Barau, Emile; The Village Church

Barth is opining on the place that each Christian has within the Christian community, even as individual members in it. This gets him into a discussion on the role that theology, the Word of God, the teachers and the listeners each have, respectively, within the Church. In a way, I think the following passage, abridged as it is, represents the core of Barth’s heart, as that has been and is being expressed throughout the writing of the Church Dogmatics. And for that reason, I felt compelled to share some of this section with the readers, who will.

. . . At every place and time—and this is basic to all else—it must be a life in knowledge, a life with and under and from and in the Word by which it is commissioned. It may be noted that as such it cannot satisfy itself, nor can it try to be an end in itself. As the edification of the community generally is not an end in itself but edification with a view to external service, so it is not an end in itself in its basic character as edification by and in the Word, as theological edification. Its ministry of the Word has an external goal; it does not seek only a fundamentally egoistic enjoyment of the Word. For the sake of this external ministry, however, however, there must be an internal. Hence the assemblies of the community are assemblies for the proclamation of the Lord and His kingdom as this is to be continually heard afresh by Christians themselves. The worship of the community in all its conceivable forms implies a reestablishment of the community by a new and common perception of the kingdom. Since this is a common perception, the human service to be rendered therewith must be understood and put into effect as a joint responsibility in this matter. We should never lose the sense, however, that this is only a quid pro quo, a practical makeshift. The division of the community into a teaching and a listening Church must never be accepted in principle. In principle the inner edification of the community in this concrete sense, i.e., as theology, is a matter for every Christian. What is at stake is not theology in its erudite technicalities but in its essence and spiritual function, i.e., reflection, orientated on and inspired and guided by the prophetic and apostolic testimony concerning the mystery of Jesus Christ, the reality of the kingdom as it has appeared in Him, and the bearing of this event for the men of all nations, tongues and times; in other words, investigation of the original meaning and the present significance of this event.

                To participate in this, and therefore to accompany even the work of erudite theology in the stricter sense, is the task of the community and therefore of each individual member. . ..[1]

I had planned on sharing more of the second paragraph, but it is another page and a half of meaty prose that might end up off-putting some of my readers (because of length). The above should suffice in regard to grasping the gist, the spirit of Barth’s heart for the Church. He sees everyone, respectively, as both the listeners and teachers; even if the latter, might rest on some more than others (by calling etc.) Even so, as the last clause indicates, for Barth, every Christian has a duty, a responsibility to be involved in the acquisition and communication and proclamation of the ‘erudite theology’ that we have all become participant in, as those in participation in and with God in Jesus Christ, the man from Nazareth. So, for Barth, indeed as the Christian is by definition in participation with the triune life, she has been given to both an external and internal service; as if a centripetal-centrifugal dialectal movement is inhering within the body itself. For sure, as the Church is being fructified by the umbilical cord of the Holy Spirit into the bosom of the Father, where the Son is seated at the Right Hand always living to make intercession for us. It is the Christ, for Barth, who ultimately is the inner reality of the Church, even whilst those adopted, are the external expression whereby He proclaims Himself, through the Church’s lips; first for herself and upbuilding, and in the overflow of this exuberant worship, to the world. Barth is contending that the Church operates as a correspondence of Christ’s faith for us; as a correspondence of His intercessory work for us, for the world, the us for whom Christ died. Amen.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4 §55 [498-99] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 168–69.