Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology

I love to stumble across good books in obscure places like yard sales, thrift stores, etc. Last January I picked up a copy of Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology at a thrift store while Cyd and I were on the church marriage retreat. I finally got around to reading it this month. Of course many consider Barth to have been the most influential theologian of the 20th century for his course correction of Liberal theology, though many conservatives and fundamentals would contend that he didn't go far enough his correctives. I have engaged some of his writing before, but it has been several years since I have read any of his works. This volume was the result of his visit to America and a series of lectures he did at the University of Chicago.

Reading Barth is challenging because his thought process is so thorough that he makes the reader rethink everything before affirming anything. Incidentally, Barth considers this to be one of the necessary components of any theologian. A man who is most remembered for his multi-volume, Church Dogmatics, in discussing the different disciplines of theological study says that systematic theology  is a contradiction in terms. "There is at any rate no justification for the construction and proclamation of a system of Christian truth developed out of some definite conceptualization of it. What should rule in the community is not a concept or a principle, but solely the Word of God attested to in the Scriptures and vivified by the Holy Spirit" (180).

What a challenge for those of us concerned with theology to make sure that our theological systems and structures are not erected as a wall to the movement of the Holy Spirit and the will of God but that they are there as supports to the ongoing work of the Word made flesh!