Thank God For Karl Barth

I realize that’s a strange thing to be saying in some of the circles in which I run. Karl Barth is the poster boy for neo-Orthodoxy. But I think Barth gets too much criticism for the “neo” part and not enough credit for the “orthodoxy” part. It simply cannot be denied that Bart’s critique of liberalism was pretty devastating.

I know that many people do not like his understanding of the Word of God (the Bible becomes the Word of God as it takes shape in our lives), and that’s a different discussion for a different day. But Barth was interested in recovering orthodoxy from those who were leaving it behind and the church really owes him a debt of gratitude for his work in that area.

Most conservatives view liberalism as being pretty vacuous, me included. We joked in college about the liberal prayer: “Oh God, if there is a God, please help us, if you can,” and that pretty much summed up where it seems liberalism is headed. Barth saw that and responded with his Church Dogmatics. I’ve seen plenty of good, conservative friends of mine who take one of those online tests about which theologian they’d be and many of them end up being closest to Barth. That’s because even those who despise neo-orthodoxy have greatly benefited from the theological recovery it helped to bring.

In theology, as in life, sometimes you take the good with the bad. Karl Barth was not perfect nor a perfect theologian, but conservatives owe him a debt of gratitude for his work in re-orienting theology back to orthodoxy.