Dear Class Member,
There’s been a ruffle in the world of Christian theology recently as certain information has come to light about the late Karl Barth, whom many consider the greatest theologian of the 20th century. His story gives us a chance to think about the ways in which we give ourselves permission to sidestep Christian ethics we find inconvenient, and how in so doing, we deceive ourselves. So that will be the topic of our next class.
If you wish to start thinking about our topic in advance, below is some introductory material.
The Wired Word invites us to contribute news story suggestions for upcoming lessons. If you have a story you’d like to suggest, post it to The Wired Word forum at http://thewiredword.squarespace.com/.
Hello Friends,
I found the information about Karl Barth shocking. But it should be an interesting discussion as we consider whether the contributions a person makes professionally should cancel out weaknesses in h/h personal life. The same type problem that John Yoder had is mentioned briefly in the lesson.
I hope you are enjoying the Autumn weather, and it does seem the Oak Mites are fading into the background. Hope to see you on Sunday. june
New Details About Karl Barth Stun His Fans
The Wired Word for the Week of November 5, 2017
In the News
Karl Barth (pronounced “Bart”), often described as the greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century, died in 1968, so stories about him can hardly be called timely news. And for a long time, it’s been known that Barth had a relationship with his personal assistant, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, in addition to his wife, Nelly. However, a recent release of the personal letters Barth wrote to von Kirschbaum from 1925 to 1935 has provided details of the impact on his wife and family of this arrangement, and this information stunned many who had respected Barth as a theologian and as one who, in Germany, helped lead Christian resistance to Hitler and Nazism.
The details from these letters informed the article “Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum,” by Christiane Tietz that appeared in the July 2017 issue of the journal Theology Today, and the reactions are still coming. One of the most recent was from Mark Galli, editor in chief of Christianity Today, whose article “What to Make of Karl Barth’s Steadfast Adultery” was published October 20.
Barth was born in Switzerland. From 1909 to 1921, he pastored churches there. In 1913, he married Nelly Hoffman, with whom he had five children, one daughter and four sons. During his years as a pastor, Barth wrote the first version of his book The Epistle to the Romans, a commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans, and this became a cornerstone of his life’s work. The commentary brought him international attention, and as a result, Barth was appointed a professor at the University of Göttingen, Germany. In 1924, he met Charlotte von Kirschbaum who later became his long-time assistant and confidante. In 1929, he moved Charlotte in with his family, despite Nelly’s objection. This arrangement lasted 35 years and put a strain on everyone involved.
From 1930-1935 as a professor of Systematic Theology in Bonn, he began his work on Church Dogmatics, his most important work, which eventually grew to 9,300 pages and 13 volumes, and was still unfinished at the time of his death.
In reaction to World War I, disillusionment with the doctrines of 19th-century liberal theology, and natural theology, Barth was a major figure in what came to be called “neo-orthodoxy” — itself a broad field. Barth’s beliefs are not always easy to categorize, but he placed a high emphasis on both scripture and subjective revelation, as well as the gospel proclamation itself.
After Hitler seized power, Barth decried the Nazis’ plans to use the German church to legitimize their racist agenda. In 1934, Barth was the driving force behind the Barmen Declaration, a confession of faith that strongly repudiated Nazi ideology. Barth mailed this declaration to Hitler personally, and the declaration became one of the founding documents of the Confessing Church in Germany, which led the spiritual resistance against National Socialism.
The next year, Barth lost his position as professor in Bonn because he refused to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler without adding the qualification “to the extent that I responsibly am able as a Protestant Christian.” Forced to leave Germany, he was immediately appointed professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Basel, in Switzerland, from where he continued to champion the causes of the Confessing Church and the Jews.
As mentioned, Barth’s theology is not easily summarized, but in 1962, he made his only visit to the United States, where he gave a lecture at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. After the lecture, he attended an informal session in the seminary coffee shop with the students and faculty. There, someone asked him if he could summarize his vast theological conclusions in a few statements. He answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
In responding to what is now known about Barth’s relationship with von Kirschbaum and moving her into his family home, Galli, who previously authored a book about Barth, said in his Christianity Todayarticle, “What floored me now was especially the rationale Barth used to justify the relationship.”
Galli explained:
… it’s not a matter of him being confirmed as a sinner. That would not suggest the depth of the problem.
One of the major points of my book was that Barth can help us ground our theology in the revelation of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture — and not in our subjective experience. That was a problem with the 19th-century liberalism Barth reacted against. It was that subjectivism that defined religions as “the feeling of dependence” and which got swept up in a patriotism that equated that euphoria with the will of God. This is what prompted liberal theologians — many of whom had taught Barth — to support the German war effort in World War I. This so rattled Barth, he was compelled to rethink theology from the ground up (or better, from the revelation of God down).
But it is that very subjectivism that Barth fell into himself, more or less saying that his relationship with von Kirschbaum felt so good, so right, it had to come from God: “It cannot just be the devil’s work,” he wrote Charlotte. “It must have some meaning and a right to live. … I love you and do not see any chance to stop this.”
Then he employs his theological method to justify the affair. … [Barth in effect said] he and Charlotte had no choice but to live in … dialectical tension between obeying God’s command about marital fidelity and what felt right to them.
Galli concludes, “I would have liked to have seen the face of his wife, Nelly, when he explained that to her.”
More on this story can be found at these links:
What to Make of Karl Barth’s Steadfast Adultery. Christianity Today
A Bright and Bleak Constellation. The PostBarthian
Karl Barth. The Center for Barth Studies
Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum. Theology Today (Abstract only. Access requires subscription)
Applying the News Story
Karl Barth was a Christian, and over the course of his life, served as a pastor and later a professor of New Testament and later still of Theology. It’s certainly reasonable to assume he knew the Bible’s commands against adultery and in favor of the sanctity of marriage, even as he eventually choose to not abide by them.
We know that many Christians have, regrettably, made the choice at some point to disobey one or another of God’s commands, and that may have included some of us. No, we probably can all say with the apostle Paul, “the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:15, paraphrased). And, even knowing better, we seek to justify our sin — and thereby ourselves.
So that brings us to the question that will be topic of this lesson: How do we give ourselves permission to violate the very principles and values we espouse as Christians?
That’s an important question for Christians regarding all kinds of temptations we face, and we can benefit by looking at how we justify our departures from the straight and narrow. Barth apparently twisted his theological method to come up with a rationale to justify his choice. What do we do?
The Big Questions
Here are some of the questions we will discuss in class:
1. What are some common excuses you’ve heard when a Christian sidesteps a biblical or ethical norm? Did you ever challenge someone on using a strained excuse involving Christianity to justify such behavior?
2. When have you been aware that you were seeking to justify or excuse non-righteous behavior or attitudes? How did that realization affect how you proceeded?
3.What do you think is happening in your soul when you give yourself permission to violate the very principles and values you espouse as a Christian?
4. In your experience, do such self-justifications and “permission” leave you feeling at peace?
5. In general, Barth’s theology has been well received in many branches of the church. Does the information about his personal life now make his theological work suspect? Does it diminish his work for the church against Nazism? Do the behaviors and attitudes you excuse in yourself make your Christian testimony and/or your good deeds suspect? Why or why not?
6. Are there instances of rules and commands given in the Bible that we now properly believe should be limited to the time at which they were written and to the people to whom they were written? An example might be from Deuteronomy 22:11, where the ancient Israelites are told not to wear clothes made of wool and linen mixed together. What are we to make of that admonition today?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
We will look at selected verses from these Scripture texts. You may wish to read these in advance for background:
Genesis 3:1-19
Romans 1:18-25
Exodus 32:1-29
Matthew 26:36-46
Ephesians 6:10-20
1 John 1:5–2:2
In class, we will talk about these passages and look for some insight into the big questions, as well as talk about other questions you may have about this topic. Please join us.
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