Karl Barth and Preaching
Introduction
Ascension Day, 1956, and the prisoners at the city prison in Basel, Switzerland, anticipate the visitor. He comes from time to time to give the men a message from God. He opens the Bible and begins preaching:
“O LORD our God! Our Father through thy Son who became our brother! …The one and only genuine comfort we may offer to our fellowmen is this reflection of heaven, of Jesus Christ, of God himself, as it appears on a radiant face!”
It is Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of the century, preaching in the local jail. At heart, Barth was a preacher. Dae Ryeong Kim notes that Barth “was a theologian by title, a pastor by heart, and a missionary preacher in actual ministry.” Robert Duke maintains that “perhaps no other preacher/theologian in this century has devoted more thought and writing to preaching.” Although usually recognized as a master theologian, it should not be forgotten that Barth was also a master preacher.
Ironically, Barth’s doctrine of revelation both strengthened and weakened the case for powerful biblical preaching. He did to preaching what a horticulturist does when he prunes the branches of a tree at the expense of poisoning the roots. Barth’s theology gave preachers compelling reasons to prune away the lipid liberal preaching of his day. Under Barth’s theology, the dynamic of powerful, authoritative preaching was reborn. Nevertheless, to build his argument for preaching, Barth had to pay a costly price. He had to abandon the verbal inspiration of the scriptures, which, in the end, would work against expository preaching. Barth’s theology of revelation had a positive effect on preaching because it validated the preacher’s calling to speak forth the Word of God as the Word of God; nevertheless, by relocating the locus of authority from words to an “event,” Barth undermined one of the crucial ingredients of biblical preaching. This paper will first examine Barth’s background as a preacher, then will discuss and critique the interaction of his doctrine of the Word and preaching, and will conclude with the relevancy of his doctrine on contemporary preaching.
Barth as a preacher
Barth was a preacher. James Cox recongnizes him as one of the five most influential preachers since Chrysostom. Markus Barth, one of Karl Barth’s sons, records in his memoirs that during the years the family lived at Safenwil, Barth’s life was filled with endless activity “but above and behind all he worked on his sermons.” John McConnachie, writing at the time of Barth’s preaching ministry, describes Barth’s preaching as “a preacher of the word, whose speech is penetrated with the consciousness that it deals with the ultimate issues of life and death.” Barth’s life is an example of the fact that great theologians do not come from comfortable and isolated universities; but from the groanings and struggles of pastoral ministry. Much of this struggle came from the liberal theology that created a tension with the way he saw the Gospel working in the Scriptures. Barth would find the liberal theology in which he was trained impotent to produce passionate, biblical preaching for his people. The liberal theology of his day, stemming originally from the influence of Schleiermacher, rejected the idea of dogmatic, creedal and authoritative theology. In his earlier years, Barth was highly influenced by the theology of Wilhelm Herrmann. Herrmann’s theology was “very much a theology of human experience and particularly to the human conscience.” Bowden remarks that during the formation years of Barth’s life, “the very nature and indeed the possibility of theology at all were much in question.”
It was this theology coming into tension over the pulpit that would spark Barth’s revolutionary theology. James Cox notes that although Barth is remembered for his love of theology, “his primary concern was the task of proclamation.” As a budding preacher in Switzerland, Barth was faced with a serious problem. Feeling that his preaching was not connecting with his people, he realized that there lay a immense gulf between the Word of God, and human thought and existence. This tension he faced every Sunday morning drove him to “serious theological reflection.” This reflection led Barth to think in new categories about how God’s Word interacts with mankind’s situation. Biographer John Bowen writes that Barth “rediscovered the Bible because he had to preach from it Sunday by Sunday.” It is critical that Barth is seen in this context. He was a preacher trying to find a way to explain why the Word could have meaning as the Word “preached” or as he would come to say-- “as apprehended.” Barth wrote that his theological method “did not come into being as a result of any desire of [mine] to form a school or to devise a system; it arose simply out of what [I] felt to be the need and promise of Christian preaching.”(original italics) Part of Barth’s exaltation of the role of preaching came from his awareness of the Catholic understanding of Mass as action and event. He saw preaching as the one remaining “sacrament” for the Protestant Church. He wrote:
“It is very clear that the Reformation wished to see something better substituted for the Mass it abolished, and that it expected that that better thing would be—our preaching of the Word. The verbum visible, the objective clarified preaching of the Word, is the only sacrament left to us. The Reformers sternly took from us everything but the Bible.”
As a preacher, Barth was faced with two irreconcilable objects to which preaching somehow attempted to reconcile: the Word of God and human life. He wrote, “as a minister I wanted to speak to the people in the infinite contradiction of their life and to speak the no less infinite message of the Bible which was as much of a riddle as life.” It was this “infinite contradiction” of human life and the divine Word that drove Barth from the liberal theories of inspiration to establish his own understanding of how the Bible takes on meaning to fallen humanity. Barth saw three modes of God’s revelation: proclamation, the Word, and Jesus Christ. Of these three, preaching was the most “event” oriented, because it spoke from the written scriptures to magnify Jesus Christ and so included all three of the modes of revelation. When the Word of God was preached; believers would hear the Word of God and it would bring into their lives the freedom found in Jesus Christ.
The intention of this paper is not to retell the significance of Barth’s doctrine of revelation, but rather to examine how it affected preaching. There are three significant effects that Barth’s theology had on the preaching of his time.
Barth upheld the importance of the subjective “preaching event”
Barth’s theology of revelation and the Word of God created a powerful impetus for the tired liberal churches by instilling an uncompromising authority for divine power in the pulpit. Barth’s theology of revelation implied that God communicated to man through an “event” of revelation and not merely a set of logical propositions. The liberal mentality was increasingly defining the Word of God as nothing more than inspiring moral literature. If this were the case, the need for preaching is almost destroyed in a literate culture. Preaching is reduced to “sharing,” becoming nothing more than inspirational moral speeches, without any intrinsic power in the exposition of the Word of God. As liberal theology infiltrated the German preachers, the preaching began to lose the stark presence of authority and truth. In this context, Barth’s theology of preaching stands in strong contrast. The fundamental way that Barth defined preaching was by showing preaching to be one of the key commissions God had left His Church. Because God has intrinsically ordained preaching as one of the means to transmit his revelation, Barth gave proclamation a very high regard and argued that it was a foundational instrument in accomplishing the commission of God for the church. Bromily notes that the liberals “misunderstood preaching, rebelled against it, and tried to replace it by [social] action.” Barth sharply opposed, claiming that “preaching can regain its proper place only if it is rightly understood as a repetition of the promise of God in which the Word of God and faith are in personal encounter.”
Barth’s concept of preaching is a practical application of his theology of revelation. He introduces his lectures on homiletics with the words: “Preaching must conform to revelation.” Thus, only when preaching “conforms” to the revelation of God, is it really preaching and can it really have power. Barth challenged the liberal ideology of his day by demonstrating the God-ordained power in the event of preaching. It is in proclamation that the Word of God is given a human, incarnation channel in the mouth and life of a preacher, and yet maintains the quality of being the Word of God. Thus, McConnachie writes, “Barth defines preaching as the declaring of the Word of God. Predicatio verbi Dei est verbum Dei.” For this reason, Barth maintained that the preacher must have experienced the subjective reality of the Word of God before he could preach it to others. The preacher must “yield himself to the movement of the Word of God when and as the Bible becomes God’s Word for him.” He adds, “precisely because the point of the event of preaching is God’s own speaking, there can be no question of our doing the revealing in any way.” Thus, preaching for Barth was not the preacher giving reasons for why the Word of God is true, or trying to convince people of the power of the Word. In Dogmatics he writes, “preaching does not reflect, reasons, dispute, or academically instruct. It proclaims, summons, invites and commands.” In the act of preaching, the revelatory act (or “event”) of God takes place and speaks authoritatively the Word of God to the believer. Certainly this is in line with Calvin, who taught that when the scriptures are preached the Spirit witnesses to the truth of the scriptures by the use of the scriptures themselves. This makes the scriptures “self-authenticating” by the witnessing role of the Holy Spirit, creating a basis for the inherit power of expositional preaching as an event that engenders belief. Barth’s theology of preaching was built entirely on his theology of revelation which produced a distinctly event-oriented polemic for preaching. Because of this, Barth’s theology of the Word of God made him especially wary of the so called importance of cultural “relevance.” He thought that pastors “should aim their guns beyond the hills of relevance.” This was because Barth was convinced that the scripture did not become powerful when it was translated into man’s sinful (or cultural) situation, but when it was expounded “as is,” allowing the Spirit to work in his own way through his Word. Barth was “deaf to any manifestations of the Spirit outside the witness of scriptures and preaching.” Ironically, this meant that according to Barth preaching had to be centered upon a clear exegesis of scriptural texts. David Buttrick, in an introductory essay on Barth’s homiletics, notes that “Barth clings to scripture, guards scripture fiercely, and will allow no dilution of scripture’s divine Word.”
Barth understood the mystery in preaching
Among Barth’s liberal contemporaries, preaching had been nearly reduced to moral teaching. It made sense to the others that preaching should be nothing more than just the religions teaching; and in the case of these preachers, this teaching was Biblical orthodoxy. Barth’s vision of God cut through such ideas. He wrote of his day that the word “’teaching,’ or ‘doctrine,’ had become a word with a hard and meaningless sound, simply because we not longer understand it.” He rejected the notion that doctrine was “pedagogical,” “constructed ideas” or moralistic teaching. Instead, Barth gloried in the fact that it was a great mystery that God speaks to man. In showing this mystery of God speaking to man, Barth uncovered much of the counterfeit understanding of preaching that had infiltrated the church. Preaching is NOT simply a teaching about God or a moralistic message from the Bible. The mystery is that God spoke to man and that God still speaks to man. This speaking is not based on the intrinsic nature of the Word, or of the worthiness of man, but solely on the freedom of God. God, in his freedom, speaks to man, and so preaching exists. The Church must always defend against the idea that the Bible is merely a moral compass or book of ethics. By using words like “contradiction,” “impossibility” and “wholly other,” Barth maintained the idea that there was a mystery in the way God spoke to man through preaching.
Barth saw the importance of theology in preaching
Although Barth rejected the idea that dogma was just a pedagogical construct, he did not reject dogma. Rather, the formal task of dogmatics is critical for preaching, and the goal of dogmatics is the way it “teaches by listening.” Barth argues that the presence of Jesus Christ underscored the necessity of preaching, and that “the primary task of dogmatics is to remind it that the Word of God goes out as a living message in the active teaching and preaching of the Church.” Dogmatics are a kind of translator between the Word on the page and the Word proclaimed to people authoritatively. Christ’s presence in his Church meant that theology was not option, but was inseparable from biblical preaching. Hienrich notes that Barth defined dogmatics as “the supervision of Gospel proclamation.” He says further that Barth’s tight correlation between theology and preaching were necessary because “only in relation to this process [preaching] does it find its life.”
In summary, Barth’s theology of God and revelation brought a reviving of power to the preaching in his day. Adolf Keller, in noting some of the influences Barth had upon his generation, writes that Barth helped in “leading the Church back to its true mission, viz., the proclamation of the Word.”
The Underlying Danger of Barth’s Homiletical Method
The danger with Barth’s theology of preaching is that it rests upon his doctrine of revelation. His doctrine of revelation would eventually work to undermine the power of Biblical preaching centered upon the scripture texts. This is the irony of Barth. His short term successes produced long-term weaknesses. David Allen points out that although Barth wanted to restore powerful biblical authority in preaching; his “major theological faux pas, entailing immense repercussions for theology, was his assertion that the Bible, as a witness to revelation, is not itself revelation.” It may seem tempting to deduce that Barth was against true expository preaching since he held that the words of scripture themselves are not inspired. But precisely the opposite is the case. He maintained that preaching was important (a sacrament) because the written scriptures were not revelation themselves, and it is through the event of preaching where God speaks to his people. This event could take place in preaching. This made Barth was one of the strongest advocates for biblical, expository preaching of his day, and many of his messages are far more loaded with biblical and theological content than many sermons written by preachers who hold to a verbal plenary inspiration of the scriptures. For this reason, a critique of Barth’s theology of preaching must be carefully constructed not to ignore the strong reality of Barth’s preaching amid the subtle dangers.
Barth’s preaching was open to the work of the Spirit in the illumination of the text, but when too far when it called this work of illumination revelation. Does preaching reveal and illuminate what was there before? Or does preaching actually take the husk of the scriptures, and through creating the event of revelation? Barth maintained that preaching did not simply work to illuminate, but could be for the hearer the actual event of revelation. The modern mindset that dominated the academic scene did not allow for a large potential of supernatural in-breaking of the Spirit through his Word to the Church. Thus Barth made great strides in his “missconstrual” of illumination. Where the liberals fell a mile short, Barth when a yard too far. Nevertheless, this yard would prove deadly.
The best way to respond to the implications of Barth’s theology of revelation is too see that the way God works through preaching and the way that God inspired his written word are two different things. Barth, in trying to uphold them both had to marry the two works of God into one “event” which is fundamentally false. In re-writing the definition of biblical ontology, Barth completely avoided the normal categories of “inspiration,” “illumination” and “unction” (in preaching). It is worthy noting that this paper is critiquing the way Barth described his preaching rather than his preaching itself. His preaching was powerful, and he had great love for the scriptures. But in describing his preaching, he joined together two things that must be understood as separate and interdependent. Unction, or divine power, is possible in preaching, precisely because the words of scripture are inspired. One rests upon the other: without verbal plenary inspiration there can be no powerful exegetical preaching.
Does Barth have Something for Today’s Preachers?
Although Barth’s doctrine of the Word is flawed, his cry for powerful preaching is needed today. There are four points from Barth’s life as a preacher that would be helpful for contemporary evangelical preachers to remember.
First, Barth was an intellectual theologian who could translate his learning into powerful preaching. He connected with audiences ranging from the leading intellectuals of Europe, to the villagers of Safenwil and to the prisoners in the Basel jail. It was a hallmark of his theology that he insisted that is serve the church. Barth lived out this idea. What is increasingly critical to see is that Barth was an example of a theologian who did not create a gulf between his theoretical studies and his ability to translate them into soul-stirring preaching. Significantly, Barth did not become trite, overly basic, and watered-down in his preaching and then complex and intellectual in his lectures. Rather he maintained the ability to communicate the same profound theological insight directly into his sermons in such a way that they were inspiring, winsome, and powerful to his non-academic listeners.
Secondly, Barth maintained that preaching—in a way different than mere study and reading—was the actual communication of God’s word to God’s people. The clearest proof for this is the style of his preaching. When reading Barth’s sermons and imaging the Barth that preached them, the readers gets the sense that Barth really felt the miracle of the communication of God’s word was taking place. There is a weight; a holy intimacy, a strange fervor, and a sense of proclamation in Barth’s messages: “'Look up to him and your face will shine!' What an announcement! What a promise and assurance! People, very ordinary human beings, with illumined faces!” Sadly, this weight and fervency has left many of today’s pulpits. Perhaps the reason is that the theology driving contemporary preaching has misapplied a conservative doctrine of the inspiration of scripture to the point that the event of preaching is reduced to giving “talks” about important scriptural principals, instead of proclaiming scripture as God’s very Words. It would be good to be reminded of the powerful event that God has ordained in the proclamation of the message of his Word.
Third, Barth knew how to make a sermon biblical, Christocentric, and relevant. This is not an easy combination to merge together. Richard Lischer point out that “it is as difficult to find ministers who are against biblical preaching as it is to find biblical preaching.” This stands true also for sermons that are Christcentric, exegetical and relevant to people’s spiritual needs. Barth’s sermon’s had a remarkable balance in being both biblical, centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ, and applicable to the hearts and lives of his listeners. Duke analyses Barth preaching in his sermon “Be Not Anxious” in which Barth probes below the superficial needs and concerns of people by “painting a vivid picture of [their] anxiety-ridden lives” As the audience deeply senses the problem, Barth “can only offer one response: Be not anxious.” Barth was uninteresting in trying to translate the Words of Scripture into clever applications for his people. Rather, the Word of God was “all Barth could say” because it was in that Word that Jesus speaks, and it is the Word that makes change possible. Barth viewed his job as a preacher to be teaching people to hear rather than teaching them to apply or to change. Change could only happen as the Word of God was encountered as the Word of God, and at that moment, divine power was loosened to bring transformation. Barth is a good example of a preacher who is both eloquent, and intelligent, but aware of the awful danger of letting eloquence “empty the cross of its power.” Much contemporary preaching needs to struggled with this balance, and find fresh ways to get tired Christians to listen afresh to the Word of God. In all of Barth’s preaching, he remained throughout Christocentric. John Marsh writes in his preface to Barth’s prison sermons that “the basic principal that underlines all of Barth’s theology… is to leave completely undistorted and uncompromised the great, wonderful and mysterious fact that God has spoken to us in his Son, Jesus Christ out Lord.” That this might be said of evangelical preachers today!
Fourthly, the goal of Barth’s preaching was to change his listeners in relationship with God. Duke writes, “the primary stress in preaching is the establishment of a right relationship with God.” Barth was adamantly opposed to the anthropologic nature of much of the theology and preaching of this time. Preaching exists to communicate to people the reality of God. “No thought of our brain, no counsel born of our wisdom on the whole, no device, no act, not theory, no practice can help—God alone helps.” Preaching always runs the risk of becoming overly anthropocentric as the reality of the holy God who is wholly other becomes perceived as less and less “relevant.” For Barth, the Holy God was the only thing that was relevant. Of all the means that God could ordain for his self-revelation, he chose his Word and the public proclamation of it. This preaching does not exist fundamentally to help society, or to promote social change, or to re-build the family or the human relationships. Preaching exists to communicate the reality of God. Then, and only then, will ethical change become possible, as the listener is brought into a right relationship with God.
Conclusion
For these reasons, Karl Barth’s methods of preaching, and his theology that support it, have important applications to the contemporary Church. Fortunately one can glean much from Barth without having to wholly espouse all his doctrines and convictions. The branches of contemporary preaching can be pruned with the passion of Barth while leaving the roots unpoisoned. When time travel is possible, it will be a worthwhile journey for today’s evangelical preachers to return to that spring day of 1956 in Basil, Switzerland to hear the eloquent and dynamic preaching of the century’s greatest theologian. The only problem would be that the only way to enter the sanctuary would be to be a convicted criminal.
