testify
Barth, CD I/2, p. 709:
It is said that H.F.Kohlbrügge one answered the question: When was he converted? by the laconic reply: On Golgotha. This answer, with all its fundamental implications, was not the witty retort of an embarrassed and unconverted man, but the only possible and straightforward answer of a truly converted Christian. The events of faith in our own life can, in fact, be none other than the birth, passion, death, ascension and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the exodus from Egypt, its journey through the desert, its entrance into the land of Canaan, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and the mission of the apostles to the heathen. Every verse in the Bible is virtually a faith-event in my own life...In comparison with this, what can be the value of the more or less reliable insights which, apart from these testimonies, I may have in myself? Is there a miracle story that I can relate from my own life, which, especially if it is genuine, will not be totally dissolved in this divine miracle story, and which therefore will hardly be worth relating in abstracto? Have I anything to testify about myself which I cannot testify infinitely better if I make my own the simplest ingredient of the Old Testament or the New Testament witness?
Have I experienced anything more important, incisive, serious, contemporary than this, that I have been personally present and have shared in the crossing of Israel through the Red Sea but also in the adoration of the golden calf, in the baptism of Jesus but also in the denial of Peter and the treachery of Judas, that all this has happened to me here and now? If I believe, then this must be the right point of view. If this is the right point of view, what other faith events in my life should I and could I wish to seek? What, then, becomes of the bold assertion with which I claim first this and then that crisis and turning-point, and the gradually my whole life, as a sacred history? And what becomes of the defiant and shrinking doubt and despair about all exalted and exalting moments, and finally about my whole life? However high may rise or however deep may fall the waves of life's events, as they are perceptible to us from within and below, the real movement of my life, the real events in which it is clear to me that in the whole dimension of my existence I belong to God, both at the flood and ebb, are secured from the other side, by the Word of God Himself.
bits of barth
Barth CD I/2 7:47 pm
"the leaven is really hidden. the grain of wheat must really die"
"all other forms of Church government are, therefore, false" http://goo.gl/CFzvJ
"because it is the decisive activity prayer must take precedence even of exegesis, and in no circumstances must it be suspended"
the hypostatised pastor
Barth, CD I/2, p.693:
All other forms of Church government are, therefore, false. In some cases the rule of Jesus Christ may assume merely the role of a decorative flower of speech, while in truth real control is exercised by the spurious, horizonless faith of men joined together in the Church. Or in other cases the rule of Jesus Christ may be seriously acknowledged in form, but it is represented as a direct leadership of the Spirit, and it is only a secondary question whether the point at which the leadership of the Spirit touches and seizes the Church is supposed to be an infallible Pope or Council, or the office of an authoritarian bishop, or that of an hypostatised pastor, or a free leadership or inspired individuals in the community, or finally the whole community as such. The false thing in all these types of Church government is the ambiguity with which the rule of Jesus Christ is (perhaps very seriously) asserted, but Scripture is ignored as though it were not the normative form of this government for this intervening period. If we speak of a purely heavenly lordship of Jesus Christ, and then of one of these earthly manifestations of His sovereignty, we may speak "enthusiastically," but in the last resort we are still speaking of the autonomy of human faith, and therefore not of the Church of Jesus Christ.
word
Barth, CD I/2, p.691:
From a human standpoint the preservation of the Church depends, therefore, on the fact that Scripture is read, assimilated, expounded and applied in the Church, that this happens tirelessly and repeatedly, that the whole way of the Church consists in its striving to hear this concrete witness. As a rule the step aside which means a step into the abyss of death, the fatal lack of this self-forgetful attention, will scarcely betray itself as such at once. It will normally take the form of great fidelity (to what the Church has said) and great zeal (for what the Church believes that it must itself say). In this way it will apparently bear the seal of divine justification and necessity. Whenever life is exchanged for death, or death for life, in the Church, this fidelity and zeal are usually operative: much good will, much serious piety, wide vision, deep movements, and in it all the sincere conviction of not being in any way self-willed but rather obedient to the Word of God. What is not noted is that this so-called Word of God is only a conception of the Word of God. It may be created freely. More probably and frequently it will take the shape of an old (no longer newly tested), or new (not yet seriously examined) interpretation of Scripture itself, but not the Word of God as it actually lets itself be heard in Scripture. As such, conceptions of the Word of God may be very good, as also, for example, recognised dogmas and confessions, luminous and helpful theological systems, deep, bold and stimulating insights into biblical truth. But in themselves these things are not the Word of God itself and cannot sustain the life of the Church.
So much wisdom here. Barth asserts that it's not passion, faithfulness and zeal - nor vision, creativity and enthusiasm - that breathe life into the Church. What is so needed is the Word of God "read, assimilated, expounded and applied... tirelessly and repeatedly".
1 Peter 1: 22-25 (ESV)
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
"All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever."
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
bits of barth
Barth CD I/2 12:08 am
"it is not the acuity & depth, nor even the holiness of the Christian which builds the Church, but only the Word of God"
"without the No the Yes would obviously not be a Yes, but a Yes & No; perhaps Yes, perhaps No, but certainly not the [decisive] Yes"
"the confessional documents of the Reformation must be regarded not as theological ordinances but as the trumpet call of a herald"
"for those who confess... because of its publicity, they are led into a struggle, into suffering & into temptation"
barth on confessions, conversations, confutations & theological treachery. feisty stuff. http://goo.gl/lGg5x
"the churches of india & china may ask what have we to do w/ the heresies to which the dogma of the european churches is an answer?"
"there is a notorious connexion, even a unity, between the heresies of every age & place"
"since the Reformation and the time immediately after there has never been a new confession in the Protestant sphere"