Welcome back to Wednesdays With Barth! I hope you enjoyed some thought provoking reading this week! We are now on to book 2.1! Wow… Really? The new reading list is below.
“The one Church is both the hearing and the teaching Church. It can never be the one without the other. Therefore dogmatics cannot be the one without the other.” Logos Bible Software edition: Church dogmatics: The doctrine of the Word of God, Part 2 (Vol. 1, p. 844).
Allistar McGrath says, in his book Christian Theology that the early development of ecclesiology (after the Church of the New Testament) produced these four main elements.
1. The church is a spiritual society, which replaces Israel as the people of God in the world.
2. All Christians are made one in Christ, despite their different origins and backgrounds.
3. The church is the repository of true Christian teaching.
4. The church gathers the faithful throughout the world together, in order to enable them to grow in faith and holiness.
McGrath states that these elements had achieved a “wide consensus” among the early church. The church has always been considered a “repository of true Christian teaching”. Since North American Evangelicalism has made Christianity into somewhat of a franchise it seems feels like learning theology has become a practice similar to ordering a #5 at Mac Donald’s. Personally, as a pastor I find it difficult (not all the time) to teach my congregation a robust theology as dialog. I don’t find it difficult because the talk about theology is too hard to understand but because the pursuit of true theology is considered divisive and not very practical. Though it seems to me the most divisive form of theology is one that is willfully ignorant or just plain lazy. As a pastor, If I express to some people that teach in my church that there might be two, three or maybe even four different ways of interpreting one of their particular “pet passages” it does not seem to encourage many of them to learn more and listen but it discourages them enough that they become defensive. That makes me tired. A local church that listens well to the Church’s talk will be better at teaching not only right doctrine but in a relevant manner. So even though it can be tough to teach “Church Talk” in my context I am encouraged by Barth to keep on keeping on. I want the congregation that I pastor to be in dialogue mode theologically not monologue mode. I want us to be a part of the conversation not lord over it.
Question:What are the attributes of theology in monolog mode? Any examples?
Question: How does the content of our teaching tell us what we are hearing?
Question: If a church becomes too autonomous what problems might that present regarding its talk about God?
Read CD II.1 in 7 weeks
February 21, 2014 Pg iii, pp vi–ix, pp 3–20
February 24, 2014 pp 21–54
February 26, 2014 pp 55–82
February 28, 2014 pp 83–112
March 03, 2014 pp 113–153
March 05, 2014 pp 154–178
March 07, 2014 pp 179–214
March 10, 2014 pp 215–244
March 12, 2014 pp 245–278
March 14, 2014 pp 279–321
March 17, 2014 pp 322–345
March 19, 2014 pp 346–380
March 21, 2014 pp 381–409
March 24, 2014 pp 410–440
March 26, 2014 pp 441–482
March 28, 2014 pp 483–509
March 31, 2014 pp 510–539
April 02, 2014 pp 540–580
April 04, 2014 pp 581–611
April 07, 2014 pp 612–644
April 09, 2014 pp 645–679, pp 690–699
Learn more about Karl Barth here.
Buy his Church Dogmatics in LOGOS here.
*Reading list generated by Logos Bible Software.