Review of Current Religious Thought: December 08, 1961

In Berlin, where this is being written, there met in July the Tenth German Kirchentag (Protestant Congress). A varied and gifted group of speakers dealt with a wide range of topics, some of which have vital interest to us of the American scene. While many of the sessions were devoted to problems of special concern to the German Church, there were notes struck at points which are crucial for Christians, of whatever land and from whatever denomination.

The most pressing question was that of the meaning of the Holy Scriptures in today’s world. In a setting in which science presents its claims with increasing authority (as it does also with us), devout leaders reminded us that God’s Truth cannot be called into question by the partial truths of scientific knowledge. Further, it was emphasized that there is more than one kind of scientific questioning: there is the reverent variety which acts under God’s mandate in Genesis to rule and subdue the earth—and this will include scientific research into the ways of the created world. There is also, it was pointed out, a type of questioning which arrogantly and foolishly asserts that research may be conducted more effectively in disregard of the Lord of all Truth.

It was recognized that the Bible has for its primary purpose not the giving of directive truth in every minute phase of human knowledge, but the affording of a “key of knowledge” in terms of which all things may be understood. This “key of knowledge” was identified as follows: it is the incarnation of the Eternal Son in human flesh, in Jesus of Nazareth. We were reminded that this was not a timeless event, hut one which is identifiable in history and in geography. This Incarnation was an act of love: it was a deed of God which bears its message above the tumult of history.

But how, men will ask, can men and women rise above the doubts which the modern scientific outlook has raised in their minds? Is there anything which signals this act of love in such a form that it can he grasped by the mind which is cluttered up with so much of the debris with which our age has filled the air? In other words, what is the central drive of the Christian Evangel? One of our speakers put his reply into crisp form: As a visible sign of God’s love, the Cross of Jesus Christ stands above all our doubts.

This is a daring thesis: many present in Berlin had relatives in the East Zone of Germany. A few had braved the threats of the Pankow puppet government and had crossed over from the East into West Berlin (now impossible since the building of The Wall, August 13). These persons raised understandable questions: How can God allow the things to happen which occur in the gray world behind the barriers, and how can we know that God’s love is operating now, that it is at work in such events as today unrolls before us?

At such a time, speakers cannot hedge, cannot evade. These are questions upon which hinge matters of life and death. It was heartening to hear men of undoubted stature declare that in Christ God confronted us with his own unimpaired Image; that at the Cross God made an answer so eloquent to man’s most profound problem that the man who will obey that which the Cross demands will find, in the depth of his soul, an answer-through-faith which will carry him through even the worst times.

It is as the bearer of this Message, of the Tidings of such a Redeemer, that the Bible cannot be called in question by “cheap questions or plump polemics.” The voice of history proclaims that God’s Word will erode and outlast all of man’s doubts concerning it. But the really meaningful problem is, to what kind of listener will God make himself audible? Over and over it was emphasized that obedience is the crucial factor, the decisive element. Over and over we were reminded that our Lord expressed the heart of the matter in the words recorded in John 7:17. It is, therefore, only the listening which is conditioned by a bent-upon-obedience which will lead to effective hearing.

Much attention was given to the relationship between biblical faith and a knowledge which seeks to do justice to facts. It was refreshing to hear men who combined a deep Christian faith with a genuine competence in the so-called secular areas of knowledge declare that a “biblical listening to God” does not render careful thought in scientific areas impossible, but rather includes it and gives to it its real dignity. We were reminded, over and over, of that which both Christians and non-Christian thinkers so easily forget, that we all “prophesy in part.”

Moreover, there was held up for close scrutiny the claim of modern science to be completely objective, to operate without any preconceived notions or principles. To the contrary, it was made clear that all thought operates within a framework of assumed suppositions, although these may be deeply concealed. And science itself is prone to forget that “its net of questions” is too small to include all of the realms of reality in which we must live.

Such declarations as these, if taken seriously, would bring down the pride of intellect which marks so much of the activity of our Western world. It is a strange contradiction that men succeed in their attempts at asserting their own self-sufficiency only in losing their real importance. On the other hand, we were assured, as man recognizes the living God (who in reality surrounds us all), the smallest detail of his life and being take on importance. When His voice becomes audible, through the written Word, as it brings us to the Incarnate Word, all of the features of our life become potential elements in our “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

By this time the reader is no doubt ready with the question, How can the emphases of the Kirchentag be squared with what we hear nowadays of the influence of Rudolf Bultmann upon German theology? The facts are that Bultmann was scarcely mentioned in the major discussions of biblical matters. This does not mean that the speakers were unaware of his work, or unaware that he is one of the great names. It does mean that this gathering was primarily the outgrowth of the spiritual concern of laymen, whose practical wisdom seems to tell them that such movements as the “demythologizing” of Bultmann is a theological fad, subject to the laws which govern most crazes.

There emerges from the Berlin Kirchentag a hopeful indication. It is this: that when the theologians may at times fail to see the forest for the trees, God gives to nonspecialists the unusual insight by which they may help the specialists to regain their perspective. And it is frequently in conferences sponsored by laymen that theologians whose messages are most vital are lifted into prominence.

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