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.

Patriotic Worship [Update]

Did your church have a patriotic styled service Sunday? Did you sing patriotic songs? Did you preach or hear a sermon on the virtues of America? Her Christian heritage? The war in Iraq? The goodness of political freedom? Did you recognize military veterans as a part of your service?

Here’s what we did. We had a classical band (trumpets, trombones, tubas) that played for our introduction and benediction. We sang The Star Spangled Banner. We said the pledge of allegience. We sang America the Beautiful, the Battle Hymn of the Republic and then had a video/musical salute to the various branches of the armed forces. I preached a message from Genesis 22 on Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. I mentioned how certain “defining events” in our country shape our understanding of who we are and what this world is like. Events like the Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution, the Civil War. I mentioned how some defining events re-shape our sense of who we are in this world. Events like the Korean war and Vietnam. Then I talked about how God seeks to define us and how he uses spiritually defining events to do that; events that sometimes don’t make sense, don’t sound reasonable, don’t sound very much like God. Yet our response is always the response of obedient faith. We closed with God Bless America.

There was a couple sitting behind me and the wife kept saying, “This is wonderful.” “This is one of the best services.” “They’ve done such a good job with this service.”

For the most part it made me uneasy (just about everything but the sermon). Read the story »

Whyfour?

Why do you suppose we have four gospels? More specifically, why do we have three “synoptic” gospels?  But this question really applies to all four.

Believing that God inspired the Scriptures what was his purpose in four canonical gospels?  Why not just give us the one definitive one?  Why not add the stories of Jesus’ birth and Mary’s Magnificat from Luke, the prodigal son, the boy with a demon in Mark 9, etc. to Matthew’s gospel and just have one?  Why give us varying accounts of the same events?  Why not give us one “God’s eye” view of the whole of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry?  Why give us accounts that need to be “reconciled?”

These questions are why I cannot subscribe to some sort of “dictation” theory of the Bible’s inspiration.  It makes God look a little schizophrenic.  Or at least like he might have MPD.  It is much easier to account for the differences when we maintain the human nature of the documents alongside their Divine inspiration.  Men wrote with particular (and different) perspectives and agendas.

But why should God inspire four of them?  Why not inspire one of them and make it the “definitive” one? Read the story »

Ice Ice Baby - The Podcast

Here’s my first foray into the wubulous world of podcasting.  I’m not exactly sure why I sound like I’m doing this from the inside of a 55 gallon drum and I’ll try to figure that out before next time.  The screeching sound is my wife ripping tape as she was wrapping Christmas gifts.  Aside from that I thought it turned out pretty well for a first-timer.  Later I’ll post some pics of the now famous ice storm.  For your listening enjoyment:

Download BruisedButNotBroken.mp3