detached?

The difference remains, however, and is between being, or at least striving to be, what one admires—and being personally detached. Let us now completely forget this danger connected with confessing Christ and think rather of the danger of actuality that is inescapably bound up with being Christian. Does not Christian teaching about ethics and obligation, Christianity’s requirement to die to the world, to surrender the earthly, its requirement of self-denial, does this not contain enough requirements—if they were to be obeyed—to produce the danger of actuality that makes manifest the difference between an admirer and an imitator, makes it manifest precisely in this way, that the imitator has his life in these dangers and the admirer personally remains detached although they both are nevertheless united in acknowledging in words the truth of Christianity? Thus the difference still remains. The admirer will make no sacrifices, renounce nothing, give up nothing earthly, will not transform his life, will not be what is admired, will not let his life express it—but in words, phrases, assurances he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christianity.

Practice in Christianity