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§16.2: Why Do Some Not Hear God Speak?
In §16.1 Barth pointed out relentlessly that Jesus, the God-Man, is the singular revelation around which all Christian speech of God must cohere. Nevertheless God’s revelation also comes to people who...
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§17: Christianity Against Religion
On the fashionably skeptical (ie, intellectually lazy) side these days are the ‘Nones,’ represented by that most tedious of cliches “I’m spiritual but not religious.” I second Lillian Daniel who writes...
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My Interview with Bishop Will Willimon
The guys at Homebrewed Christianity better watch out. We’re going to start doing a weekly podcast here at Tamed Cynic. To kick things off, we snagged Will Willimon. Jesus must have a sense of humor,...
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§18~ Calling Bull@#$% on ‘Love’
I can’t retrieve enough high school German from the cobwebs of my memory to know if it’s a matter of translation or not, but sometimes reading Karl Barth can feel like the theological equivalent of the...
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§18.3~ Love of Neighbor = Idolatry?
If he could ignore the fact that Barth was not a literalist, John Piper would love §18.3 of the Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth made his theological debut with his blistering commentary on Paul’s Letter...
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§19.1~ Scripture Isn’t the Word of God; It Becomes the Word
Karl Barth began his Church Dogmatics as the historical-critical method of interpreting scripture waned and fundamentalism waxed. To this day both liberals and fundamentalists have problems with Karl...
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§19.2~ Biblical Inerrancy = A Denial of Grace
There’s something fragile, foolhardy and yet frighteningly beautiful about the vantage point that ministry offers upon the faith of ordinary believers and their extra ordinary, in the pejorative sense,...
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Do We Idolize God’s Wrath?
This weekend I’ll continue the Lenten sermon series, 7 Deadlies and the 7 Ways Jesus Saves Us, with a brief homily on anger. Wrath. In the tradition, each of the capital vices is thought to have a...
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The Bible is Not the Word of God
I’ve become convinced that its important for the Church to inoculate our young people with a healthy dose of catechesis before we ship them off to college, just enough so that when they first hear...
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‘The Word of God for the People of God’ ‘Thanks be to God.’ That’s the usual response after the reading of scripture in my church’s worship as it is most congregations. And whenever I read scripture...
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§23.1~ Do We Need Praxis-Based Creeds and Heresies?
§23.1 If nothing else, Karl Barth provides a needful salve for the Christian blogosphere. The sheer breadth and length of Barth’s Dogmatics could fool you. Despite how much hot air Barth devotes to...
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The Problem with the Quadrilateral
We’re only yet into Eastertide, the season where for 50 days Christians remind ourselves that Jesus Christ, raised from the dead once for all, is, despite the Church’s best efforts to render him...
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Another Problem with the Quadrilateral
During Lent, as many of my professional Christian colleagues were forsaking sugar, shots, and selfies, I was instead taking on an additional discipleship discipline: Reading Karl Barth’s Dogmatics....
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§64: Jesus is the Prodigal Son
I’m actually preaching last Sunday’s Jeremiah lection this weekend, but I did notice this Sunday’s Gospel lection is Luke 15.1-32, a trifecta of parables about lost objects and creatures ending with...
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§15: Karl Barth and the Incarnation of the God-Man
The first week of the Advent season is as good a chunk of the calendar as any to turn over into §15 of Barth’s more than chunky (girthy?) Church Dogmatics. We’re just now beginning to anticipate the...
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