Photo copyright of the Karl Barth-Archiv in Basel, Switzerland

Almost seven years ago now I wrote a post based on Christiane Tietz’s just released essay (at that point) where she offers some of Karl Barth’s and Charlotte von Kirschbaum’s love letters, translated for the first time from their original German into English. My initial blog post ended up going relatively “viral” in the theo-blogosphere, and eventually, beyond. My post, and then series of posts, was referred to by an article written by Mark Galli at Christianity Today, and then at Mere Orthodoxy and other like outlets online. A little later my blog posts (as a series at this point) were referred to in an essay published by the Scottish Journal of Theology, and then in a book chapter published in a volume by Brill. Since then, Christiane Tietz went on to write a book called Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict where she addresses, even more fully than she did in her original essay, the Barth-von Kirschbaum relationship (among many other unrelated things vis-à-vis Barth’s theology).

These days I prefer not to opine on these things much. But in this instance, I am going to make an exception. On my current read through of the Dogmatics I’m in that section of III/2 where Barth, more broadly, is developing his theological anthropology, but in this particular instance is offering his treatment on the male-female relationship; particularly as that is situated within a biblical, New Testament frame, for marriage. He is engaging with the crux interpretum found in I Corinthians 11, wherein so-called complementarians, egalitarians, and everyone in between or beyond, have spilt much ink, and voiced many spoken words on the relationship between the sexes vis-à-vis God. For our purposes what I find informative about this passage from Barth is how it implicates his ongoing relationship with Charlotte. Indeed, what is ironic, as this is well-known in Barth studies, is the close role von Kirschbaum played in the composition of the Dogmatics (some even argue that she wrote large sections of it). What I think is important to note is that even given their relationship neither one of them shied away from still bearing witness to what Holy Scripture itself says with reference to the fidelity of Christian marriage. Even though what “they” write directly bears witness against them and their relationship, they still write it. Let’s read along:

We recall from 1 Cor. 11 that the knowledge of the true relationship between man and wife established and determined and limited by the knowledge of Jesus Christ stands in contrast to the enthusiasm for equality which will not accept the fact that they are both allotted to their distinctive place and way in the peace of God. Where it is not a matter of this intoxication but of the fulness of the Spirit, not of the boasting and defiance of man but of the praise of God, not of the establishment of one’s own right by one’s own might but of constant thanksgiving, there flows from the Gospel the necessity of the reciprocal subordination in which each gives to the other that which is proper to him. This is the meaning of the house-table: Suum cuique [To each his own]. It has nothing really to do with patriarchalism, or with a hierarchy of domestic and civil values and powers. It does not give one control over the other, or put anyone under the dominion of the other. The ὑποτασσόμενοι [submitting] of v. 21 applies equally to all, each in his own place and in respect of his own way. What it demands is ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ [submitting one to another in the fear of Christ], mutual subordination in respect before the Lord. He is the Exalted but also the Lowly, the Lowly but also the Exalted, who causes each to share in His glory but also His burden, His sovereignty but also His service. And here there is only mutual subordination in full reciprocity. In this way order is created within the creaturely sphere, and humanity established. It is, of course, no accident that more than half of the table is devoted to the relationship of man and woman, and particularly their relationship in marriage. This relationship is typical or exemplary for the whole relationship which has to be estimated in the fear of Christ. In good or evil alike all relations between the sexes have their fulfillment and norm in the fact that this man finds this woman and this woman this man and therefore man the fellow-man to whom he is referred and with whom he is united. We stated at the outset that expression is given to fellow-humanity as one man looks the other in the eyes and lets himself be seen by the other. The meaning and promise of marriage is that this should take place between man and woman, that one woman should encounter one man as his, and one man one woman as hers. Where it takes place we have a good marriage; the marriage which can only monogamous. It is from this height that the whole field is surveyed. Again, it is accident that the list of admonitions opens with that to the wife and not to the husband (v. 22). That the participle clause ὑποτασσόμενοι is naturally continued in this way, and general mutual subordination has its first concrete form in the wife, is explained at once in v. 23 by the comparison: “For the husband is the head of the wife (a statement taken from 1 Cor. 11.3), even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.” Because her subordination stands under this comparison, the woman must see to it that it is not broken but maintained. And therefore the subordination of woman to man is the first and most interesting problem which arises in this field. Not man but woman represents the reality which embraces all those who are addressed, whether they be wives or husbands, old or young, slaves or masters, which claims even the apostle himself in his peculiar position, and from which he thinks and speaks and admonishes them to think and act. They are all the community which has in Jesus Christ its Head. They are all set in this place and called and gathered to this community by baptism. For none of them can there be any question of a higher or better place. None of them can ever think of escaping from or trying to climb above it. In the fulness of the Spirit they can only wish to remain at this place, listening, obedient and therefore subordinate to the One from whom and for whose sake the whole community exists, and without whom it could not continue for a single moment or in any respect, since it is the body which is snatched and rescued from the fire of perdition only in virtue of its union with this Head. The advantage of the wife, her birthright, is that it is she and not the man who, in relation to her husband and subordination to him, may reflect, represent and attest this reality of the community. The exhortation specifically addressed to her is simply a particular form of the basic admonition which applies to all. She is subordinated to her husband as the whole community is to Christ. The whole community can only take up the position in relation to Christ which is proper to the wife in relation to Christ as the wife in relation to her husband. This is what makes the admonition to the wife so urgent and inescapable. And this is what characterizes it as a peculiar distinction for the wife. If she does not break but respects the true relationship to her husband, the wife is not less but greater than her husband in the community. She is not the second but the first. In a qualified sense she is the community. The husband has no option but to order himself by the wife as she is subordinate in this way.[1]

So much depth of richness here. But for space constraints let me simply close this way: many of Barth’s critics “out there” (who typically haven’t read him very much or at all) simply dismiss him on the rather scandalous relationship he had with Charlotte; and I can understand this. Some, including myself, have wondered how that relationship might have impacted Barth’s (and Charlotte’s) capacity to remain faithful to the teachings of Holy Scripture (that is how they handled them); particularly with reference to texts like we find in I Corinthians 11. Hopefully this passage (which I shared in length for greater context) will help to cast some critical light on Barth’s tethering to the authority and teaching of the Sacra pagina. Does this excuse Barth (and Charlotte)? Of course not; may it never be. But what it should help to show is that neither Barth or Charlotte allowed their relationship to skew their reading and teaching of Holy writ. Even so, they remained in a posture of disobedience through their ongoing relationship (to death); and yet they continued so under the clear knowledge they held in regard to the principled and Holy expectations that God required for men and women, and society in general, to function in God’s ordered and desired way. They knew they lived in failure as a result of their relationship, and had to know the type of damage it was producing, firsthand, as Barth and Charlotte witnessed how it affected Barth’s wife, Nelly, and their children. It just goes to show the disaffected and irrational nature of sin; it remains a pernicious force, even for those who profess Christ. May we count ourselves, and the members of our bodies, as dead to sin and alive to Christ; afresh anew, moment by moment by the Grace of God in Jesus Christ. Kyrie eleison

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. The Doctrine of God III/2 §45 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 108–09 [emboldening and brackets mine].