Karl Barth and American Evangelicalism

Publisher Description

This book seeks to build bridges between the theology of Karl Barth and contemporary American evangelicalism. Bruce McCormack and Clifford Anderson have brought together essays first presented at the second annual conference on Karl Barth's theology, held at Princeton in 2007. The scholarly insights offered here shed much light on current trends in Protestant theology, moving evangelical engagement with Barth to a new stage in its history.??More than 120 scholars, students, ministers and laypeople gathered at Princeton Theological Seminary on June 24-27, 2007 for the second annual Karl Barth conference. Co-sponsored by the Center for Barth Studies and the Karl Barth Society of North America, the theme of this year's conference was "Karl Barth and American Evangelicals: Friends or Foes?" Bruce McCormack (Princeton Theological Seminary) offered some introductory remarks at the opening banquet on Sunday evening, setting the tone for what was to come. Noting that a conference on this theme was long overdue, McCormack identified the conference's twin goals: first, to initiate a larger conversation between students of Barth and Cornelius van Til; and, second, to explore elements in Barth's theology that have awakened interest among evangelicals.??The first plenary session featured papers by D.G. Hart (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) and George Harinck (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). Hart's essay was entitled "Beyond the Battle for the Bible: What American Protestants Missed about Van Til's Critique of Barth." George Harinck's paper, "Inspired by Dutch Neo-Calvinists: Van Til's Critique of Barth's Theology," sought to address a central question: How did Cornelius van Til become a foe of Karl Barth? The second plenary session featured Michael Horton (Westminster Seminary, California) and George Hunsinger (Princeton Theological Seminary). Horton began by asking, "Does the Covenant Have a History? The Logos Asarkos in Karl Barth's Christology." George Hunsinger's paper, "Election and the Trinity: Twelve Theses," represents his entry into the recent interpretive debate begun by Bruce McCormack's proposals about Barth's doctrine of election in his contribution to the Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. ??John Hare (Yale Divinity School) and Clifford Anderson (Curator of Special Collections at Princeton Theological Seminary) presented during the third plenary. Hare's paper considered "Karl Barth, American Evangelicals, and the Predisposition to the Good." Clifford Anderson's paper, "A Theology of Experience? The Transcendental Argument in Karl Barth's Early Theology," Conference participants had the opportunity to attend one of four concurrent breakout sessions on Tuesday afternoon. Kevin Hector (University of Chicago Divinity School) pursued the topic of "Ontological Violence and the Covenant of Grace: An Engagement between Karl Barth and Radical Orthodoxy." John Franke (Biblical Seminary) offered a paper entitled "Karl Barth, the Postmodern Turn, and Evangelical Theology." Todd Cioffi (Whitworth University) undertook the task of "Rethinking Hauerwas on Barth: Christology, Church, and State." Finally, Jason Springs (American University) asked the question "Can an Evangelical be Postliberal too? Barth, Frei and Henry on the Biblical Witness and the Question of History." Tuesday's schedule concluded with an after-dinner talk by Paul Louis Metzger (Multnomah Biblical Seminary) entitled "Cultural Encounters with Another Kind." The fourth plenary session featured papers from Kimlyn Bender (University of Sioux Falls) and Keith Johnson (Princeton Theological Seminary). In his paper entitled "The Church in Karl Barth and Evangelicalism: Conversations across the Aisle," Keith Johnson concluded the session with an exploration of "The Being and Act of the Church: Barth and the Future of Evangelical Ecclesiology." Taking Francis Beckwith's recent return to Rome as his starting point, Johnson pointed to the desire among younger evangelicals for an ecclesiology where human activity 'counts for something'. He disagrees with the likes of Nicholas Healy, Joseph Mangina, Stanley Hauerwas and Reinhard Hfdtter, all of whom argue that Barth's ecclesiology is weak in precisely this area. Bruce McCormack and Suzanne McDonald (Calvin College) spoke during the sixth and final plenary session. McCormack's essay, "That He May Have Mercy Upon All: Karl Barth and the Problem of Universalism," began by noting that Barth's purported universalism is the fundamental reason why many evangelicals consider him a foe. In hopes of relieving this concern, McCormack argues that a tension exists in the New Testament between passages that speak of the universal scope of God's saving intent and those that discuss the final judgment. Considerable time was devoted to the explication of Romans 5.18-19, Romans 9-11, and 1 Corinthians 15.21-22. On the basis of his exegesis, McCormack argued that the tension found in the New Testament is not to be treated as a logical contradiction; rather, it should be understood as the intrinsic tension between the eschaton and history. Indeed, McCormack thinks that God intended for us to live with this tension so that we would not make the mistake of too surely affirming either limited atonement or universal salvation. While individual theologians should be granted the freedom to explore either of these two positions, churches should avoid pronouncing in favor of either.??Suzanne McDonald's paper was entitled, "Evangelical Questioning of Election in Barth: A Pneumatological Perspective from the Reformed Heritage." John Owen served as McDonald's exemplar with reference to the Trinitarian shape of the doctrine of election in the Reformed tradition. She focused on the role that the Holy Spirit plays in Barth's doctrine of election.