Advent Update 3

Advent lopes along, with none of the rising action you'd hope for in a good story. This is life. Poor drama, but still compelling to the protagonist.

Tonight at cell, I am leading us in discussion around a piece by Karl Barth on Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. This week in Advent is sort of "John the Baptist week," so this is my loose tie-in.

Here's the intro I cooked up to give some insight into Barth. Wikipedia is quoted liberally:

Karl Barth (with a silent "h") was one of the big movers in neo-orthodoxy, which basically says that we know about God thanks to revelation from God, as opposed to knowing about God from observing nature and using reason. God is transcendent. Just because God showed up as a human for a while, doesn't make him just a big human. His theology points to the radical challenge of Jesus Christ, and the impossibility of tying God to human cultures, achievements, or possessions.

In the '30s, Barth argued that the Church's allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ gives it motive and resources to resist the influence of other "lords"—such as the German Führer. Barth mailed this declaration to Hitler personally. He was eventually forced to resign from his professorship at the University of Bonn for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler.

Barth has been criticized because he doesn’t embrace Biblical inerrancy. Barthians respond by saying that a theology based in Biblical inerrancy is based on something other than Jesus Christ. Our understanding of Scripture's accuracy and worth can only properly emerge from consideration of what it means as a true witness to the incarnate Word, Jesus.

Quotes:

• "Belief cannot argue with unbelief, it can only preach to it."
• “Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.”