I’ve been struggling, conflicted, whatever you want to call it, since 2017, with reference to what to do with Barth. I publicly began this struggle here at the blog, and you can read that series of posts here. Unlike many, like the recent TGC post on Barth and Von Kirschbaum, I have skin in the game. I’ve been reading Barth since 2002, and on him for just as long. I am a proponent of many of his theological themes, particularly his doctrine of election (which of course, impinges on everything else). This might sound melodramatic, but I’ve been wrestling with the Lord over this since 2017; since I read the Tietz essay. I engaged with world renowned Anglophone Barth scholars on this; with people who knew Barth; with students of TF Torrance’s who also knew Barth, if not indirectly. But my primary audience has been with the Lord. For the last few years I’ve continued to read Barth under the vanguard that he could be received (or not) in an applied (and appropriated) ex opera operato sense. That is, that Barth could be read as a witness to Christ in spite of Barth’s unrepentant lifestyle (just as many other theologians and Christians in general can be and must be received—as the sinners that they all are, that we all are). But recently in light of a heavy spiritual attack I’ve been going through there was a purging, a refining by fire taking place once again in my life. When this happens my holiness barometer runs high in rather extreme ways. Once this started happening, as the Lord was working me over once again, my engagement with Barth had to cease. And even though I’ve been doing better with the attack, the Lord is seemingly bringing His reprieve once again, I have still remained squeamish, as far as picking up the CD again. And yet at the same time because of this lacuna I have started to feel spiritually and christologically malnourished. So, to the wrestling mat I’ve been going. It seems to me, and this will be an experiment, that the Lord has given me a strategy in regard to reading Barth; and yet going beyond simply taking Barth as a witness in spite of his unrepentant and immoral lifestyle.
Indeed, the strategy relates to my second to last post. And tonight as I was reading another book, by Tom Greggs, in a footnote, it seems as if the Lord was confirming this strategy for me. Greggs cited John Howard Yoder, but felt the need (understandably) to qualify his appropriation of Yoder in light of Yoder’s sexual predatory ways with women (which came mostly to light after his death). Greggs writes:
For accounts of these themes from the perspective of ethics, see Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom; and Yoder, Politics of Jesus. While there are highly public problems with Yoder’s own life, the points made within this work nevertheless stand materially—even as they stand in contradiction to the life of Yoder himself.[1]
The reader might be able to see how Greggs’ strategy with Yoder works well with what I articulated a couple of posts ago; with reference to reading Barth’s theology against his lifestyle. So, it’s not just a passive recognition of the fact that Barth can be received as a witness, but instead, an active action wherein I as the reader can read him critically in such a way that he can be read against the grain of his chosen lifestyle. Yes, this has the de jure reception of Barth’s witness in place, but beyond this it offers a de facto lens through which Barth can be seen as Jonah type. That is, Barth can be seen as someone proclaiming the Word of God even though he isn’t in full submission to it. It sees Barth straining under the burden of bearing God’s Word, because ultimately he knows this is the Way, and at the same time see him withering under the worm eaten vine, as he continues to doubt God’s Word as it applies to his own life as a minister of the Gospel.
So, this is my reading strategy with Barth. I think he was used by the LORD in spite of his continuously lived-into lifestyle of marital infidelity. And then let me also say this: I read Barth against my own lifestyle as well; just as sure as Barth, when he does (and he does often), more accurately proclaims God’s Word. And this, not just against himself, but against me. I am just as simul iustus et peccator as Barth or anyone else. My prayer, for the LORD’s mercy, is that I will stay soft and open to Him; that as Torrance says, ‘to live repentantly.’ Repentance is an important aspect of the Christian existence, indeed. Repentance is simply obedience to God’s Word, recognizing and acknowledging when we sin (daily), and seeking the Lord’s grace and mercy for another day of breath before Him.
[1] Tom Greggs, Dogmatic Ecclesiology: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church: Volume One (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2019), 293 n. 47.