Religion: Witness to an Ancient Truth

(10 of 10)
many contemporary preachers; actually his thought is far more subtly attuned to the psychology of modern man. "To the man in the street," sums up Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, of Union Theological Seminary, "Barth's message is 'God is for you.' You're not trapped in overwhelming guilt and anxiety. In these terribly perplexing modern times, there is hope in the Gospel, for God has involved himself in the human situation through Jesus Christ."

Majesty & Love. But Barth's greatest service has been to those who are most likely to listen to him: the committed believers. His Dogmatics is the most exhaustive compendium of what a Christian must believe, and why he believes it, that Protestantism has had in more than a century. Barth's insistence on the supreme majesty of God and His supreme love in Christ has forced Christian thought to reconsider its basic focus. His demand that theology is necessarily church theology has caused Protestantism to take a new look at the confessions it stands by, and has thereby contributed mightily to today's worldwide ecumenical dialogue. Barth has always insisted that dogma is important, that theology is not philosophy, that Christianity is not the spiritual side of politics. The mysteries of God's Word are hard ones—but they cannot be made more palatable to nonbelievers or to the lukewarm faithful by hiding them in the language formed by man's own wishful thinking. God speaks; man must listen. And Barth summons Goethe to warn the church:

Long, long ago the Truth was found, A company of men it bound. Grasp firmly then—that ancient Truth!