2009 Barth Conference: Day 1

The fourth annual Karl Barth Conference is off and running! We have a good group of scholars, pastors, lay people, and students gathered at Princeton Seminary for Karl Barth on Religion and the Religions. The event is hosted by the Center for Barth Studies and the Karl Barth Society of North America.

Rather than pretend to offer you a thorough recap of each lecture, I'll simply share some elements that stood out to me.

After a brief welcome Sunday evening (followed by my first foray into the world of pub theology), the conference itself began this morning with a stimulating lecture from Garrett Green (Connecticut College emeritus), titled 'Imaginary Gods and Anonymous Believers.' This was an appropriate way to open the week's conversion on Barth's view of both "religion" (or, one might say, religious phenomenology) and "the religions" -- alternate theistic or spiritual world views to Christianity. Green worked largely from work presented to the Karl Barth Society in 2006 by Wolf Krötke -- an introductory section of paragraph 42 of the Church Dogmatics ("The Creator and His Revelation") which Barth excised from the KD before publication. These pages offer insight into Barth's view of "the gods" of the world, and of course raise the question of why it was that he removed it.

God's revelation, says Barth, denies divinity to any and all creatures. Those things we regard as "gods" (discussion focused heavily on the objects of worship for other world religions, though it seemed plain that he had such things as National Socialism squarely in view -- at least in addition to, if not instead of) are, in fact, revelations of "the Nothing." These "gods" are not a part of creation, but "intruders and enemies" who exist only in the human imagination. Yet they have a kind of reality and essence, says Green; "in their utter nullity they are not simply nothing." They exercise power over us, power that can be real and effective in the world around us. Although God has negated (or "sidelined," beseitigt) the gods, we give them quarter and fall under the enemy's dominion.

In the afternoon, Scott Jones (PTS) spoke on the topic 'In Whose Image? Barth, Islam and Monotheism.' This largely took the form of an engagement with sparse statements that Barth made on Islam in the Dogmatics, as well as Franz Rosenzweig's book The Star of Redemption, which was influential on Barth. Scott began with the observation that Barth saw National Socialism as a "new Islam," a false ideology led by a false messiah (Hitler). The compelling question, it seems, is why Barth would have seen this connection between Islam and National Socialism as such an obvious one to make. Why does he see Islam as more akin to paganism than to Judaism and Christianity?

After a bit of discussion of Islam's emphasis on revelation vis-a-vis a text (the Koran), the point was made that "nothing separates Islam and Christianity so radically as the different ways they say the same thing: that there is one God" (CD II/1, 449). There is in Islam a lack of a coming or a becoming of God. This is a point worthy of further exploration, particularly in Christian-Muslim relations.

My award for favorite presentation and discussion of the day goes to Ben Myers (Charles Sturt University), who is not only a stellar scholar and renowned theo-blogger, but as luck would have it also a darn good lecturer. Ben's topic was 'Karl Barth and Paganism: Toward a Theology without Nature.' (Read a brief excerpt at Faith and Theology.) Last summer I worked an internship at GreenFaith here in central New Jersey, and got a healthy exposure to the religious environmental movement and eco-theology -- including some secondary reading on Barth -- so this resonated with me very well.

After a concise and insightful examination of the growing neo-pagan movement and the historical roots of contemporary environmentalism (from Thomas and Calvin to romanticism's idealization of "nature"), Ben continued into Barth's doctrine of creation. Paganism is alive and flourishing, especially in the U.S., where it is perhaps the fastest-growing religious movement today. It is, according to Ronald Hutton, now a religious nostalgia, a love of nature "writ large" -- a desire to return to some idealized, pristine world in which human beings are at one with nature rather than separated from it (by industry, technology, ad infinitum).

In sharp contrast to this, Barth offers an alternate view of creation (not some abstract, idealized and fictive notion of nature) that is the theater of God's covenant. Creation is not nature; it is a specific Christian belief. And there is a sharp distinction between the human being and other creatures. He cannot "return" to nature or merge into his environment; he is not a part of it. Man exercises "lordship" (dominion), the exercise of which is to be respectful and friendly (as with the horse and rider). Dominion, Ben suggests, is a gift -- a gift to the creation that is subjected to human beings.

Ben's final call is to reimagine the romantic theologization of nature, which has set improper terms of discussion even for Christian eco-theology. The church has a need and desire to renew its ethical witness -- to demonstrate its concern for creation. But the biblical story of God's way with the world is in the city, where human beings are. Why, then, can't the worlds we actually inhabit (including urban environments) be regarded as a part of creation (cf. the New Jerusalem)?

Finally, the day capped off with an after-dinner talk from Charles West (Princeton emeritus) on 'Barth, Bonhoeffer and Kraemer on Religion.' As I missed this one, I'll leave it to Travis to recap here.

The conference continues all day tomorrow, and Wednesday morning. I'm particularly looking forward to Katherine Sonderegger's lecture on Barth's Christology as it relates to Judaism (or, as the lecture title puts it, "the Faith of Israel").