An Open Letter to Karl Barth (Part 1)
Dr. Barth,
Sir, I have learned many great things from you. Naturally all of it has been through books and reading. I have read many of your collected lectures and have enjoyed all of them thoroughly. Your sermons to prisoners as collected in Deliverance to the Captives was invigorating and forever altered my sermon perception and preparation. To read your Church Dogmatics remains a life goal. It has already greatly affected my view on the Trinity and Scripture. Between my affection for you and Dr. Wright it will not take long for a label of liberalism to be mentioned of me. That falsity aside, it was your Epistle to the Romans that truly worked to shake up the conservative paradigm on which I sat. It was the first book from you that I read. I know now that I likely understood very little of it. Another reading will be required. A more mature me will be more critical and more receptive to the awesome nature of the book.
Sir, in that book you continually correlate the church with Israel. I see now that in some ways you are the most consistent Covenant Theologian I have read. Looking back on your book, I now know that the conservative statism of my countries' church is worse than your Nazi Germany. You feared your church was like Israel. I fear our church is pagan.
To you this may come as a shock. It is by the grace of God that today the whole church has not be deceived about the daily murder of thousands. But many whole denominations have been convinced it is legally okay to slaughter our unborn children. We couldn't come close to claim we satisfy the law but instead we worship Molech. Can you imagine what St Paul would think? He called us to abstain from sexual immorality and false temple worship. And now we blatantly serve and worship Molech.
Sir, it surprisingly gets even worse. Even those who are not turned against their children have been persuaded that the government works for the morality of the Scripture. The Holy Spirit has been replaced by our constitution. The purity of the church has been inflicted upon by the propriety of religious statism.
Sir, you had only one Hitler. We have two. Your Hitler stood in place of Christ. Our Hitlers fight every four years for the place of Christ. You had one antichrist who deceived your nation. We have two and they hold an election to see who did it better. What can be done? The church must slowly awake from its slumber. There truly are signs that winter is fading. But will it fade soon enough?
Your fervent friend.
