5b. The Churches of Europe 2 Flashcards
The Barmen Declaration
Written by Karl Barth in opposition to the “German Christians” in Nazi Germany. The Declaration rejects the subordination of the Church to the State. It also rejects the subordination of the Word and Spirit to the Church. The Church is solely the property of Christ, and he alone is Lord. Barth said that confessing Christians should distance themselves from the ideology of the National Socialists party.
Name the two major components that led to a secularized society in the 20th century.
- The separation of Church and State. 2. The separation of civil society and religion. In other words, religion was marginalized and made private. This is evident by the existence, in American, of Red and Blue States.
What had been the church’s response to the cultural shift of secularization?
the need to be relevant to the culture
Heidegger, Martin
Roman Catholic theologian who wrote, “Sein end Zeit” (Being and Time). Criticized WWI dehumanization. His book explored the nature of “being” human, and how humans are held captive by an angst. As soon as we being to ask “what is being” we’ve already made a mistake, because we’ve assumed that “being” is a thing or entity.
“Sein end Zeit”
Heidegger, Martin. His book explored the nature of “being” human, and how humans are held captive by an angst. As soon as we being to ask “what is being” we’ve already made a mistake, because we’ve assumed that “being” is a thing or entity. In order to understand one’s being, one must face Angst, or death.
Karl Barth
Karl Barth was one of the most influential theologians in the 20th century. He believed that the liberal church had accommodated Christianity to fit the social world around it. He argued that the ultimate task of theology was to preach, and that Harnack had limited himself to “scientific theology”. He was kicked out of Germany when he published the Barmen Declaration. His primary concern, however, was the place and meaning of the Word of God and the revelation of God in Jesus. He challenged theologians to let God be God, and to stop be anthropocentric. He’s challenging the science and anthropology that had entered the church.
Emil Brummer
Like Barth, Brummer was appalled by the rise of Nazis in Germany, and disillusioned with late 19th century philosophy. He called for a more relevant Christianity. Brummer argued that God’s self-revelation was free from errors of subjectivism on the one hand and objectivism on the other. He made himself known through Jesus, and is uniquely present in the apostolic witness and is given by grace through the Holy Spirit. This type of revelation is different from that which is understood through normal scientific process. He’s basically arguing why the scientific method can’t be applied to faith.
Rudolf Karl Bultmann
LIke Barth, Bultmann argued that “liberal” theology was too humanistic and too anthropocentric. The liberal God was not the God of the Bible. The scientific and historical theology schools were coming up with different conclusions, therefor God was unknowable by means of scientific inquiry. God is God, and humans are humans, and because of sin we are separated. Therefore, humans can’t relate with him in any direct fashion. Hmm, Evangelicals have a hard time with him. I can see why. Said that interpretation of scripture is never objective, because our history affects us. The cross was at the center of his theology, not only as a historical event, but as an exestential one. Also argued that to understand Scripture you need to understand its culture.
kerygma
That which is proclaimed. Bultmann argued for an existential view of the cross, where what was proclaimed about the cross lies independent of the historical reality.
Bultmann claims that one must “sift” the message (the kerygma, or “kernel”) of the church until you find that pure element of encounter with the Christ that brings existential meaning to the individual.
In attempting to purge the New Testament of outdated thinking, they had eliminated the kerygma, a Greek word which Bultmann identifies with “the message of God’s decisive act in Christ” (Bultmann 1984, 12). For Adolf Harnack and other German liberals, the significance of Jesus lay only in his moral teachings. Following Karl Barth, Bultmann argued that “[t]he New Testament talks about an event through which God has brought about our salvation. It does not proclaim Jesus primarily as a teacher…” (Bultmann 1984, 13).
demythologization
Bultmann claims, “To de-mythologize is to reject not Scripture or the Christian message as a whole, but the world-view of Scripture, which is the world-view of a past epoch.” He insists that the worldview of the Scripture is mythological and is therefore unacceptable to modern man. Thus for him, “Demythologizing makes clear the true meaning of God’s mystery.” Basically, he wasn’t denying the power of God, but the fact that God used the natural world in everything he does.
simply put… the legacy of Jesus developed into stories that were exaggerated with the supernatural. moreover, over the centuries the” myths” of the new testament were developed into layers of theological positions that no longer conveyed truth but rather dogma. Bultmann claims that one must “sift” the message (the kerygma, or “kernel”) of the church until you find that pure element of encounter with the Christ that brings existential meaning to the individual. This process of sifting is what is meant by his “Demythologization program.” I love Bultmann, though I find him obsolete after Barth.
What was the experience of the Catholic Church under Napoleon, and what happened afterwards?
It sucked. Napoleon held popes captive and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. So when he died, the Church was in a stronger position because many people wanted to return to the pre-Napoleon days.
What was one of the major commitments from the Catholic Church after Napoleon?
Monastic life. They build more monasteries than ever before. Most of them were missions focused, so there was a renewed energy in evangelism.
Ineffabilis Deus
The Immaculate Conception. In 1854, Pope Pius IX declared the Virgin Mary as being preserved from the stain of original sin because she carried Jesus. Basically, she was sinless.
This claim was one of the responses to questions being brought about by modernity. Everything was being questioned at the time, much like it had been in the first two centuries. Mary had been accepted as the “mother of God”, but now the question was how a sinful person could carry a sinless Jesus. “Rationally” speaking, this makes sense. This was a claim to rationalize how a sinless Jesus could be born of a sinful human being. The answer for Catholics is that she wasn’t sinful.
1st Vatican Council of 1869
Defined Papal Infallibility.
Remember, this was a time in history when everything was being questioned and challenged. The church basically said that the pope, along with the Sacred Tradition (with its ecumenical councils), the Magisterium, and the Sacred Scripture were infallible.
Ex Cathedra
The action of the Pope speaking on dogma (a truth concerning faith and morals), the dogma is understood as irrevocable (he has the last word and no one can say anything against it). This does not apply to every day matters, but he uses it when he is acting to define something for the church. This was already becoming the majority opinion in the counter-reformation. The pope cannot, however, contradict the Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scriptures. So there are limits to his power. The infallible proclamations of the pope are also part of the Sacred Magisterium, as are the ecumenical councils.
This is important to our class because it gave Catholics a sense of security to questions being asked by modernity. While the Western Protestants were embracing and rejecting (fundamentalist) the Enlightenment and Reason, Catholics response was to say that the pope had ultimate authority on issues of truth and dogma. But, the Protestants and Orthodox were not ok with it. From a political standpoint, it meant that the pope had a lot more power (as much as he did spiritually).
