| Author |
Message |
Max
| | Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 7:40 pm: |     |
Footnote #1.
NIV text note to Jude 3:8. "dreamers" : "The
godless men were called 'dreamers' either (1)
because they claimed to receive revelations,
or, more likely, (2) because in their passion
they were out of touch with truth and reality.
Footnote #2.
NIV text note to Jude 3:4. "change the grace of
our God into a license for immorality" : "They
assume that salvation by grace gives them the
right to sin without restraint, either [1] because
God in his grace will freely forgive all their
sins, or [2] because sin, by contrast,
magnifies the grace of God (cf. Ro 5:20; 6:1)." |
Cindy
| | Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 7:55 pm: | |
I thought all would like to read (or re-read) Bonhoeffer's writings while in prison during Hitler's regime...before he was put to death. The emotions and feelings he expresses are ones I can relate to...
"Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country house.
Who am I ? They often tell me I would talk to my warders freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick... like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat; yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness; trembling with anger at despotism and petty humiliation, tossing in expectatiion of great events, powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making... faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.
Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others... and before myself, a contemptible, woe-begone weakling?
Or is something within me still like beaten army fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine,
Whoever I am, thou knowest O God, I am Thine!"
Grace always,
Cindy |
Max
| | Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 8:04 pm: | |
That's beautiful, Cindy, bless you! |
Maryann
| | Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 8:24 pm: | |
Though I had never seen Jude 4, I knew that in my very being because I experienced that very thing!
I have experienced the hell of "false grace" and the "joy of true grace;-)"
Praise God for His long suffering grace available to all sinners no matter how they have dis-graced His name.
Maryann |
Max
| | Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2000 - 1:53 pm: | |
MARTIN LUTHER: FALSE/CHEAP GRACE IS
INSANE AND DEVILISH
And in Christians this repentance continues
until death, because, through the entire life it
contends with sin remaining in the flesh, as
Paul, Rom. 7, 14-25, [shows] testifies that he
wars with the law in his members, etc.; and
that, not by his own powers, but by the gift of
the Holy Ghost that follows the remission of
sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out
the remaining sins, and works so as to render
man truly pure and holy.
The Pope, the theologians, the jurists, and
every other man know nothing of this [from
their own reason], but it is a doctrine from
heaven, revealed through the Gospel, and
must suffer to be called heresy by the godless
saints [or hypocrites].
On the other hand, if certain sectarists would
arise, some of whom are perhaps already
extant, and in the time of the insurrection [of
the peasants] came to my own view, holding
that all those who had once received the Spirit
or the forgiveness of sins, or had become
believers, even though they should afterwards
sin, would still remain in the faith, and such
sin would not harm them, and [hence] crying
thus: "DO WHATEVER YOU PLEASE; IF YOU
BELIEVE, IT ALL AMOUNTS TO NOTHING;
FAITH BLOTS OUT ALL SINS," etc. -- they say,
besides, that if any one sins after he has
received faith and the Spirit, he never truly had
the Spirit and faith: I have had before me [seen
and heard] many such INSANE men, and I
fear that in some such a DEVIL is still
remaining [hiding and dwelling].
Article III: ìRepentanceî from The Smalcald
Articles by Martin Luther (1537), Translated by
F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau. Published in:
Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
of the Ev. Lutheran Church. (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1921),
pp.453-529.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/witten
berg/concord/web/smc-03c.html |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 3:10 am: | |
Max, good quotes to bring to our attention!
Right now, I have noticed that the two of us are the 'night owls' who are awake and have much on our minds!
Are you going to be at the FAF meeting on Dec. 8 (two weeks from tonight)? I am still hoping to make it out there sometime when I am in LA. The traffic 'escaping' to Las Vegas on Fri. evening makes it a drive of at least two hours from Central L.A. (where I am often working away from home) to Redlands. I'm typically working till early morning on Fri. night but have a break without other commitments once in a great while.
I'm interested in your evaluation of certain articles and ideas on the Trinity Foundation website. Specifically:
1. Karl Barth and his ulitimate acceptance of Communism and Fascism as a way of liberating humanity,
2. Rhetorical vs. Logical paradox in the Bible.
In the true gospel,
--Twisse |
Max
| | Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 10:54 am: | |
Greetings, Bill,
Yes, hope you can make it to the FAF meeting
December 8 at Trinity in Redlands, and look
forward to meeting you.
About "Karl Barth and his ulitimate acceptance
of Communism and Fascism as a way of
liberating humanity": I've been unable to locate
your reference. Could you give me a more
specific http address?
This is the first I've heard of the charge that
Barth accepted Communism and Fascism,
and I doubt very much that the charge can be
substantiated. |
Max
| | Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 1:33 pm: | |
Dear Bill,
I've located a letter written by Karl Barth about
communism, which I have imported here. I do
not find in it anything that even approaches the
conclusion that he ultimately accepted it,
much less fascism.
But you judge for youself:
***************************
***************************
NAZISM AND COMMUNISM
by Karl Barth
You think it would be advisable if I stated
expressly why I do not want the logic of my
letter to Hromadka applied to the present
East-West conflict, why I do not find the
present situation analogous to that of 1938.
One could put the question even more clearly:
Why do I not write to my West-German friends
today what now would apply to the Russians
in the same way that my letter then applied to
the NAZIS? I shall try to give you my answer:
(1) The Hromadka letter in 1938 was written in
the days of the Munich settlement. It was sent
to Prague where the decision was being
reached, as to whether the world outside of
Germany would tolerate German aggression.
On the 30th of September in that year I wrote
in my diary: "Catastrophe of European liberty
in Munich." I stood alone with this
interpretation. "Realism" meant in those days
the acceptance of the situation created by
Hitler. Thanksgiving services were held in all
the churches, including those here in
Switzerland, for the preservation of peace. Six
months later Hitler had violated this infamous
accord of Munich. A year later he was in
Polandóand the other consequences
followed. If the "Czech soldier" [of whom Barth
spoke in the Hromadka letter] had stood and
had not been betrayed by the West, the
Russians would not now be standing at the
Elbe. That is when the die was cast. That is
when the East-West problem arose. And that
is when Europe and Christendom slept.º
I do not know when and how and to whom I
would now direct a similar letter. A situation in
which everything depended upon a yes or no
decision has not subsequently developed.
The determination, whether rightly or wrongly
motivated, to resist Stalinist COMMUNIST
aggression is the common policy of the West.
Its intensification through a Christian word is
superfluous. On the question no one sleeps
today. On the contrary, one notes rather a
nervousness, hysteria and fear which is not
conducive to the highest form of
determination. The Christian word today
would have to be that we ought not be afraid.
But such a word ought not be shouted. It can
best be expressed in the way one lives and
remains silent, particularly since so much is
being said, both helpful and foolish. ...
(2) In the Hromadka letter I called, in the name
of the Christian faith, for resistance to the
armed threat and aggression of Hitler. I am no
pacifist and would do the same today. The foe
of Czech and European freedom proved in
those days again and again that his force
would have to be met by force. . . . The peace
at any price which the world, and also the
churches, sought at that time was neither
human nor Christian. That is why I "shouted"
at that time.º
The present Russia is not the peace loving
nation it professes to be. It claims to be
menaced, particularly by the Anglo-Saxon
powers. I cannot understand the reasons for
this fear though I have tried to remain
receptive to its arguments. It is obvious that
Russia assumed a threatening attitude
immediately after the conclusion of the war.
I must admit that if I were an American or
British statesman I would not neglect
preparations for a possible military defense. . .
. But all this is being done in the West today
without any specific Christian word or warning
being necessary. . . . Today the Christian duty
lies in another direction. Today we must
continue to insist that war is identical with
death in the sense that it is inevitable only
when it has happened. In 1938 war was an
actuality, but it could have been nipped in the
bud with the right kind of determination.
Russia has not created a similar situation
today. It has not presented anyone with an
ultimatum or committed aggression. (I do not
hold it responsible for Korea.) There is no
evidence for, and much evidence against the
idea that it wants war. There are still means of
avoiding war. Until they are exhausted (as they
were exhausted in 1938) no one in the West
has the right to believe in the inevitability or the
desirability of war or to meet Russia as Hitler
had to be faced. We do not face the
glorification of war and we must, therefore,
express our resolution to oppose
COMMUNISM without falling into fear and
hatred or into war-like talk and action. A war
which is not forced upon one, a war which is
any other category but the ultima ratio of the
political order, war as such is murder. . . .
Every premature acceptance of war, all words,
deeds and thoughts which assume that it is
already present, help to produce it. For this
reason it is important that there be people in
all nations who refuse to participate in a holy
crusade against Russia and COMMUNISM,
however much they may be criticized for their
stand.
Finally we cannot emphasize too strongly that
the most important defense against
COMMUNISM consists in extension of justice
for all classes. In the event of war we must be
prepared to face an army of millions of well
equipped soldiers who will be convinced
(from our standpoint, wrongly) of the
righteousness of their cause and who will be
prepared to give everything in the battle
against the "criminals" (they mean us). Could
one say as much for the armies of the
so-called free world? Mere hatred of
COMMUNISM and Russia will not suffice us.
The masses of our people must have
experienced the value of our freedom in such
a way that they would be willing to give their
life for it. . . . Of course COMMUNISM might
triumph without war if its worse values
appeared better to the masses of the Western
world than what we offer in the name of
democracy. In France this seems to be the
case. Whoever does not want COMMUNISM
(and none of us do) had better seek for social
justice than merely oppose it.
(3) On the question which you put to me on the
remilitarization of Germany: One must not
confuse this question with the general
problem of pacifism, nor with the general
question of the defense of the West. It is not
logically correct to demand that anyone who
disavows pacifism and believes in the
defense of the West should also favor
German remilitarization. I will give you a few
reasons why I regard this as a unique
problem.º
In the first place, I do not have the temerity to
ask the German people, who have been bled
white in two wars, to make this sacrifice again.
A normal survival impulse must persuade the
German people to refrain from this sacrifice.
In the second place, I regard it as impossible
to expect of the German people that they arm
for a war that is bound to be a civil war for
them, in which Germans will be arrayed
against Germans.
Thirdly, it does not seem to me to be morally
defensible to tell a nation that one has sought
to demilitarize to the point of denying it the use
of tin soldiers as childrenís toys, that its
salvation now depends upon preparation for
another war.
Fourthly, it seems clear to me that the
remilitarization of Western Germany might be
the spark in the powder barrel with which the
West, and Germany in particular, ought not to
play.
In the fifth place, it is not at all clear to me how
the western strategists propose to defend
Germany between the Elbe and the Rhine,
which might mean that a German army is
expected to sacrifice itself at the Pyrenees
after leaving their families in Germany.
In the sixth place, I believe that the positive
defense against COMMUNISM has a special
significance for Germany. Has enough been
done for the exiles, for the unemployed and
the homeless, and for the return of war
prisoners that COMMUNISM might not be
drawn into Germany as a sponge draws in
water, despite the present rejection of it in
Western Germany ?óAs a German I would be
inclined to say, we cannot do this for we are
otherwise engaged.
Finally, I ask a question hesitantly because I
will risk the ill-will of Germans: Would it not be
bad policy to have a German army, with all that
goes with a German army in the European
situation? History has proved that if an
Englishman or a Swiss puts on a uniform that
is not the same as when a German puts one
on. The German becomes a total soldier too
easily and too quickly. In common with many
Europeans I would rather not see the
re-emergence of the German soldier. And
even if I were a German, and perhaps
particularly if I were a German, I would rather
not have his re-emergence, not even when the
peril from the East is considered.
***************************
***************************
Commentary:
Karl Barth has been the major force behind
the revival of Protestant theology in this
century. His personal war against Hitler is
history, and his multi-volume Dogmatik is a
theological landmark. This letter was written
by Professor Barth in response to criticism
from Germany that he did not seem to be
applying the same standards in opposing
COMMUNISM that he applied to NAZISM in
1938. At that time he wrote a significant letter
to Professor Joseph Hromadka in Prague,
asserting that opposition to NAZISM was a
service to Christ. It appeared in the Journal
Christianity and Crisis, February 57, 1951.
Used by permission. This article was
prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie
Brock.
http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearc
hd.dll?action=showitem&id=405 |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2000 - 11:15 pm: | |
Max,
It would seem that your case for Barth is airtight!
Barth stated:
Finally we cannot emphasize too strongly that the most important defense against
COMMUNISM consists in extension of justice
for all classes.
Does he mean republican and democratic government in this statement? I don't think so.
There is no question that Barth ultimately opposed Hitler and the Nazis. He also opposed Stalin in the end. But at the time of the above quotations, the fruit of those two philosophies was clearly manifest. The question becomes: what alternative is being proposed? I do not believe that it is republican government. Neither do I believe that Barth defended it all his life.
I will go back and find the references to Barth's defense of Communist and Fascist philosopy. I am convinced that these exist somewhere. It is important to remember that all of the socialist views of government sound good and just in the beginning.
Most persons do not realize that if a can of beer is taxed higher than a can of soda, that 'sin tax' is the beginning of fascism. Many persons love to see the evil tobacco companies 'get what they deserve.' Especially the kangaroo court in Florida!
Give me some time. I'm buried in many responsibilities at present. Thanks,
--Twisse |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:06 am: | |
Here are the quotations from John Robbins that I was referring to. These are in his 1998 article in the 'Trinity Review' on Karl Barth:
Barthís dialectical theology permitted him to use old words and phrases ñ Biblical words and phrases ñ while giving them new, and quite un-Biblical, meanings. What the liberals had done partially with phrases such as the "divinity of Christ" and what the Roman Catholics had done with terms such as "justification," "church," "saint," and "grace," Barth was able to do with the entire theological discourse of the Reformation. His equivocation was not occasional and partial, as in liberalism, but throughout and complete. Barth made Protestant theological equivocation systematic and systemic.
Although his theology was deliberately inconsistent, Barthís actions displayed an underlying consistency. Barth wanted to make room in the church and in the world for irrationality and socialism. Barth saw Christ as a "form of the Word of God," and he emphasized Christology as the key to understanding "revelation." But Barth also wrote in Church Dogmatics, "God may speak to us through Russian Communism, through a flute concerto, through a blossoming shrub or through a dead dog. We shall do well to listen to him if he really does so." In the light of such statements, one wonders why Barth was so concerned in 1934 in the Barmen Declaration to deny that God can speak to us through Adolf Hitler. The likely answer ñ the answer that explains his vociferous condemnation of Nazism in the 1930s and his deliberate and lifelong refusal to condemn Communism, and even his praise for Communism ñ is not his theology, but his political philosophy: Barth was a lifelong socialist of the Marxist variety.
Barth the Socialist
Although his theological views changed over the decades, Barthís political views did not. Barthís socialism colored his theology, in ways that many of his readers did not understand. In 1956 Barth explained in an interview, "I decided for theology because I felt a need to find a better basis for my social action." His theology was a tool to be used in furthering his socialism; a justification for his political views. While at Safenwil, Barth was "Comrade Pastor," according to his biographer. "Socialism," Barth claimed, "is a very important and necessary application of the gospel." In 1916 he wrote that the "capitalistic order and... the war [are] the two greatest atrocities of life." In the first edition of his commentary on Romans, written during World War I, he declared that a time will come "when the now dying embers of Marxist dogma will flare up anew as world truth, when the socialist church will rise from the dead in a world become socialist." In "Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice," an essay Barth published in 1911, he explained the relationship between Jesus and socialism:
"If you understand the connection between the person of Jesus and your socialist convictions, and if you now want to arrange your life so that it corresponds to this connection, then that does not at all mean you have to "believe" or accept this, that, or the other thing. What Jesus has to bring us are not ideas, but a way of life. One can have Christian ideas about God and the world and about human redemption, and still with all that be a complete heathen. And as an atheist, a materialist, and a Darwinist, one can be a genuine follower and disciple of Jesus. Jesus is not the Christian world view and the Christian world view is not Jesus."
This separation between "Jesus" and ideas Barth maintained all his life, whatever form his theology appeared in. He never escaped the influence of Schleiermacher. Barthís view of revelation as "event" or "happening" rather than as information or ideas may be traced to his statements in the essay cited above.
<<continued>> |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:17 am: | |
More from John Robbins on Karl Barth:
Barth vehemently attacked capitalism and private property as well, and wrote often of the "class struggle":
Class contradiction, says socialism, is the daily crime of capitalism. This system of production must therefore fall, especially its underlying principle: private property ñ not private property in general, but private ownership of the mean of production.... the boundless competition between individual producers must fall; and the state, the whole, must itself become the producer and therefore the owner of the means of production. Jesus is more socialist than the socialists.... Jesusí view of property is this: Property is sin, because property is self-seeking.
This last statement logically implies, of course, a condemnation of private property in general, not merely in the means of production. Since socialism is defined as common ownership of the means of production, Barth qualifies as a socialist in either case, and as a Christian in neither.
Barth the Communist
Skipping ahead nearly 40 years, one finds Barth praising the good intentions of the Communists and even specific Communist dictators, such as Joseph Stalin, butcher of the Ukraine. Writing in "The Church Between East and West" (1949), Barth defended his vocal anti-anti-Communism:
[I]t is pertinent not to omit to discriminate in our view of contemporary Communism between its totalitarian atrocities as such and the positive intention behind them. And if one tries to do that, one cannot say of Communism what one was forced to say of Nazism ten years ago ñ that what it means and intends is pure unreason, the product of madness and crime. It would be quite absurd to mention in the same breath the philosophy of Marxism and the "ideology" of the Third Reich, to mention a man of the stature of Joseph Stalin in the same breath as such charlatans as Hitler, Goering, Hess, Goebbels, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Streicher, etc. What has been tackled in Soviet Russia ñ albeit with very dirty and bloody hands and in a way that rightly shocks us ñ is, after all, a constructive idea, the solution of a problem which is a serious and burning problem for us as well, and which we with our clean hands have not yet tackled anything like energetically enough: the social problem.
Then, in a revealing statement, Barth declared that Communism was not ñ and by its very nature could not be ñ anti-Christian:
[I]n its relationship to Christianity, Communism, as distinguished from Nazism, has not done, and by its very nature cannot do, one thing: it has never made the slightest attempt to reinterpret or to falsify Christianity, or to shroud itself in a Christian garment.... There is nothing of the false prophet about it. It is not anti-Christian.
Finally, writing in 1963 to his friend the Czechoslovakian Communist and theologian, Joseph Hromadka, Barth lamented the fact that he, Barth, had been accused of pro-Communist sympathies, even by such liberal theologians as Emil Brunner and Reinhold Niebuhr. He defended his lifelong socialism: "I have, however, always spoken out loudly and consistently as an opponent of western and especially Swiss anti-Communism, against the cold war, atomic armament, ten years ago against the remilitarizing of West Germany...."
Despite his apparently orthodox words, Barthís dialectical theological enterprise was always shaped by his prior and lifelong commitment to socialism. He chose theology as a basis for his social action. The theology of the nineteenth century could not do so, in Barthís view; a new theology was necessary.
All I can say is this: if Barth is supposed to be the foremost proponent of Protestantism in this century, think about that.
--Twisse |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:34 am: | |
Bill,
It seems to me that the following statement --
#1 -- of Barth's indicates his anti-communism
rather powerfully:
#1 "I believe that the positive defense against
COMMUNISM has a special significance for
Germany."
And statement #2 indicates that Barth believed
strongly in democracy:
#2 "Of course COMMUNISM might triumph
without war if its worse values appeared better
to the masses of the Western world than what
we offer in the name of democracy."
Furthermore, statement #3 shows that he was
ready to fight communism:
#3 "In the Hromadka letter I called, in the
name of the Christian faith, for resistance to
the armed threat and aggression of Hitler. I
am no pacifist and would do the same today."
(That is, Barth would fight the armed threat
and aggression of the communist USSR.)
And statement #4 shows that his then
opposition to rearming Germany was not
connected to any putative "pacifism" on his
part, for he clearly asserted that he was no
pacifist and even called the German
pacificism of his time a "problem."
Furthermore, the democratic allies of this time
(U.S., U.K. and France) wre unalterably
opposed to German rearmament and Barth
was well aware that they would never have
permitted it no matter what the case.
#4 "On the question which you put to me on
the remilitarization of Germany: One must not
confuse this question with the general
problem of pacifism, nor with the general
question of the defense of the West."
Hence I can see little future in anybody trying
to prove otherwise. This letter is absolutely
definitive.
I've already run a few "Barth and
Communism" Internet searches and have
come up with nothing that would even
remotely show he had any sympathies
whatsoever in this direction.
Still openminded to evidence otherwise,
though.
Max of the Cross |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:41 am: | |
Bill,
I just read your posting of John Robbins, and I
have three comments:
1. Robbins is a secondary source and not a
primary one.
2. How credible a witness is Robbins?
3. The tone of Robbins' statement is not that of
a scholar but that of an apologist with an axe
to grind. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:49 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Barth also wrote in Church
Dogmatics, "God may speak to us through
Russian Communism, through a flute
concerto, through a blossoming shrub or
through a dead dog. We shall do well to listen
to him if he really does so."^^
Max: What's the difference between this and
what Habakkuk does in having the sovereign
God use the evil Chaldeans to punish Israel?
For Barth, above all, God is sovereign. And if
God can speak to us through the evil
Chaldeans, then certainly he can speak to us
through the evil Communists. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 12:51 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Barth wanted to make room in the
church and in the world for irrationality and
socialism.^^
Max: And where is Robbins' primary
supporting evidence? |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:10 am: | |
Robbins: ^^...the answer that explains his
[Barth's] vociferous condemnation of Nazism
in the 1930s and his deliberate and
LIFELONG refusal to condemn Communism,
and even his praise for Communism ñ is not
his theology, but his political philosophy: Barth
was a lifelong socialist of the Marxist variety."
Max: Robbins only reveals his abysmal
ignorance, for one need only quote from
Barth's letter to expose Robbins' near total
inadequacy as a historian and scholar. Four
PRIMARY SOURCE points of rebuttal should
suffice to blow Robbins' craft out of the water:
(1) Barth: ^^We must, therefore, express our
resolution to OPPOSE communism."
(2) Barth: ^^We CANNOT EMPAHSIZE TOO
STRONGLY that the most important
DEFENSE AGAINST communism consists in
extension of justice for all classes.^^
(3) Barth: ^^The positive DEFENSE AGAINST
communism has a special significance for
Germany.^^
(4) Barth expressed his deep concern ^^that
communism might NOT be drawn into
Germany as a sponge draws in water.^^ |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:13 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Although his theological views
changed over the decades, Barthís political
views did not.^^
Max: And if they did not, then the views
expressed in his anti-communist letter prevail,
do they not? Once an anti-communist, always
an anti-communist! |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:18 am: | |
Robbins: ^^In 1956 Barth explained in an
interview, "I decided for theology because I felt
a need to find a better basis for my social
action."^^
Max: Proves nothing. What Barth meant by
"social action" has nothing whatsoever to do
with socialism. Socalism uses the force of the
state to enforce equalization of wealth among
the classes. This is utterly alien to Barth's
theology. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:24 am: | |
Robbins: ^^While at Safenwil, Barth was
"Comrade Pastor," according to his
biographer. "Socialism," Barth claimed, "is a
very important and necessary application of
the gospel."^^
Max: This does not rise above the level of a
smear tactic for the following reasons:
1. Barth spoke and wrote in German.
"Comrade Pastor" is a translation from
German into English, and the German word
has different connotations from the English.
2. The word "comrad" has multiple meanings
in both languages. For example, when I was a
Pathfinder one of the levels was "comrad" --
were the Pathfinders therefore communist?
3. Robbins has already revealed his utter
disrespect for primary sourcing and real
scholarship and thus has opened himself up
to the charge of smearing an opponent. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:28 am: | |
Robbins: ^^"Socialism," Barth claimed, "is a
very important and necessary application of
the gospel."^^
Max: Socialism is not communism. And one
must be very careful to discover what Barth
meant by this term. And Robbins is nothing if
not careless. One can be certain that anything
that did not accord with the gospel did not
accord with Karl Barth. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:31 am: | |
Robbins ^^In 1916 he wrote that the
"capitalistic order and... the war [are] the two
greatest atrocities of life."^^
Max: And President Dwight David Eisenhower
said something very similar about "the military
industrial complex" in America. So much for
pulling statements out of context. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:39 am: | |
Robbins: ^^In the first edition of his
commentary on Romans, written during World
War I, he declared that a time will come "when
the now dying embers of Marxist dogma will
flare up anew as world truth, when the
socialist church will rise from the dead in a
world become socialist." In "Jesus Christ and
the Movement for Social Justice," an essay
Barth published in 1911, he explained the
relationship between Jesus and socialism:
"If you understand the connection between the
person of Jesus and your socialist
convictions, and if you now want to arrange
your life so that it corresponds to this
connection, then that does not at all mean you
have to "believe" or accept this, that, or the
other thing. What Jesus has to bring us are
not ideas, but a way of life. One can have
Christian ideas about God and the world and
about human redemption, and still with all that
be a complete heathen. And as an atheist, a
materialist, and a Darwinist, one can be a
genuine follower and disciple of Jesus.
Jesus
is not the Christian world view and the
Christian world view is not Jesus."^^
Max: This proves only that Robbins is totally
misunderstanding Barth, not that Barth is a
Socialist, much less a Communist. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:40 am: | |
Robbins: ^^He never escaped the influence of
Schleiermacher.^^
Max: Schleiermacher? A Communist? |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:45 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Barth vehemently attacked
capitalism and private property as well, and
wrote often of the "class struggle":
Class contradiction, says socialism, is the
daily crime of capitalism. This system of
production must therefore fall, especially its
underlying principle: private property ñ not
private property in general, but private
ownership of the mean of production.... the
boundless competition between individual
producers must fall; and the state, the whole,
must itself become the producer and therefore
the owner of the means of production. Jesus
is more socialist than the socialists.... Jesusí
view of property is this: Property is sin,
because property is self-seeking.
This last statement logically implies, of
course, a condemnation of private property in
general, not merely in the means of
production. Since socialism is defined as
common ownership of the means of
production, Barth qualifies as a socialist in
either case, and as a Christian in neither.^^
Max: Again Robbins only reveals his near total
ignorance of what Barth was trying to say.
Barth was himself a property owner. Barth
was speaking of Jesus as Jesus spoke of
himself when he said, "My kingdom is not of
this world." Barth understood this. Robbins
doesn't. |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:51 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Skipping ahead nearly 40 years,
one finds Barth praising the good intentions of
the Communists and even specific
Communist dictators, such as Joseph Stalin,
butcher of the Ukraine. Writing in "The Church
Between East and West" (1949), Barth
defended his vocal anti-anti-Communism:
[I]t is pertinent not to omit to discriminate in
our view of contemporary Communism
between its totalitarian atrocities as such and
the positive intention behind them. And if one
tries to do that, one cannot say of
Communism what one was forced to say of
Nazism ten years ago ñ that what it means
and intends is pure unreason, the product of
madness and crime. It would be quite absurd
to mention in the same breath the philosophy
of Marxism and the "ideology" of the Third
Reich, to mention a man of the stature of
Joseph Stalin in the same breath as such
charlatans as Hitler, Goering, Hess,
Goebbels, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg,
Streicher, etc. What has been tackled in Soviet
Russia ñ albeit with very dirty and bloody
hands and in a way that rightly shocks us ñ is,
after all, a constructive idea, the solution of a
problem which is a serious and burning
problem for us as well, and which we with our
clean hands have not yet tackled anything like
energetically enough: the social problem.^^
Max: Communist Russia was our ally at that
time. Barth was deceived by Stalin just as
were millions of others fighting Nazism. They
changed their views when they learned the
truth. And so did Barth. Why single him out? |
Max
| | Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2000 - 1:56 am: | |
Robbins: ^^Despite his apparently orthodox
words, Barthís dialectical theological
enterprise was always shaped by his prior
and lifelong commitment to socialism. He
chose theology as a basis for his social
action. The theology of the nineteenth century
could not do so, in Barthís view; a new
theology was necessary.^^
Max: It seems obvious to me that all Robbins
has accomplished in this essay is to go
around his little finger to reach his thumb. |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Monday, November 27, 2000 - 11:19 am: | |
Max:
Although Robbins has not shown that Barth was a 'doctrinaire' Communist, I still believe that he had 'idealogical' tendencies in that direction. This does not mean, of course, that he supported the extremes of Stalin and the U.S.S.R. Certainly he opposed Hitler--but there is a difference between Nazi practice and a toying with 'non-violent' fascism or socialism as philosophies of government that might be beneficial.
I asked what you thought of Robbins' perspective on this issue and you certainly let me know!
Schleiermacher has to do with theology, not government. There are both theological and sociological issues involved.
I'm not saying that I endorse Robbins entirely. However, I do believe that there is a connection between Barth's universalist theology and his non-violent socialism. I see no evidence from your quotes that Barth supported republican government with any degree of passion (as the opposite of socialism), although he may have espoused certain principles of democracy. His alternative to Hitler and Stalin was 'good socialism.'
Barth made a significant contribution to theology. On that issue I would probably disagree with Robbins. However, I do not perceive his contribution in the positive light that those who endorse Neo-orthodoxy would. He did move away from the extreme liberalism of Bultmann.
Anyway, you have some valid points.
Thanks,
--Twisse |
Max
| | Posted on Monday, November 27, 2000 - 12:00 pm: | |
Thanks, Bill, for bringing this to our attention. I
had never thought of Barth in this way before. |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Monday, November 27, 2000 - 3:23 pm: | |
Thanks Max (not Max Factor--sorry I couldn't resist!).
The case of Karl Barth raises an important question:
How do we judge the positive contribution of a theologian? Or anyone? For that matter, how do we evaluate if a particular teaching is dangerous?
Evangelical theolgians have had more difficulty evaluating the true theology and intent of Karl Barth than almost anyone. His language and methodology seems to be mysterious and lacking in precision--much like the liberals. However, where he has spoken with clarity, he expounds the grace of God in such a manner that astounds the liberals and sounds much more like orthodox theology.
F.F. Bruce and G.C. Berkouwer both gave Barth a 'thumbs up.' Berkouwer did so in spite of admitting that Barth was a universalist (in his book 'The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth'). Others (such as Gordon Clark in his 'Karl Barth's Theological Method') clearly gave Barth a 'thumbs-down.' How can this be?
The only way to objectively analyze the contribution that a person has made is to accurately define what the person believed. Unless that is accomplished, the historical reality of where an individual fit into God's plan will never be correctly understood.
Karl Barth, if we impute to him the best of motives, was a universalist moving away from liberalism toward the gospel. He was trying to come to grips with the meaning of the Pauline kerygma. His teaching was a definite catalyst in reviving interest in historical Protestant theology.
However, in my judgment, we would make a great mistake if we attempt to imitate Barth's theological method and teaching. We are not starting from liberalism and migrating toward the light. We know the true gospel and need to stand firm in defending it. Our issues are not his issues, our calling from God is very different.
--Twisse |
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