On this day in 1962, Karl Barth — a Swiss theologian and preacher who famously resisted Hitler and the rise of the Nazism — was featured on the cover of TIME magazine.
That tells you everything you need to know about what an influential man of God that Barth was and will always be.
Lately I’ve been revisiting some of the Lenten and Easter sermons and other prolific writings of Barth. He churned out theology books by the volumes–his Dogmatics was an astounding 6 million words!
But I had forgotten what a heart he had for the poor and vulnerable, like the inmates he routinely preached and ministered to at the prison in his hometown Basel, Switzerland.
In fact, one of his many books, Deliverance to the Captives, contains 17 of his Sunday sermons to prisoners. It was endorsed by one of his greatest American admirers, the novelist and all-around man of Letters John Updike.*
Barth, incidentally, was a lifelong socialist. Even as a young parish minister he was known as the “Red Pastor” of Safenwil (Switzerland).
But I hasten to add that even though he regarded Jesus and the gospel as inherently political (as do I), he had no truck with those who wanted to reduce the gospel and theology to political ideology (same here).
Barth (like me) was all for government assistance, but believed that, at the end of the day, it was the duty of Christians and the church to … well … be the church, to be Christians … and not abdicate Christian duty to government with all its cold bureaucracy.
He wrote:
-
“Christ was born into poverty in the stable at Bethlehem, and He died in extreme poverty, nailed naked to the Cross.
“He is, then, the companion, not of the rich men of this world, but of the poor of this world. For that reason He called the poor blessed, and not the rich.
“For that reason He is here and now always to be found in the company of the hungry, the homeless, the naked, the sick, the prisoners.”
Among the many religious leaders of many denominations he met, Karl Barth met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who admired him (as did the great sophisticate and novelist John Updike).
God only knows how Barth–who made a much ballyhooed trip to America where he met, among other people, Dr. King and Billy Graham (whose preaching style turned him off) would feel about the ways the hungry, homeless, naked, sick and imprisoned are detested and scapegoated for all of America’s woes today.
Barth was on his extended American tour when TIME interviewed him for the cover story. He was shocked at the awful conditions in American jails and prisons and the treatment of the have-nots in general.
Mind you, all in all, Barth loved and admired America. But his pointed criticisms of her obviously did not sit well with everybody. In a letter to a friend, the great wit and Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor cracked:
“I distrust folks who have ugly things to say about Karl Barth. I like old Barth. He throws the furniture around.”
I leave you with what this great man of God said about the Church with the question: how is your church doing in this regard?
“The Church is witness of the fact that the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.
“And this implies that … the Church must concentrate first on the lower and lowest levels of human society. The poor, the socially and economically weak and threatened, will always be the object of its primary and particular concern.”
————-
Come back to the blog tomorrow, Easter Sunday, for something fascinating that the late Mr. Updike — a “man of the mind” if ever there was one — had to say about the bodily resurrection.
Karl Barth: He wrote volumes upon more volumes of great theology (6 million words) –and yet was a down-home preacher and pastor who loved the poor and vulnerable that Jesus loved.
Leave a Reply