Karl Barth and American Evangelicals: friends or foes?

Final thoughts on the conference that just ended at Princeton Seminary: 

* Suzanne McDonald, a new professor at Calvin College, gave a presentation on Election and Eschatology following Bruce McCormack’s lecture that has made me change my mind on the intellectual rigor of evangelical theologians.  Her critique of Barth’s understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to election was incisive.  And her modesty and teachability made her points all the more appreciated.  

* That universalism as a live option went unopposed and was even embraced by evangelicals like McDonald at this conference signaled a momentous shift in evangelical theology.  I foresee it potentially negatively affecting missions (a characteristic strength of evangelicals), and subsequently, spurring greater interest in and scrutiny of Barth’s rationale for missions.

* One major impression I got was that evangelicals have much to learn from Barthians, but Barthians have nothing to learn from evangelicals (i.e., no evangelical critiques of Barth are valid or credible).  Though the emergent buzz word “conversation” was widely used throughout the conference, in the end, it was a lecture: by Barthians, to evangelicals.

* Barthians want the evangelical church’s growing numbers; evangelicals want the Barthian’s theological scholarship. 

Sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

This sermon was historically significant for me because it was my first explicitly Barthian message. Specifically, it was the first time I have preached on unlimited atonement (against my Calvinist heritage). One primary hesitation for me in getting fully on board Barth’s theology is the fact that I have yet to hear a good Barthian sermon preached (whereas I have heard literally hundreds of sublime messages from 5 pt Calvinists like Tim Keller). Nevertheless, I felt convicted enough to preach this passage in this way. It was on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 delivered at Ambassadors Presbyterian Fellowship, Edison, NJ.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“His friends were so worried about his low mood that they feared he was suicidal, took all knives and razors from his room. And Joshua Speed went to his side and said, “Lincoln, if you don’t rally, you will die.” Lincoln said, “I would just as soon die now, but I haven’t yet done anything to make any human being remember that I have lived.” And then he espoused that dream that would carry him, saying that, “My goal in life is to accomplish something that makes life better for those who live around me so that I can be remembered after I die.”  

* * *

“In 1908 Tolstoy was interviewed by The New York World and he told this amazing story of having gone to a remote area of the Caucuses some years prior to that, where he encountered a whole bunch of wild barbarians who had never left this area of Russia. And they were so excited that Tolstoy was there, they asked him to tell great stories of the men of the west. So Tolstoy said I told them all about Napoleon and Frederick the Great and Alexander and they were loving every moment of it. But before I finished, theyhad stopped him and said, “But wait. You haven’t told us about the greatest ruler of them all. We want to hear about that man who spoke with a voice of thunder, who laughed like the sunrise. That man who comes from that place called America, which is so far from here, that if a young man should travel there, he would be anold man when he arrived. Tell us of that man. Tell us of Abraham Lincoln. ”Tolstoy was stunned that they had heard of Lincoln and he told him everything heknew about his difficult upbringing, his move through politics and the Emancipation Proclamation. And then he asked himself, so what was it about Lincoln that made him greater than these other rulers? Not a great statesmen like Frederick the Great, not a great General like Napoleon. But he said, “His greatness consisted in the character of his being and the moral fiber of his being.” And Ithink for generations historians would agree with that understanding.”

Abraham Lincoln cited in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals

Roy L. Pearson Jr.

Update: Here’s a recent comment worth putting in the main entry:

* * * As you are undoubtedly aware, a $54 million lawsuit was recently brought in DC District Court against a small neighborhood drycleaners over a pair of alleged lost trousers.  While the Court found resoundingly in favor of the business owners, Jin and Soo Chung, their ordeal is not yet over—they have drained their saving accounts contesting this frivolous lawsuit, and they have racked up over $100,000 in legal expenses.

In order to help the Chungs defray their legal bills, ILR and the American Tort Reform Association are co-hosting a fundraiser on Tuesday evening, July 24 at 6 p.m. at the US Chamber Building in Washington, DC.  Unfortunately, businesses large and small across America must deal every day with similar extortionist tactics from some plaintiffs’ lawyers. The collective outcome is not justice, but lost jobs, ruined businesses and billions of dollars in lost economic opportunity.  Additional details, sponsorship opportunities and easy online registration are available at www.chungfundraiser.com  * * *

What a terrible human being. It sounds funny at first. “Judge sues dry cleaners for $67 million for lost pants.” But then you see the picture of the family that owns the dry cleaners. Then you realize just what Roy Pearson has done. He’s ruined the livelihood of a family out of sheer vanity and petty vindictiveness. God, please let justice be done. 

Bruce McCormack on Barth’s Ethics of Freedom

“Barth’s ‘moral ontology’ ascribes more freedom and significance to the human than do the anthropological underpinnings of the ‘moral Cartesianism’ (p. 55) which has tended to dominate modern ethical reflection. On the latter view, the human subject is self-positing in a non-dependent, unqualified way. The subject creates her ’self’ through setting and accomplishing ethical goals in the face of moral quandaries. A divine agency whose existence would qualify or determine such finite acts of self determination is seen, on this view, as hostile to human freedom. For Barth, such an understanding offers only the appearance of freedom.

Katie Flynn

Though I’m wary of her cult leader-like influence and status, catching Oprah’s show tonight reminded me of how important and good she can be. Her guests were a married couple whose family car was hit by a drunk driver. For one hour, on the side of the road, the mother held the severed head of her 7 year old daughter. It had become detached from the girl’s seat-belted body due to the 70mph impact of the drunk driver’s car. Oprah ended the show with the comment: “I want you all to remember this mother holding her daughter’s severed head on the side of the road before you decide to drive drunk.”

Azia Kim: justification by Stanford alone

On May 17, four days before residential staff would discover Azia Kim’s eight month ruse of posing as a Stanford student, Kim posted a message on her newly-created Xanga account. “I get too caught up in looking forward to summer and going home,” she wrote, “that I forget to be thankful for the beautiful people God has placed into my life. I love Stanford.”  Stanford Daily, May 25, 2007

What is interesting for me about the recent news of young, infamous Korean-Americans is their encounters with the church.  If you’re Korean-American, it’s almost assumed (for good reason) that you’ve experienced church at least a few times in your early childhood.  For good and for bad, there’s no getting away from church in Korean-American culture.  You can get out of the church, but you can never really get the church out of you (as Cho Seung-hui’s Christ-imbued rant recently showed). 

Sentimentalism

The greatest enemy facing American Christians today is not atheism, according to Stanley Hauerwas, but sentimentalism.  It is the mentality that goes: “I’m not going to sacrifice my family for anything” or ”Loyalty is the most important virtue.”  It has the veneer of respectability but it is essentially idolatry.  I’ve been suffering from this temptation lately.  My wife and precious 1 year old daughter’s comfort, safety, and prospects have become more and more an overriding concern in my decision-making processes.  Yes,  of course, as 1 Timothy 5:8 states: “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  And don’t get me wrong.  My family is a true blessing from God.  But the sentimentalist in me holds too dearly to this verse to the ignorance of passages like Matthew 10:37-38 (“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me”).  One other interesting aspect of all this is that those churches that seek only pastors who are married and have children are signs of our sentimentalist times.  They are most certainly not being biblical (see e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:26-35).

Reflections on Seminary

Going into my final two months week HOURS! of MDiv studies, I’ve become more reflective on things I learned at seminary. I’m extremely grateful for the God-given opportunity I’ve received to learn so many profound things from my three years at Princeton Seminary. Despite many complaints, especially at the beginning, of overwork in non-essentials to ministry, undertraining for the task of preaching, general lack of piety on campus, I know i will leave here with only gratitude and fondness. Through PTS I received my lovely wife, a chance to serve as a pastor at four churches, an environment fit for a monk, and Karl Barth. Here are some theses (in random order) of things I learned from or despite seminary:

* Iain Torrance: “if we fill your minds with too much specification, we train you for obsolescence.”

* There are two kinds of “MDiv” that people can get at seminary: Master of Divinity or Mastered by Divinity.

Favorites

Each of these have repeatedly and often unexpectedly enriched my life:

Software:

OpenOffice (free Office-compatible software that rivals MS Office)

WordWeb (free dictionary software)

E-sword (free Bible software that rivals Logos)

Resurgence (free BibleWorks-like program)

Websites:

Chosunjournal.com

Amazon.com

Redeemer.com

Gadgets:

Garmin 350 Nuvi GPS

Music:

“In Christ Alone” by Adrienne Leisching

Movies:

Chariots of Fire