Word: barth
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Through the length 85 breadth of Christendom, the echoes of the Amsterdam conference still roll. No voice raised in that assembly of the World Council of Churches was more challenging to modern Christians than that of the great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. TIME has already reported (Sept. 13) the impact of his address on the U.S. delegates, many of whom criticized Barth as advocating a passive "let-God-do-it" approach to the problems of our time. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr attacked Earth's speech as offering "a too simple and premature escape from the trials . . . duties and tragic choices...
...Alan Barth, Nieman Fellow and editorial writer for the Washington Post, declared that the secrecy shrouding atomic energy has broken down the aggressiveness of the press. During the war, he recalled, reporters plagued the Office of Censorship with demands for more uncensored news; now, however, the press asks no such questions of the Atomic Energy Commission. The Commission, he continued, needs an inquisitive press to prevent the corruption that will come if its activities remain secret...
Sensational writing has taken the place of factual reporting and has distorted the public's opinion of the atom, Barth continued. Donald Michael, of the Graduate School of Social Relations, gave statistics from his poll conducted a year ago in Chicago to determine what the public know about atomic energy. A majority believed no defense was possible and that another war would come within 25 years. A small minority thought negotiation would be successful...
...bearlike Karl Barth of Basel, Switzerland, had jolted the Amsterdam delegates with a speech on the text: Take counsel together and it shall come to naught . . . for God is with us! (Isaiah 8:10). Perhaps, he said, the much-regretted absence of either Roman Catholic or Russian Orthodox delegates was God's doing: "I propose that we should now praise and thank God, that it pleases Him to stand so clearly in the way of our plans." Barth warned the churchmen that their job was to bear witness to the Gospel -not to presume to the world-saving functions...
Says Theologian Niebuhr: Barth is preaching a dangerous doctrine. The care of the Church is most certainly our care, and to prove it, he cites Saint Paul (I Corinthians 12). Earth's emphasis on "what we cannot do" is really a temptation to Christians "to share the victory and the glory of the risen Lord" without undergoing the trials, perplexities and decisions -the "crucifixion of the self which is the scriptural presupposition of a new life...