Reading Karl Barth: Theology That Cuts Both Ways

By Chris Boesel

Reading Karl Barth provides a cluster of major themes and signposts by which to orient one's reading of Barth's theology. It assists readers in (a) recognizing and understanding what Barth is doing theologically and why and how he is doing it; and (b) assessing the extent to which Barth's theology is or is not a fruitful resource for their own context, as individuals and communities of faith. The distinctive value of the book's approach lies in its demonstration of the ways in which Barth's theology--in both his own time and in ours--"cuts both ways," to the theological left and right. This involves identifying various theological logics that constitute the diverse and conflictual landscape of shared Christian identity and faith--both in Barth's time and in our own--enabling readers to recognize not only where and why Barth is located in that landscape, but also where and why they themselves are located, together with their respective faith communities. This makes the book of particular interest to individuals and communities of faith who feel themselves homeless in today's polemical polarization between theological conservatives and theological progressives, especially those who are hungry for the possibility of a progressive socio-political vision of the gospel rooted in relatively traditional confessions of Christian faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781498200356

Chris Boesel

Chris Boesel is associate professor of Christian theology at Drew Theological School in New Jersey. His work focuses on Kierkegaardian and Barthian approaches to confessional Christian faith and its relation to progressive ethical commitments to social justice in dialogue with liberation theologies and postmodern philosophies. He is the author of Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference: Christian Faith, Imperialistic Discourse, and Abraham.

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Introduction

Audience, Goals, and Scope

This introduction to the theology of Karl Barth is intended as a guide for theologically invested readers interested in serious engagement with Barth’s work, for either personal or vocational reasons. Its general goal is to introduce readers to key theological assumptions, decisions, themes, and commitments that drive Barth’s theology. It is a guidebook offering resources for understanding Barth’s theological vision and work as well as for assessing the pertinence of his theology to the reader’s own context. It suggests a cluster of interpretive keys and signposts that will assist readers in recognizing the primary thematic and methodological movements in his work—in seeing what Barth is doing, having a sense of why he is doing it (in and for his own time and place), and assessing what it might mean for us, as readers of Barth early in the twenty-first century.¹ An early hint at a key theme: for Barth, Christian faith and its theology are always directed—directed by the free, living Word of God by which it is encountered, if and when it hears that Word—to address the concrete challenges and possibilities of the here and now, of concrete contemporary contexts in all their distinctive particularity, complexity, and urgency.²

I attempt to be faithful to Barth’s intentions, as I understand them, as he diagnoses what he believed to be the dangers, challenges, opportunities, and requirements of his own historical and theological context for faithful Christian witness to the gospel—again, as he understood it—and attempts to respond appropriately. The book also asks what those intentions, diagnoses, and the resulting concrete theological decisions and interventions might mean for us if we take Barth on as a theological conversation partner and resource, whether we read him generously, critically, or what is generally to be preferred, some relatively robust combination of both.

Ultimately, then, the primary audience for the book is the theologically interested pastor, layperson, and church congregation caught up in the daily struggles of life and of faith. It is for those attempting to discern the meaning of the gospel in and for the neighborhood, city, society, and world, and for their own lives as Christians living out their faith in those concrete contexts, in the struggles—sometimes mundane, sometimes historic—of discerning faithful and responsible (albeit always broken and sinful) Christian witness. Barth understood this witness to be focused on, bound to, and determined by (a) the unequivocal and uncompromisable goodness of the news about Jesus, and (b) the life of enacted belief which that news calls forth in creative Christian freedom and responsibility, communal and individual, to and for the broken world. Hint number two: for Barth, theology—even doctrinal/dogmatic theology—is never solely about nor completed with the sorting out of what the church believes, confesses, and proclaims in creeds and doctrinal standards and books of theology. It always also necessarily involves asking and answering the question: What then shall we do? How should we then live, here and now?³

The primary interest of the book, then, as introduction and companion to Barth’s work, is in his theology’s pertinence to the lives and faith of Christians and churches struggling to be living communities of witness in word and deed, in and for the neighborhood, society, and world. This means doing two things. First, it means assisting the reader in discovering and appreciating those dimensions in Barth’s work that might yet function as life-affirming resources in resistance to destructive theological, ecclesial, and socio-political principalities and powers facing churches and societies today. Second, it means assisting the reader in recognizing and critically assessing all the ways in which Barth’s theology is seen as both theologically and ethically problematic by both more conservative and more progressive theologians and persons of faith. This is particularly important in relation to all the destructive theological, ecclesial, and socio-political realities we are so painfully aware of in our own time that Barth—as a child of his times, despite his efforts to diagnose and critique those times in light of what he saw as the prophetic word of the gospel—did not see or feel the need to address, critique, and resist.

As important as it is to understand what Barth was doing and why in his own context, it is equally important to understand what so many contemporary readers of Barth find highly problematic in his theology, and why. Ultimately, of course, readers of this book and of Barth’s own work have to come to their own assessment of how and to what extent Barth is friend or foe for churches and Christians today—and for everyone else!—and what he offers for their understanding of the life and work of faith in and for the world.

All cards on the table, then. The reader will find a generous reading of Barth in these pages. I am making a pitch, here. I want to propose that Barth’s theology can function as a resource for Christians and churches today, particularly in all our conflictual diversity and polarization, and particularly in relation to the task of hearing and discerning anew (or, for many, what may feel like the first time) both the unequivocal goodness and universal embrace of the gospel news about Jesus, and the radically embodied life of concrete historical—social, political, economic—action and commitment that news calls the church into as a witnessing community in and for the world. (Another confession, then: I am more interested, both personally and with the writing of this book, in the ways in which Barth can be read as a theological resource for hearing the goodness of the news about Jesus—the news that God is unequivocally and irrevocably for all, but through the eye of a very specific and historically concrete needle: the last, first!—than in faithfulness to the letter of Barth’s theology for its own sake.) At the same time, I hope to be clear about the ways in which this is a very hard sell for many, both on the theological left and the theological right of Barth. Barth—as with any theologian, historical or contemporary—can only function as a resource for churches and Christians today when generous readings proceed by way of critical engagement.

A General Audience, with an Eye to a Particular Reader: The Perplexed Progressive/Post-Evangelical

Beyond being a general introduction to Barth for a general audience, the book also has a more specific goal and a more specific audience. The more specific goal is to show how Barth provides resources for a particular theological and ethical possibility for today’s Christians and churches that I believe is sorely needed in our ever more divisive and polemical climate, both in the churches and the nations. It is a possibility that is as widely overlooked as it is sorely needed: the possibility of a life of faith that is theologically traditional (relatively) and socio-politically progressive (in an ad hoc kind of way).

This brings us to the more specific audience that may find this introduction to Barth most interesting and most pertinent to the challenges of their particular context. I use the terms progressive evangelical or post-evangelical loosely and provisionally, without wanting to be limited by them, to locate the general ballpark of a certain kind of Christian experience. These terms are useful in this context for two reasons. First, they refer to what is likely to be a recognizable phenomenon for most Christians today, regardless of theological identity, and so function as a quick and efficient way to gesture toward the particular kind of Christian folk I have in mind. Second, having been raised and formed in and by a conservative evangelical community, I have found Barth to be a guide to my own perplexity with regard to the possibilities of wider, more inclusive, and more socio-politically progressive visions of the gospel news about Jesus. This personal experience determines my understanding and approach to Barth in ways that are likely to make this introduction to his work particularly pertinent to others shaped and marked in some way by what is generally referred to today as evangelicalism.

Beyond the limitations of these particular terms, the specific audience that I have in mind are Christian individuals, communities, and churches of any stripe who are relatively traditional theologically, i.e., in their confession of faith about Jesus and the gospel, yet find the conservative socio-political visions and commitments traditionally attached to and funded by that confession—for example, within the conservative white evangelicalism in the United States that has allowed itself to be co-opted as the most reliable demographic base of the Republican party and of what has become known as Trumpism—increasingly difficult to stomach. They find themselves increasingly attracted by more progressive socio-political visions of what the good news about Jesus means for creaturely life together on this planet, increasingly hungry for a gospel that, for example—recognizing what James Cone and others have helped us see as the unmistakable resonance between the cross and the lynching tree—is compelled by the urgency and necessity of the Black Lives Matter movement and prophetically critical of the idolatry of the Make America Great Again movement.⁴

However—and this is the perplexing part—the theological alternatives most commonly identified with those progressive socio-political visions are themselves progressive, involving what appear to be relatively radical and comprehensive reconstruction and sometimes rejection of central themes and commitments of traditional Christian faith. This leads to the commonly held assumption and expectation, on both sides of the theological spectrum, that one must become theologically progressive in order to be socio-politically progressive, that is, in order to have any theological grounds for committing to and living out progressive socio-political visions of the gospel as Christians and as churches.

This assumption and expectation results in two forms of perplexity for these increasingly progressively-minded people of traditional, confessional Christian faith. (a) For those who are not ready to give up the concrete content of their traditional confession of faith about God’s redemption of the sinful world in Jesus (through the Spirit), it can seem as though the socio-political visions they find themselves increasingly compelled by and drawn to remain out of reach. (b) For others, also feeling the only option is to choose between traditional faith and progressive socio-political commitments, they reach a tipping point where the latter becomes too compelling to resist, and they let go of traditional Christian confession when—if they were aware of a viable alternative, such as is made visible by Barth’s theology—they may not necessarily choose to do so. At the heart of this double-edged perplexity is the assumption that the theological spectrum of conservative-to-progressive is necessarily the same as the socio-political spectrum. Of course, it has often played out—and still does play out—this way historically, unfortunately. But it does not have to be this way. The theological and the socio-political are always essentially related and mutually implicating, but not always in the ways our habits of thinking and acting have led us to assume and expect.⁵

Consequently, this book offers an introduction and guide to Barth’s theology that also addresses this perplexing blind spot. In doing so, it provides theologically traditional Christians the possibility of seeing how progressive socio-political visions and commitments can be rooted in (relatively) traditional confessions of the gospel news about God’s redeeming action in and for the world in Jesus, through the Spirit.

Of course, Barth’s is not the only theology that offers and enacts this possibility. This is a possibility that neither originates with nor is exclusive to Barth’s theological vision and work. In the modern Anglo-European traditions, there are the Blumhardts (from whom Barth learned much), early Christian socialists (also an influence on Barth), the Mennonites, certain dimensions of Roman Catholic social teaching and its radical practitioners, such as Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin; included in the Roman Catholic tradition are liberation theologians from the southern hemisphere, most notably from Latin America, who see revolutionary political and economic commitments to be consistent with the teachings of the church and Scripture; in the various Black church traditions, producing civil rights leaders and activists, from Sojourner Truth to Martin Luther King Jr., there has always been a strong social dimension to the gospel, unlike most white evangelical traditions, particularly in relation to racism and poverty.⁶

Additionally, it must be said that Barth’s work is wholly inadequate to this task when read on its own, especially in the hands of white, straight, economically privileged, cis-gendered males like me. Barth’s work must not simply be supplemented by the voices of liberation, feminist, womanist, queer, disability, and eco theologies, but challenged, corrected, instructed, and often resisted by those voices and the experience and theological wisdom of the communities from which they emerge. This is absolutely necessary for Barth’s best insights to be opened up to and function as a resource for the full depth and breadth of the socio-political goodness of the news about Jesus that Barth himself catches glimpses of within his own historical context. So, for the perplexed progressive evangelicals or post-evangelicals out there, together with any and all theologically traditional Christians thirsting for a vision of the radical social, political, and economic dimensions of the gospel news about Jesus, if you have not yet engaged liberation theologies, put down this book and read James Cone, Delores Williams, Gustavo Gutierrez, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Audre Lorde, Carter Heyward, and Nancy Eiesland—and this is just for starters; these are all publically recognized pillars of mid- to late-twentieth-century liberationist revolutions in theology, leaving both much researching and much catching up to do. Then pick this book back up along with whatever work by Barth you have on the shelf or got for Christmas and we can get to work.

1

. For a model of this approach, see Hunsinger, How to Read Barth. For another substantive introduction to Barth’s theology, see Busch, Great Passion.

2

. For Barth, revelation is always a concrete event that always occurs here and now (sic et nunc), which is always a new, living occurrence of what has occurred once for all, there and then (illic et tunc). See, for example, Barth, Dogmatics I/

1

,

148

ff.; Barth, Proclamation Here and Now.

3

. White evangelicals who were paying attention in the late

1970

s will recognize this reference to Francis Schaeffer’s book (and film series); see Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? Barth’s diagnosis of the maladies of twentieth

-

century Western culture, and prescription for what Christians and churches are called to do about it, are very different than Schaeffer’s, while both purport to root their respective visions in the good news of the gospel. The subtitle of part

3

is taken from Schaeffer’s book, an ironic highlighting of the divergence in their views of the gospel and what it might mean for concrete Christian ethical life.

4

. See Cone, Cross and Lynching Tree.

5

. Dorothy Day and Walker Percy are examples of modern figures in the Roman Catholic tradition who attempted to inhabit this underpopulated territory of faith, in differing ways. However, Percy, like Barth, was not able to carry the theologically traditional/socio-politically progressive commitment consistently through to its implications for gender and sexuality, and was always more of a Southern moderate than a true progressive on race. Both Percy and Day remained on the conservative side of the abortion issue, as well. See Elie, Life You Save.

6

. Regarding the Blumhardts’s influence on Barth, see Winn, Jesus Is Victor! I refer to Black churches and Black church traditions in the plural in light of conversations with my colleague, the Rev. Dr. Gary Simpson. He believes the traditional reference to the Black church erases important multiplicities and differences among Black churches and Black folks of Christian faith.

Part 1

Approaching Barth’s Theology

What Is Theology about and What Is at Stake?

1

I’ve Got One Word for You: Jesus Christ

When approaching Barth’s theology, I believe our chances of understanding what he is doing and why are increased if we keep two things in mind: Barth is really ever only trying to say one thing, and that one thing is wholly, unadulterated good news for the creature and for creation. Keeping these two insights in front of us as the primary lenses through which we read his work will help us keep our eyes on the ball of his fundamental concerns and intentions. In this way, whether we agree or disagree with Barth, we will at least have some assurance that we are within the ballpark of reading him well.

This chapter focuses on the first theme, that Barth is really ever only trying to say one thing. The following chapter will focus on the second theme, his conviction that this one thing is wholly and unequivocally good news.

It’s Just that Simple—Well, Almost: The One Divine Word and the Inexhaustibility of Creaturely Witness

Barth has written so many pages, and there has been so much written about those pages by others, determining where to begin and what to say in the few pages available to us here can be a daunting task. Happily, Barth himself is quite accommodating in this regard. In fact, it often seems that Barth himself is saying the same thing over and over again in different ways, in different contexts. Indeed, I believe this is precisely what he is trying to do, what he sees himself as doing—what he sees as the task of all church speaking and action, including its work of theology.

This, then, would seem a good place to start in one’s attempt to come to grips with the vast corpus of Barth’s theology. It is our first interpretive key to unlocking what lies at the heart of all those pages. I propose that, on every page, in every book, in every presentation, in every sermon—if and when he is being consistent with and faithful to his own fundamental insights, convictions, and commitments—Barth is ever only trying to hear, think through, and repeat what he believes to be the one eternal, divine Word that has been spoken and enacted to and for the world, the one Word that constitutes the entirety of the church’s faith, life, and task as a community called to witness to that Word with its own words and actions. He is trying to listen for this Word, point to it the best he can, and discern what that one Word means for us in every concrete context: what it says to us, what it promises us, what it assures us of, what it warns us about, what it judges us for, what it does to and for us, what it liberates us from, what it calls us to do.

That one Word—okay, two words, or more accurately, a name and a title—is Jesus Christ. Barth believed that this one name, a first name and a title—when truly heard and acknowledged—includes all that the church has to hear, and then to say and to live out to and for the world. This and nothing more; but definitely this (as Barth would say). The critical question for us, then: What exactly does Barth believe is included in this one name and title, Jesus Christ, when truly heard and acknowledged? What does the church say when it says Jesus Christ?

For Barth, when the church says the name (and title) Jesus Christ, it is only pointing to and attempting to repeat what it believes to be the one eternal Word that God has spoken, not only about, to, and for the creature and creation, but primarily about, to, and for Godself. For Barth, Jesus Christ is the one Word of God in the sense that, in the personal reality, history, and event that is God with and for us in Jesus of Nazareth (through the power of the Holy Spirit)—in the context of God’s journey with Israel among and for the nations—God has eternally willed, decided, and made concretely actual who God is and who we are and what creation is, once for all. More particularly, God has eternally willed and decided, once for all, to be only and wholly, unequivocally, irrevocably, irreversibly with and for—indeed, as—the creature in the concrete, person, history, event, and relation that both occurs in and is Jesus Christ (in the Spirit); and that, in that same person, history, event, and relation, the creature is and will be for God, and in God, for one another and for the goodness of all creation. More particularly, still: in Jesus Christ (through the Spirit), God is for us, sinners, and not against us—for us all, each and every one, the last, first—and we are for God, and in God, for each other, the last, first. Period.¹

What is theology about, then, for Barth? For Barth, there is no other divine will, decision, Word, or act concerning Godself, the creature, or creation. All of God’s thoughts about, desires for, and dealings with creation and the creature are decided and determined in this one, eternal, divine will, decision, Word, and act, as is the meaning and future of all creaturely life and activity. Consequently, for Barth—and this is key—that to which the church points when it confesses Jesus Christ comprehends, encloses, and determines all of history—both God’s and creation’s. That which occurs and is decided and made actual in Jesus Christ (through the Spirit) is nothing less than the whole Trinitarian sweep of God’s dealing with creation from before the foundations of the world to the