A History of Christian Theology

Class Notes #14 – January 31, 2007

Chapters 17

1. O God, who hast sent thy  beloved Son to be unto us the Way, the Truth and the Life, Grant that we, looking unto him, may set forward the teaching power of thy Church, to the nurture of thy people, the increase of thy Kingdom, and the glory of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2. Recap last class – January 24, 2007
   
   
3. pp 273 – Hegel & Truth
   1. Each culture has its own context and its own way of viewing the world…in such a world, how can we define ‘truth’? 
      
      Jesus – “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me” (John 14:6)
      Pontius Pilot – “What is truth?” John 18:38
   2. How does culture impact our beliefs?

                                                               i.      The place of women

                                                             ii.      Slavery

                                                            iii.      Homosexuality

                                                           iv.      Various food or purity Laws of the Hebrews in the Old Testament

                                                             v.      Important theological questions:

1.      creation – literal 6 days, evolutionary creation, Day-age or none of the above

2.      anthropology – created by God, evolved, original sin

3.      salvation – works, inherent goodness, faith alone

4. pp 273 - Schleiermacher
   1. “Feeling and inner pious are the key to religion, not facts or logic. “Every event is a miracle”.
   2. Pp 274 Feelings and inner experience become the measure of our religious experience.

                                                               i.      Bible and church are secondary and only important in how they shape or contribute to the experience.

3. The destructive social culture is the real meaning of original sin.
4. Jesus communicates ‘God-consciousness’.
   
   
4. pp 277 – Strauss
   1. The bible is full of myths
   2. The myths, however, make no difference; what is important is the ideas they express.
      
      
5. pp 278 – Feuerbach
   1. Human beings invented the idea of god – “Man’s god is nothing other than the deified essence of man”.
   2. Seeks to uncover the real meaning of what we say.
      
      
6. The Oxford Movement (High Church or ritualists) vs the Evangelical wing of Anglicanism
   1. Ritualists placed emphasis on doctrine and ascetics – how we worship and pray; how we order our spiritual life.
   2. Evangelicals placed emphasis on conversion, sin and repentance.
      
      

Chapter 18

8. The German reaction against liberal theology – Barth and Bonhoeffer
   1. Barth – reacted against liberal 19^th century theology

                                                               i.      Taught that scripture was written through the lens of biases and world views of its authors; however, affirmed that they (Paul for example) still knew something about God and managed to communicate it. The bible was not inerrant in the sense that fundamentalist, evangelicals or conservative scholars would hold.

                                                             ii.      Attacked ‘religion’ as a human attempt to know God – something that is impossible

                                                            iii.      Pp 293: “We must accept the fact that we can know of God only what God reveals”.

                                                           iv.      “Barth argued that the God who is revealed in the cross of Jesus challenges and overthrows any attempt to ally God with human cultures, achievements, or possessions”

Barth was largely responsible for the writing of the Barmen declaration (germ. Barmer Erklärung) which rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity—arguing that the Church’s allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ should give it the impetus and resources to resist the influence of other 'lords'—such as the German Führer, Adolph Hitler. (Wikipedia)

A reporter once asked Barth if he could summarize what he had said in his lengthy Church Dogmatics. Barth thought for a moment and then said: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

2. Bonhoeffer followed Barth to its logical end, resisting Nazism

                                                               i.      God should be at the center of our lives – on the cross.

                                                             ii.      God allowed Himself to be pushed outside of the world and we should do the same.

9. America in the 20^th Century
   1. Rise of Fundamentalism pp 297

                                                               i.      The Five Points:

1.      Biblical inerrancy

a.       The bible is literally true in every statement

2.      Virgin birth

3.      Satisfaction theory of the Atonement

4.      Bodily Resurrection

5.      Miracles of Jesus

                                                             ii.      Was generally anti-intellectual

                                                            iii.      Rejected acceptance of secular culture in to the church

2. Rise of the Social Gospel

                                                               i.      Pp 297 Rauschenbusch – “Christians paid too much attention to individual salvation and insufficient attention to a call for social change symbolic of the Kingdom of God.”

10. Post WWII
    1. Bultmann

                                                               i.      Rejected the miraculous

                                                             ii.      Developed ‘Form Criticism’ – the attempt to understand when and why a passage was written and added to the Gospel

Theological Declaration of Barmen

1.      "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14.6). "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved." (John 10:1, 9.)

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation.

2.      "Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30.)

As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

3.      "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together." (Eph. 4:15,16.)

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.

4.      "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant." (Matt. 20:25,26.)

The various offices in the Church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

5.      "Fear God. Honor the emperor." (1 Peter 2:17.)
Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God's commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church's vocation as well.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.

6.      "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matt. 28:20.) "The word of God is not fettered." (2 Tim. 2:9.)

The Church's commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ's stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.

The Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of Confessional Churches. It invites all who are able to accept its declaration to be mindful of these theological principles in their decisions in Church politics. It entreats all whom it concerns to return to the unity of faith, love, and hope.