Word: barthes
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From his aerie in Switzerland, hawk-eyed Karl Barth, 72, Europe's most prestigious Protestant theologian, peers coolly at the Christian West. Last week U.S. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, 66, glared right back. In the Christian Century, Niebuhr sharply answered Barth's latest anti-West pronouncement-a 45-page pamphlet addressed to an anonymous pastor in East Germany who had asked for spiritual guidance...
...Barth began by spraying a plague on "the forces and powers" of both East and West, but the plague on the West soon took precedence. "If there is such a thing as hostility toward Christ," Barth said, "it does not exist in the Communist East alone." The "evil spirit" manifests itself in the East as "open totalitarianism, backed by an all-powerful political party." whereas in the West it takes the form of "creeping totalitarianism, backed by powerful institutions, such as press, private enterprise, public opinion and arrogant wealth." Moreover, the Communist regime of East Germany may be regarded...
...Barth's inquiring pastor had asked whether he should resort to prayer to ''pray away" East Germany's Communist government. Replied Barth: "Would you really take the responsibility of approaching the Lord with such a plea? Aren't you afraid that God might grant your request and that some morning you might wake up among those Egyptian fleshpots which symbolize the American way of life? We in the West have been struggling for many a year with the powers and demons that hover over the land of the 'economic miracle' [ meaning West Germany...
Theologian Niebuhr could not wholly discount Barth's "above-the-battle Christian witness." since "East and West alike are in equal condemnation by the real gospel." Yet the price of this attitude can be "moral irrelevance"-flawed by such asides as Barth's sneer at "praying away" Communism because God's answer might be American "fleshpots." Chided Niebuhr: "The dilemma is so deep that I would prefer to let the eminent theologian stew in it for a while, at least until he realizes that he is not the only prophet of the Lord." Barth's attitude...
...Barthélémy Boganda, 48, stoutish Premier of Ubangi-Shari in French Equatorial Africa, which now bears the ambitious name of the Central African Republic. It is a land of which it is said that the majority live in the Stone Age, and the advanced people live in the Middle Ages. The son of a witch doctor who claimed to have eaten human flesh, Boganda became a Roman Catholic priest, was unfrocked after he went to Paris as a Deputy and married his French secretary. A prosperous coffee planter and shrewd politician who likes to spout Latin phrases...