The Bible and the Newspaper

Karl Barth is widely regarded as the greatest (Protestant) Christian theologian of the twentieth century. Among a myriad of other things, Barth (1886~1968) is often credited with saying that people should hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. 

Barth’s Important Words

It is questionable that Barth ever spoke the words he is often quoted as saying. But in “Barth in Retirement,” a May 1963 Time magazine article, Barth stated that 40 years ago he advised young theologians to “take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both.”

That article also quotes Barth as saying, “I always pray for the sick, the poor, journalists, authorities of the state and church—in that order. Journalists form public opinion. They hold terribly important positions.”

Now, unlike in 1963 or 40 years before that, the news and the work of the journalists is disseminated by digital means as well as by print. So “newspaper” needs to be interpreted as all the ways the news is reported.

And the journalists for whom Barth regularly prayed includes all of those who seek to communicate and interpret the news by all the various forms of public media, even when—or especially when—they are castigated as being the “enemy of the people” by you-know-who.

The Eternal Word

Barth’s theology is often depicted as the theology of the Word of God. The Word of God comes to human beings in three “forms”: the humanity of Christ, the words of the prophets and the apostles (i.e. the canonical Scriptures), and the words of preachers. 

Barth, thus, emphasized the Word of God in this threefold sense:

** The Incarnate Word of God

          Despite the way much conservative evangelicalism has emphasized the Bible as the Word of God, Barth first emphasizes that primarily Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Certainly, that emphasis is in harmony with John 1:1~18 in the New Testament. (Click here to review that seminal passage.)

** The Written Word of God

The Bible is the record of God’s revelation through the Jewish people and then especially through Jesus Christ, the Word of God par excellence.

** The Proclaimed Word of God

The preachers, or theologians, that Barth referred to are those who speak not just to share their personal ideas or insights but to interpret the written Word of God in order to know the message of and about Jesus, the incarnate Word of God. No “job” is more demanding/challenging than that of being called to proclaim that Word.

The Everchanging Word

Barth was born in Switzerland and always had Swiss citizenship. Most of his higher education, however, was in Germany, and after serving for ten years as a pastor in Switzerland, in 1921 he began teaching in Germany.

Even though he was a pastor and in 1918 the author of a commentary on the biblical book of Romans, he evidently regularly read the everchanging word in the newspapers. Although he was not a German, in the 1930s he became a leader of the Christian opposition to Hitler and the Nazis.

Barth was a leader of the Confessing Church in Germany and the chief author of the Barmen Declaration of 1934. (I wrote about this briefly in a 7/20/19 blog post.) Barth’s reading of and preaching the eternal Word of God was balanced by his reading, and acting upon, what he found in the everchanging words of the newspapers.

As so it should be for us Christians today. During Holy Week this month, Pastor Laura Mayo penned an important op/ed piece titled "For all who seek to follow Rabbi Jesus, now is exactly the time to be political." She doesn’t say so, but it is evident that just as Barth advocated, Pastor Laura had been reading both the Bible and the "newspaper."

For many years after I started my preaching ministry (at the age of 16!), I focused mainly on the Word of God. But gradually I came to understand the importance of Barth’s emphasis on reading both the Bible and the newspaper.

Now I wonder if I spend too much time reading the "newspaper“ (online news articles and opinion pieces) and not enough time reflecting on how all the "news“ should be interpreted by the Word of God.

What about you?

TTT #15 Faith and Religion are Not the Same, and Faith Is Far More Important

In recent years there has been a growing number of people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” Although the 15^th chapter of Thirty True Things ... (TTT) does not address that issue directly, it is closely related. In this article (and chapter) I contend that it is much more important for people to have faith (be “spiritual”) than to practice religion.

Religion Divides, Faith Unites

Rev. Alex McGilvey, Manitoba, Canada

In the first part of Chapter 15 of TTT, I contend that there doesn’t have to be a split between faith and religion. That is because, ideally, religion is an expression of faith and nourishes the faith of the believer, and encourages faith in non-believers. 

We live, however, in a world where much is far from ideal. And, unfortunately, quite often religion is quite different from, and quite inferior to, faith. Moreover, religion tends to be divisive. Religions often have “competed” with each other for adherents.

In an effort to overcome the tension among the religions, for decades some have encouraged, and practiced, interreligious dialogue. While certainly there is still a place for such dialogue among people of the various religious traditions, a more helpful movement is that of interfaith activities.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary indicates that the term interfaith dates back to 1932. But the common use of that term is considerably more recent. Still, it has become a widely used term; there is now even a website with the URL address www.interfaith.org.

Part of the reason for the shift in terminology from interreligious to interfaith is due to the fact that religion tends to divide, but faith can, and often does, unite people.

On this basis, chapter 15 deals with the following matters in distinguishing the major differences between religion and faith.

►Religion as “Unfaith”

There is broad agreement that the most influential Protestant theologian of the 20^th century was Karl Barth, the Swiss scholar who died 50 years ago in 1968. (I wrote a blog article, see here, about him on the 44^th anniversary of his death.)

One of Barth’s seminal emphases was that religion is fundamentally “unfaith” because, in his analysis, it is the result of the efforts humans expend in seeking their own salvation.

To Barth, and many others who share his ideas, God cannot be found by humans searching for God. God can be experienced only through God’s self-manifestation, which is the main meaning of the theological term “revelation.”

Faith, then, is not striving, but responding. Faith is not searching but receiving. Faith is simply the grateful acceptance of God’s abundant grace.

►Religion Can Be Evil

Charles Kimball, an ordained Baptist minister, authored a book published under the title When Religion Becomes Evil (2002). He doesn’t think that religion as such is bad, but he analyzes how religion in all religious traditions is susceptible to at least five basic corruptions leading to a variety of evils.

Kimball goes on to stress, and I agree, that “only authentic faith can prevent such evils” (back cover).

►Faith is Always Good

After a section in which I introduce Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s ideas about the difference between faith and religion, the closing section avers that “faith is always good.” Of course, that assertion is based on the way I have defined faith in the chapter.

To the extent that faith is response to God (by whatever name God may be known or Ultimate Reality encountered), that response will of necessity be a good thing.

If faith, in actuality, is being/living in a loving relationship with God as the result of direct encounter with God, how could that be anything but good?

In Memory of Karl Barth

Karl Barth passed away forty-four years ago today, on December 10, 1968. Since he is generally regarded as the greatest Christian theologian of the twentieth century, I am writing this in memory of his life and the significant contributions he made to the world of Christian theology.

Barth was born in Switzerland in 1886. A couple of years after studying at some of the best universities in Germany, learning from the leading liberal theologians of the day, in 1911 he became pastor of a Reformed church back in his home country and served that church for ten years.

In 1919, Barth published a commentary, The Epistle to the Romans (Der Römerbrief). That seminal book resulted from his struggle over what to preach during the difficult years of World War I. What he had learned from his liberal professors did not seem to work, so as he began work on that book in 1916 he turned to what he called “the strange new world within the Bible.”

Despite not having a doctorate, Barth was appointed a professor in Göttingen in 1921, and he taught in Germany until he was exiled from the country (Germany) in 1935. He was exiled partly because of his penning the Barmen Declaration the year before, a document of the Confessing Church that was formed in opposition to the “German Christians” who pledged their loyalty to Hitler.

Barth’s greatest theological achievement was the writing of Church Dogmatics, a detailed exposition of Christian doctrine that ended up being more than 9,000 pages (and six million words!) and which was published in thirteen volumes from 1932 to 1967.

The great Swiss theologian made only one visit to the United States, in 1962. I still regret not being able to go with some seminary friends to hear Barth speak that year when he came to Chicago Divinity School. (I didn’t think I had the time, and as a full-time student with a wife and two children I certainly didn’t have the money to make that trip to Chicago from Louisville.)

April 20, 1962

Many of you have heard the anecdote about a question he answered when he was in the U.S. A seminary student asked him what the most momentous discovery of his long theological life had been. Barth’s terse answer was, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Barth was widely criticized by conservative Christians who thought he was too liberal. But ironically, his theology was developed mainly in opposition to the theological liberalism of the early twentieth century—and the support of the German war effort by some of his former liberal theology professors.

It is true that Barth did not affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, and he accepted the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation. But he rejected many of the central emphasizes of theological liberalism and re-emphasized many of the central themes of the Protestant reformers. Thus, in this country, his work became widely known as neo-orthodox theology.

Personally, I was influenced more by another Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner (1889-1962) with whom Barth sometimes disagreed. But they both were advocates of neo-orthodoxy—a theology of the “radiant center,” which I have long emphasized in my teaching and writing.

__________

The brief concluding section of the last chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism is titled “Recommending the Radiant Center.” In that book, Barth’s theology is introduced briefly in the first subsection of Chapter Two and the second subsection of Chapter Five.