The Significance of Karl Barth for Contemporary Theology

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF KARL BARTH FOR CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY TIE CENTENNIAL OBSERVATION of Karl Barth's rth provides a happy opportunity to reassess the sigficance of the Swiss theologian's work. Such a reappraisal is needed, because American theologians since the 1960s have tended to dismiss Barth as a once influential figure in a now discredited theological movement called " neoorthodoxy ." 1 Setting aside the oddity of a classification which lumps together such diverse thinkers as Barth, Brunner, Bultmann , Tillich, and the Niebuhrs, this easy dismissal hardly does justice to the man who produced the most wide-ranging theological work of the twentieth century, the Church Dogmatics . In this essay I will assess Barth's importance for contemporary theology by first viewing his thought in the context of the disputes surrounding the promulgation of the Barmen Declaration. Through an analysis of the criticisms directed against Barth by his conservative German Lutheran opponents of the 1930s, I will seek to show the ecumenical significance of Barth's work for theology in the 1980s. My introductory comments will focus on the Protestant tradition, because the theological and political disputes of those years were carried on in isolation from the Roman Catholic community.2 1 Both Protestant and Catholic theologians have tended to group Barth with the "neo-orthodox" movement. See, for example, Langdon Gilkey, Naming the Whirlwind (Indianapolis. Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), pp. 73-106: and David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury Publishing House, 1978), pp. 27-31. Tracy treats Barth and the other "neo-orthodox" theologians simply as "critical moments " in the history of modern liberalism. 2 The definitive work on the church in Nazi Germany is Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen und das dritte Reich, (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977). Only the 512 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF KARL BARTH 518 The issues raised in that Reformed-Lutheran squabble in those early years of the Third Reich have, however, a continuing significance for contemporary Christian theologians from the full spectrum of confessional traditions. The Barmen Synod of May, 1984, and its famous declaration were primarily the result of the efforts of Reformed theologians . Karl Barth's essay "Theologische Existenz Heute!" launched the confessional protest movement against state interference in church affairs.3 While Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor, founded the " Pastors' Emergency League," the impetus for a confessional synod was provided by those free Reformed churches which first met in Barmen in January, 1984, and issued a statement of theological confession and protest authored by Karl Barth.4 The subsequent confessional synod met on May 29-81 at the Reformed Church of BarmenGemarke , and Barth, of course, authored the document we now know as the Barmen Declaration. Though Lutheran theologians and pastors were involved in the preparations for the Barmen synod, their direct contributions were rather limited. In fact, Barth reported that he wrote a first draft of the theological declaration while his two Lutheran colleagues, Thomas Breit and Hans Asmussen, took three hour long naps! With some glee Barth described the occasion. " The Lutheran first volume, which deals with the period 1914-1933, of this projected two volume work has been completed. The best studies in English of the churches' encounter with Nazism are J. S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches Under Hitler, 1933-1945, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1968) and Ernst Helmreich, The German Churches Under Hitler, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979). For works which focus primarily on Roman Catholicism's situation in the Third Reich, see Gordon Zahn, German Catholios and Hitler's Wars (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1962) and Guenter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (New York: McGraw & Hill, 1964). s Theologische l!Jwistenz Heute, 1 (1933). English translation: Theological l!Jwistence Today, trans. by R. Birch Hoyle (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1933). 4 Karl Barth, "Erklarung iiber das rechte Verstandnis der reformatorischen Bekenntnisse in der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche der Gegenwart," Theologische l!Jwistenz Heute, 7 (1943), pp. 9-15. 514 RONALD THIELMANN Church slept and the Reformed Church kept awake ... I revised the text of the six statements fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars." 5 Though Barth's account of Lutheran inaction was somewhat exaggerated, there can be no doubt that Barmen's chief critics...