Yes, the title itself is more than a bit ridiculous because the "movement" we think of as neoorthodoxy was a product of its time. It wouldn't have happened had it not been for the conditions in Europe between the two world wars. Here's where I'm going with that - neoorthodoxy is generally seen to be obsolete or a relic; most folks know nothing about it and I would imagine that few seminaries spend much time with it. (In truthfulness, how many students are really going to get through Church Dogmatics?) I mentioned neoorthodoxy in a post knowing that I would have to explain myself eventually. When I peel away some of the scary words, we'll see that the essentials of this approach to Christianity sound a lot like "cutting edge" popular theology. I can use that both to sound some warnings about popular theology and also to show where neoorthodoxy may have had a good point. It's impossible to "identify" neoorthodoxy. The men who shaped it had the common experience of being shaped by the conditions mentioned above, but they did not really attempt to promote a systematic statement of beliefs (as a group; individuals such as Barth did). Names often associated with this group of course include Karl Barth, but also Emil Brunner, C. H. Dodd, Gustav Aulen, Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. There is nothing uniform about their writings except that they reacted to common concerns. Neoorthodoxy often has a rather negative connotation, mostly going to Barth's controversial statement, "The Bible is God's Word so far as God lets it be His Word." We'll get to that. But for starters (or non-starters), we need to know that this movement started as a rejection of Protestant liberalism and Protestant scholasticism. The loose association of scholars who eventually took on this moniker rejected the basic elements of liberalism: Christianity should be accommodated to science and culture, and humanity was steadily improving. But they also rejected the basis of scholasticism: that Christianity can be entirely summarized in a series of analytic propositions that are absolutely rational and coherent. I still see both of these tendencies in American Christianity, and I still see reactions against them. If you've ever heard someone say on the one hand that "social justice is no substitute for a clear presentation of the Gospel" or on the other hand that "true faith has to travel from your head to your heart" then you're also aware of these reactions. It's the starting point for emergent and emerging churches (both Rob Bell and Brian McLaren are regularly accused of having a neoorthodox understanding of Scripture, at the very least; actually, the term neo-neoorthodox comes to mind to describe that entire programme, and I think that's no small part of the reason why Barth is taking a beating again in conservative evangelical circles). I have heard neo-orthodoxy traced to the great and unintentional Christian existentialist Soren Kierkegaard. Like other passionate and novel thinkers (Phoebe Palmer comes to mind), I think we can find the roots of their unique writings in the unique tragedies of their lives. Palmer lost a child to a crib fire, leading her to create the altar theology of the holiness movement. Kierkegaard gave up the love of his life (for reasons that I don't really understand), leading him to emphasize the relationship between love and loss, choice and consequence. He rejected the popular idealism of his day (the German idealism of Hegel, the monistic opposite of materialism) because he believed that life could not be systematized, only experienced. In other words, a book about love couldn't begin to approximate the experience of loving. (By the way, isn't he right? And isn't that one of the major claims of evangelicalism?) Here is Kierkegaard's most important observation: faith, like love, cannot be reasoned - it can only be experienced. Indeed, and this is one of the valuable pickups of neoorthodoxy, the Christian faith cannot be rationalized. I understand that the purpose of activities such as apologetics is to establish the reasonability of Christianity, but I find it a great error when that exercise becomes substituted with analytical rationality. There are major elements of the Christian faith that cannot be explained. In fact, take a look at this list: creation ex nihilo, fall, incarnation, substitutionary atonement, resurrection, salvation, consummation, eternity. How many of those can you prove logically and rationally? NONE! We can explain them in terms that are reasonable, but that's it. These truths require faith. In fact, Kierkegaard saw that Christianity is actually an experience of crisis; that's why he said it began with a "leap of faith". To him, existence, true, free, existence could only be found in the exercise of this very choice (hence the term existentialism). The neoorthodox picked up on this. Christianity cannot simply be an intellectual assent to a religious creed. A Christian must go through the anxiety and tension of doubts associated with the paradox of changing from death to life and take that leap of faith (this is very unlike the process I mentioned with respect to the Puritan Golden Chain). To them (and they certainly have a point), liberals neutered the faith by ignoring this exclusivistic tension; scholastics dissolved the faith by propositionalizing it. In a way I guess similar to Tertullian, the neoorthodox embraced the paradox of Christianity and celebrated its irrationality. How can God be both transcendent and imminent? How can Jesus be both God and man? How can a Christian be both sinner and saint? How can salvation be both of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility? How can the temporal relate to the eternal? These are truly great and largely unanswerable questions. What got the neoorthodox in trouble (if you want to use that term) is their focus on the self-revelation of the transcendent God. I agree with them that this is of central importance to Christianity. Indeed, I've often thought that a systematic theology must begin with revelation, not theology, because what we know of God is what He wants us to know. How has He revealed such to us? What does the act itself of revelation tell us about God-who-wants-to-be-known? God somehow condescends to humanity (preserving us in the great peril of this encounter); He even becomes incarnate as a way of elevating our relationship. Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Bible is the Word inscripturated. And yet, not everything Jesus said and did is in the Bible (John 21:25). That must mean that the Word of God is more than the Bible. While the relationship between general and special revelation was a major controversy among the neoorthodox, that's not actually my concern here. They took the step of saying that the Bible therefore contains the Word of God. Barth then took the next logical step (seeing as how non-Christians could be unaffected by the Bible) of concluding that the Bible became the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Aside. Before we can get to that, I have to address the particular solution I proposed, which at first glance doesn't really fix this problem. I say, with great confidence, that the Bible is the Word of God, and it objectively possesses the power of God in a way. That is why I believe that sermons not rooted in and illustrated by the Bible are pretty worthless, little more than a self-help address. However, the Bible itself says that the power of God is most directly related to the Spirit of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe that puts another boundary on the proper understanding of the power of the Word. The Bible must be interpreted and proclaimed according to Jesus' Gospel in order for these promises of power to be applicable. That is why a Jew or a Muslim or a Unitarian or a Universalist can read and study the Bible without the "effect" we might want - they are not doing so according to a Gospel hermeneutic. But there is still power in the Word of God, so I would rather than individual continue to read and study the Bible in hopes that they discover that connection.
But here's the important consequence I'm wrestling with. How is my approach materially different from Barth's? Barth says that there is a criteria within which the Bible becomes the Word of God (namely the Spirit). I say that there is a criteria within which the power of the Bible is "unlocked", namely the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and the power of the Spirit). That seems similar. There are differences, but they are very subtle. I do believe that the Bible is objectively the Word of God; Barth did not. Barth limited the Word of God to an encounter; I do not. The Bible, wrongly interpreted, is still the Word of God, but much of its power is cast aside. Now, then - let's tie my aside back into neoorthodoxy and bring in the related complaints about these emergent theologians. A primary complaint against Barth was subjectifying the Word. In other words, because the Bible had to be encountered in the power of the Spirit in order to become the Word of God, that gave the interpreter leeway in declaring in declaring the what and the how of the Word. (In reality, it did not - Barth had a very conservative doctrine of the Holy Spirit - but the "experience of the Spirit" could be heavily manipulated by any who wanted and who had little fear of the Lord.) The Bible was no longer objective, it was subjective. And that brings us back to popular theology. This new "generous orthodoxy" is rooted in that subjectivity. It reacts against the Bible-as-propositional-monolith that is often associated with conservative evangelicalism. It rightly sees the Bible as an epic story and calls on its readers to locate their own story within God's story. The problem (if you want to use that term) is it has removed the tension of that location. Whereas the neoorthodox saw the human-divine encounter as one in which the human simply leaps in faith into the divine unknown, the generously-orthodox sees God as simply joining our own lives already in progress. There is no tension, there is no encounter, there is only warm fuzzy; we can choose to subjectively determine that our lives are on track and where the Bible validates us. But Jesus' message was clear: "Repent, for the kingdom is at hand." There is absolutely nothing subjective about repentance. Repentance demands an objective standard else it is meaningless. No generously-orthodox would dare make any of Jesus' words meaningless. And that's where we wrap this up. Popular theologians very much borrow the impulses seen by the neoorthodox because they are conditioned by a culture that hasn't changed as much as we think. If Karl Barth wrote today, he would have a very different reception than he did 50 years ago. But if Karl Barth wrote today, he would verbally destroy these new theologians who have rather distorted what he said and meant. And that very act of defiance would undercut the subjectivizing trends of modern Christianity. Barth meant what he meant. If he were here to explain what he meant in different controversial areas, there would be no point in arguing that he in fact meant something else. He meant what he intended to mean. The same is true of the Bible. It means what it was intended to mean. Of course, we don't have access to Paul to ask him what some of his statements meant, and that's where our endless controversies arise. But to argue that the Bible does not have a meaning is truly bizarre. And that's where the neoorthodox could have helped us stave off the troubling consequences of neoorthodoxy.
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