Go home!


Go register!
RECENT ENTRIES
-Under the sun
-Raising the House of Israel
-Israel of the Afflicted
-Destroy this temple
-Spirit in Matthew
-Spirit of Elijah
-He Calls Elijah
-Eli, Eli
-Love’s power
-The Song’s Imagery, again
-Wisdom
-Faith
-Notes on Matthew 27
-The Song’s Imagery
-Sight and speech
-Structures in Matthew 27
-Solomon’s crown
-My dove
-Liturgical test
-Continuity from the future
CATEGORY ARCHIVES
  • LINKS
    - Biblical Horizons
    - Covenant Worldview Institute
    - Theologia
    FEED

    CONTACT

    Comments:
    leithart@leithart.com

    Problems:
    webmaster@leithart.com





    « Previous Post | Next Post »
    « Previous post in category | Next post in category »

    Theology - Ecclesiology: Barth’s modernity

    [Print] | [PDF] | [Email]

    Discussing Barth’s distinction of the “church of Esau” and the “church of Jacob” in the Romerbrief, Michael Horton (People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology) gets Barth’s weaknesses exactly right.  First, “Barth seems to assume that ’secularity’ is neutral, objective, descriptive science” and second “Barth can only place the visible-historical form of the church on the ’secular’ side of the ledger upon the presupposition that God works and the church works, but these parallel tracks do not intersect, at least not to such an extent that the actions of preaching and sacrament can be considered means of grace.”

    Horton notes the impression that “for Barth the content (revelation-as-reconciliation) is wholly divine and eternal, while the form is entirely human and historical.”  Thus “his dualistic ecclesiology . . . surrenders the latter to the presumed neutrality of the secular.”

    Which is why – to say the same thing – Barth needs de Lubac.

    posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:22 am