BARTHIAN!!
 | I wouldn't use it to define who I am, but it could be worse! But wasn't Barth quoted as saying I'm not a Barthian?! You scored as Neo orthodox. You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God's most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.
What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com |
Go have a crack and see what you come up with.
Hat tip to Alister
12:36 AM
Neo orthodox is just another name for Christian Existentialism.
7:08 AM
Bizzare indeed...now I need to go find what 'Emergent/Postmodern' actually means! Interesting to dwell on some of the issues raised in the survey tho.
2:19 PM
All these emerging church blogs must be getting into your veins Ian.
Annonymous, can you unpack your rather random sentence? In what way is Neo-Orthodoxy just another name for Christian Existentialism? How can Barth's emphasis on God's Trinitarian revelation being the ground and grammar of theology and there being an infinite qualitative difference between God and humanity (God as wholly other) equate to existentialism? I can't follow your connections. Do you have a name that you can use?
2:38 PM
I was Emergent/Postmodern aswell and had much the same results as my father did. Funny that. He must have drilled it into me good and proper.
3:11 PM
Who would have thought Bandy comes from a postmodern household! Impressive! Perhaps we could have 'on the postmodern couch with Bandy'. Although I think a few postmoderns would find some irony in the idea that postmodernism was 'drilled' into you 'good and proper' - seeing that much postmodern thought stand against anything being drilled into anyone good and proper!
5:09 PM
As another (previous) member of Bandy's household, I came out with a tie in Emergent/Postmodern and Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan.
Drilled indeed... :)
5:57 PM
Oh good grief! Drilled nothing! They came to their own conclusions. However I have just been reminded of the frequent statement made to the tribe that "this is what the Bvns do on Sunday" (go to church) etc. I'd hardly consider that 'drilling' now, would you?
10:58 AM
'Drilled nothing! They came to their own conclusions' Spoken like a true postmodern Ian!! (grinning) Perhaps there's a Tui beer ad in that!!?? Wittgenstein (a Christian philosopher I really like) would agree with you about the tribe thing 'this is what we do on Sunday'. He calls this language games. Church on Sunday is the field on which your family plays and this brings with it all the church grammar and language and points of reference. The language Christians speak makes total sense to the people playing the game whereas other language games are found at cafes or work or sport etc. Therefore the language spoken at work, church, cafe or sport makes total sense only when you're playing the game. In other words convictions are found within communities (e.g. your household). Churches are convictional communities just like sport or work. And often these cross over (e.g. family and church and cafe). Hence, you give your family the language to play the game (which as Christians is based on God's revelation of Godself in Jesus) and thay become incorporated into the game. This is not to say that it's all simply language and all reality is ultimately constructed. It means that you can't separate knowledge from practices e.g. how can someone know/learn about Christianity without repenting or praying or being a part of the Christian community with all its quirks? Perhaps through the language games of your household you did (in a healthy convictional sense) 'drill' things into them - e.g. through reading your bible, praying, giving to people in need, living with Jesus as your Lord etc. Most knowledge is implicitly caught rather than explicitly taught.
3:15 PM
Kierkegaard termed the phrase "infinite qualitative difference". I read "Philosophical Fragments", and Barth seems to peck at K's existentialist works.
3:50 PM
Annonymous, I know the phrase stems from Kierkegaard but for Barth to draw on this phrase i think is significant. How is this phrase existentialist? God is distinctly 'other' in the work of Barth and he sees any theological attempts to define God via humanity as idolatry (especially in his Romans commentary). That is why Barth's understanding of humanity begins with Jesus, the one true human being, rather than anything we inherently possess. His theology is grounded in the objective revelation of God in Jesus Christ rather than any subjective experience. Please help me out to understand how he is an existential? If you were suggesting K. is an existential then I'd agree. I'd say K. is unashamedly so.
8:18 PM
Kierkegaard's works, such as Practice in Christianity, heavily prefigures Barth, not to mention other neo-orthodox theologians like Bultmann and Niebuhr. Kierkegaard agrees that Jesus is an objective anchor (Kierkegaard actually does value objective truth, believe it or not) and he asserts a "wholly other" much as Barth does. Kierkegaard also attacked God being seen via humanity as well, in his later religious writings, like "Two Ages" and "For-Self Examination".
When I say "Christian existentialism", I don't think of existentialism as it is formulated by Sartre, the real subjective guy. Sartre slanders much of Kierkegaard's writings and reputation.
3:49 PM
Annonymous, I still don't really understand the link between Barth and existentialism. Could you help me out by explaining the connections you see between him (and Neo Orthodoxy) and Christian Existentialism?
10:47 PM
I'm not sure what anonymous is getting at, but from what I know of Kierkegaard, what he does is try to bring Scripture back into the lives of his fellow citizens. In 1840s Denmark and Germany, people never took Scripture seriously and believed in self-revelation of Christ in Scripture. They took it for granted that philosophy (i.e. Hegelianism) and the "historical scholarship of Jesus" would solve all their problems. So what Kierkegaard did was to stimulate interest in Scripture, about how Scripture and Hegelianism are at odds with each other.
Christian Existentialism differs from existentialism, in that, CE does not say that an individual has no essential nature. Nor does CE think that the universe is truly absurd, that morals are constructed by humans, or that individuals are totally free to be something other than what he is. The famous dictum "Existence preceeds essence" has a much different meaning in CE; in CE in means that it is up to an individual to take control of his/her relation to God, not how Sartre puts it that we are a blank slate, not created by God.
I don't know much about neo-orthodoxy, but I have heard that many regard CE and Neo-O as essentially similar, especially through people like Brunner and Tillich. A quick search on Google turned up an interesting site:
http://atheism.about.com/od/typesofexistentialism/a/christian.htm
Cheers!
4:19 AM
Here are some links that I believe will be interested
6:38 PM
Your are Nice. And so is your site! Maybe you need some more pictures. Will return in the near future.
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12:02 AM
Interesting site. Useful information. Bookmarked.
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