The First and Basic Act of Theological Work

The first and basic act of theological work is prayer...But theological work does not merely begin with prayer and is not merely accompanied by it; in its totality, it is peculiar and characteristic of theology that it can be performed only in the act of prayer [160] 

a useful reminder from Barth

The Murder of God

§ 1.11.1 and § 1.11.2 of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics discusses God the Son: “The one God reveals Himself according to Scripture as the Reconciler, i.e. as the Lord in the midst of our enmity towards Him. As such He is the Son of God who has come to us or the Word of God that has been spoken to us, because He is so antecedently in Himself as the Son or Word of God the Father” in the section on the Revelation of God (§11). Karl Barth affirms the New Testament and early church dogma that Jesus is God, the same God who is a reconciler and the revealer of Himself.

As I meditate on this during the Holy Week of 2011, I have this image of God moving towards Jerusalem as Jesus of Nazareth, well aware that he is walking into a trap. Yet he continue to walk to his own murder. The supreme irony of this is the Creator walking towards a murder, organised by his own creations, in the name of a religion based on his revelations about himself.

Unlike many religious traditions where either man is an avatar of a god or man himself becomes a god, the Christian tradition maintains that Jesus is already truly God and truly man. That is Barth’s main thesis in this section. The deity of Jesus is important because it gives so much significance to the horrors of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday.

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Karl Barth's Comic Theology

From Ben Myers' Faith and Theology blog Karl Barth's Comic Theology

check out the wonderful essay by Jessica DeCou of Chicago Divinity School: "'Too Dogmatic For Words'? Karl Barth's Comic Theology", Religion and Culture Web Forum February 2011. She argues that Barth's legendary combativeness and his legendary humour are two sides of the same coin: a "comic" theology. I think Eberhard Jüngel once described Barth as "the happiest theologian of our age" – and this essay shows that laughter and comedy are important for understanding Barth's thought.

And while you're at it, here's another interesting piece on Barth: John Parratta, "Barth and Buddhism in the Theology of Katsume Takizawa", SJT 64:2 (2011).

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Karl Barth, Confucius and Korean Theology

Myers in his blogpost

On Korean theology, and Karl Barth's reception in Korea

in Faith and Theology gave a fascinating perspective of Karl Barth and his influence on Korean theology.

There’s an extremely valuable analysis of all this in the excellent study by Young-Gwan Kim, Karl Barth’s Reception in Korea: Focusing on Ecclesiology in Relation to Korean Christian Thought (Peter Lang 2003). Kim provides a broad account of the institutional and denominational contexts of Barth’s reception in Korea. He argues that the distinctiveness of Korean Barth-reception has much to do with the culture’s deep Confucian heritage, and with the intimate connection between Confucianism and the rise of Christianity in Korea. (It was Confucian scholars who first translated the Bible into Korean: Confucianism is already entwined with the roots of Korean Christianity.) After tracing the broad history of Barth’s reception in Korea, Kim provides an extensive analysis (pp. 225-324) of the work of Sung-Bum Yun. Although he is critical of Yun’s tendency towards philosophical abstraction (it becomes hard to see where the salvation-event fits into his elaborate system of Tao, jen, and filial piety), he concludes: “we cannot deny Yun’s insistence that Korean Christianity is strikingly a Confucian-influenced Christianity and that therefore the indigenization of Karl Barth’s theology within the Korean Confucian context is a viable theological enterprise” (p. 324).

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What Will Karl Barth Do?

§ 7.2 Dogmatics as Science and § 7.3 The Problem of Dogmatic Prolegomena are the conclusion of Karl Barth’s section § 7 The Word of God, Dogma and Dogmatics. In this long introduction to the series (prolegomena which means long long long introduction) Barth sets out his thoughts on the Word of God and Church proclamation. His concern is how closely does Church proclamation matches the Word of God. He took issue with the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox traditions who presume that both are identical.

Is Karl Barth a mystic? No one who has read his readings will in any way link him with the great mystics of the Church. Yet there is a sense of mysticism in the reverent and distance he places on mystery of the Word of God and how it is inadequately proclaimed and interpreted by the Church. At one stroke he shook the epidemiological and ontological foundations of systematic theology like the recent 8.9 earthquake in Japan.

Barth divides dogmatics into regular and irregular. Regular are the curriculum-based approach in theological schools and colleges. Irregular dogmatics is what happens out of these formal institutions of learning and happens at the grassroot levels. Barth seems to be more sympathetic to irregular dogmatics being done by the people of God in the context of their communities in their space and time.

For example, I wonder what Barth will do concerning the situation in Malaysia. In Malaysia, Islam is the dominant religion while the constitution guarantees the freedom for people to practice other religious traditions. Muslims makes up approximately 70% of the population while Christians about 10%. Most Christians are living in East Malaysia and are mainly of indigenous tribal people. The government is lead by a Muslim dominated political party and its officials are mainly Muslims. There is a steady erosion of the freedom for other religious systems in the years following the nation’s independence.

The Christian community is represented by the Christian Federation of Malaysia (which includes Protestants and Catholics). The Christians is also represented in another multi-religious committee in dealing with the government. The interactions can be described as firefighting. The Malaysian government will propose an action that impinges on the religious rights of others. The representatives respond often by press statements and then some backdoor negotiations. The government offers a compromise which is accepted by the representatives. Often the compromise involves the religious bodies giving up more than they receive.

One notable case is the use of the word “Allah”. For the last 31 years, the Christian community has been fighting for the right to use the word “Allah”. My review of Miroslav Volf ‘s Allah: The Christian Response. The Muslims claimed that Allah refers to their God and no one else can use this term except them. In fact, Allah has been used by Arab Christian before the Islam was founded. This has resulted in the government seizing and impounding Bibles and Christian books with this word. The Malay Bible (Alkitab) uses Allah and all shipments were impounded and detained by the Home Ministry. The matter come a head when the government refused a license for the Catholic Church to print its Malay language weekly gazette Herald which uses the word Allah (see timeline here). The Catholic Church took the case to court. The Catholic Church won, allowing the Herald to use the word Allah.

The government appeals against the court’s ruling and the appeal is still pending. After waiting patiently for another year, the Christian community applied pressure on the government to release the Alkitab. The government responded by releasing it after unilaterally placing a stamp on the inner cover of the Alkitab notifying that is for Christian use only by “order of the Home Ministry”. There are various reactions from the Christian community from “Praise the Lord” to cries of desecration of the Bible (see here and here).

What will Karl Barth do?

I will suggest the following that Karl Barth will advocate for the following:

(1) The Christian community should stand for God
Karl Barth will be careful to point out that a printed text such as what is call the Bible is distinct from the Word of God though it is a means by which the Word of God is revealed. However, he will be the first to point out that any attempt to restrict or insult the Word of God is not acceptable. Note his response to the Bible burning in Nazi Germany.

(2) The Christian community should address injustice
Social justice figured prominently in the Word of God. Though church proclamation has understood social injustice in different ways and hence their different responses, their commonality is to address social injustices. Justice includes the right to choose. The Word of God reveals a God who offers humankind the right to choose even though they may choose to reject him. Though Barth was dealing with the State Lutheran Church in Germany, his principles of social justice is applicable in Malaysia. Citizens of Malaysia have freedom of worship as guaranteed by their constitution and this freedom includes the freedom to have copies of their sacred texts without any addition by the authorities.

(3) The Christian community shall be proactive and visible.
The Christian community is often perceived by the other communities as being negative by usually taking a stand against but rarely taking a stand for. The Christian community must be seen to be united and be proactive in nation building. In response to the Alkitab banning and detention, the Christian community should make visible their protest. While emails and a few blog posts are helpful, a mass Christian prayer rally will make a greater impact and create greater public awareness of the Christians’ plight. The Word of God directs Christians to pray for those who are against them. The Church proclamation should involve not just itself but also the other communities it is part of. Barth's involvement with the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany is an example of this.

This is how I would envisage Karl Barth’s response to the situation in Malaysia by trying to see his response through the prolegomena of the Church Dogmatics.

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One liners for Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics

Wanna read Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics in a week? Over at the Faith and Theology blog, Benjamin Myers gives us a shorter version.

Church Dogmatics in a week

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics is one of the longest theological works ever written. The work was published as 13 massive tomes; and although Barth had planned to divide the work into five main volumes, he did not live long enough to complete even the fourth volume.





With that disclaimer aside, let me now heartlessly betray Barth by offering a sort of fast-food version of the Church Dogmatics....

Ode to Church Dogmatics (a poem)

Church Dogmatics: summary of the whole work

Church Dogmatics I/1

Church Dogmatics I/2

Church Dogmatics II/1

Church Dogmatics II/2

Church Dogmatics III/1

Church Dogmatics III/2

Church Dogmatics III/3

Church Dogmatics III/4

Church Dogmatics IV/1

Church Dogmatics IV/2

Church Dogmatics IV/3

Church Dogmatics IV/4 (fragment)

Church Dogmatics: more to come

Church Dogmatics: some personal choices

Church Dogmatics: more personal choices

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HT: Sivin

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Barth Nearly Broke My Back

yes, I nearly broke my back carrying this box of Karl Barth's 14 volumes Church Dogmatics from the post office to my car and from my car to my study.

I intend to join Prof Daniel Kirk blog reading club on Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics. We aim to finish reading the whole series in about 11 years!

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