April 20. Karl Barth. Karl, like his father before him, was a theologian, and he was serving as a pastor in a small Swiss village when the commentary he had written on the book of Romans attracted international notice.
Even though he did not have a doctoral degree, a university in Germany offered him a teaching position. He accepted and taught in Münster and in Bonn, but was forced to leave Bonn, and all of Germany, because he would not swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler. He returned to Switzerland and took a position at the University of Basel, where he remained until he retired.
Barth was far more than an ivory-tower theologian; he was an activist who championed the cause of oppressed people everywhere. After the end of WWII, he advocated for reconciliation between the German church and churches abroad. He stood in “solidarity” with Christians behind the iron curtain, rejecting the arms race that engulfed the Soviet Union and much of the western world.
At the age of 75, Barth embarked on a speaking tour across America. On this date in 1962, Time magazine featured Barth on their cover, a sure sign that his religious influence had extended into mainstream American culture.
God does not call the world to us; He tells us to go to the world.
In the fall of 1939, an unusually small class of students gathered in a lecture room in Basel, Switzerland. A middle-aged man in spectacles took his regular post at the front of the class and began his lecture—a kind of service, as he called it—on the doctrines of Scripture. But a familiar roar thundered overhead, and all at once the classroom contrasted starkly with the war raging outside.
Without so much as a glance upward, the speaker continued his lecture, outwardly carrying on as if nothing had happened. Inwardly, though, he wrestled. Speaking to the young people in front of him was safe, but they formed only a fraction of the people his words could impact. Karl Barth would not let his reach be contained to a classroom. Jesus ate with sinners and washed the feet of fishermen. Should the saints hide in stained-glass churches or go out and rescue those in need?
“Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.… Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10: 3, 8–9, ESV).
Barth took hold of this truth, and it drove him to seek opportunities to meet needy people wherever they were.
The days of war reminded him of his early days of pastoring: on Sundays he had stood in the pulpit preaching to a crowd that watched him, he felt, through a pane of glass, but on Mondays he ran to the aid of oppressed millworkers, arming them with practical support based in God’s Word, rejoicing to see the light of recognition dawn on their faces.
Now, again, the time had come to go to war for the souls of men, men who would hardly understand the significance of Jerusalem or the meaning of sanctification, but who thirsted for wisdom and right direction.
Barth “could no longer remain suspended in the clouds above the present evil world,” like many of his disapproving colleagues, when demonstrating faith required him to work and suffer in the imperfection of war. God had provided His living Word that could speak to all men, and Barth, in obedience to conviction, carried that Word into the darkest corners.
In April 1940, at 54 years old, he reported for armed military service, joining fellow soldiers for weeks at a time to keep watch over the city. “I was very, very happy to preach occasionally to these comrades of mine, 95% of whom were non-church-goers.… I learned once again how to write a sermon which is really aimed at a man.”
The friends he made outside of the church were not incapable of understanding truth, but simply craved it in the form of answers to the “real problems of real life.”
Is there a way you can use God’s truth to liberate someone lost in the problems of life? God does not call the world to us; He tells us to go to the world.
Intro:
Zellweger, Barbara. “Biography.” The Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. Accessed August 2, 2020. http://barth.ptsem.edu/karl-barth/biography.
Story:
Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth: His life from letters and autobiographical texts. Translated by John Bowden, Fortress Press, 1976.
Zellweger, Barbara. “Biography.” The Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary,http://barth.ptsem.edu/karl-barth/biography
Story read by Chuck Stecker