
first mention of "religionless Christianity" came in a letter in 1944:
"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 completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even
those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably
mean something quite different by "religious."