Category Archives: Christiane Tietz

Can Christians Still Learn from Steven Lawson’s Teachings and Preachings?

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Qualification.Ā This whole post is an exercise inĀ de jure.Ā The basic principle I am getting at on this occasion is to touch on whether or not a sinner, or someone who has been found to be in sin, could have still been used of God to bear witness to Christ in spite of their own personal moral and egregious failures.Ā 

As most know now, at least those in the ā€œrightā€ circles, Dr. Steven Lawson has fallen morally. The church he started in Dallas, TX, Trinity Bible Church, made the announcement a few days ago that Lawson had admitted to being in an ā€œinappropriate relationship with a womanā€ (a bit of an understatement). Now the news has come out that Lawson has been in an ongoing relationship with a gal in her late twenties (Lawson is 73) for at least five years; and he only admitted to it because the galā€™s dad found out about it and threatened to expose it if Lawson himself didnā€™t. In other words, Lawsonā€™s ā€œcoming forwardā€ wasnā€™t because he was repentant, it was because he got caught; which Iā€™m sure now heā€™s shedding many tears over (i.e., getting caught).

Suffice it to say, this has produced all types of fallout in the conservative evangelical and Reformed circles Lawson had become a ā€œstarā€ within. He was a fellow of Ligonier Ministries, the late R.C. Sproulā€™s ministry, and faculty and head of the DMin program at The Masterā€™s Theological Seminary (John MacArthurā€™s school). As noted, Lawson was founding pastor of his church, and also of an international ministry known as OnePassion; and then of course, Iā€™m sure he was on the board of various and multiple other unnamed ministries worldwide (in fact I know he was). When a high-profile pastor falls to such a besetting sin (which in my view, currently, has predatorial characteristics to it), it is going to produce angst, anger, and grieving of untold magnitude for those who held Lawson up as a model church leader in the respective evangelical world.

In a way there is a parallel here, for me, between Steven Lawson and Karl Barth. As everyone knows I see Barth as a unique theologian for the church of Jesus Christ in ways that go unmatched in regard to his Christ-focusedness, among other things. And yet, as I have already rehearsed much too much already in the past, he lived in an adulterous relationship that he forced upon his wife and family from in and around 1926 till the time of his ā€œmistressā€™sā€ death in the 60s. If you donā€™t know, Charlotte Von Kirschbaum lived in Barthā€™s house, along with his family. She was his ā€œsecretaryā€ and fellow theologian involved in all of his work, with particular focus on his magnum opus the Church Dogmatics. I had heard rumblings of this for years, but it wasnā€™t till 2017 when Christianne Tietz published an essay that for the first time translated some of Barthā€™s and von Kirschbaumā€™s love letters. This was my ā€œSteven Lawson moment,ā€ and I wrote about it; and received lots of pushback on it, from many sectors; and lost connections with many because I dared to highlight it; and more. That said, what became the struggle for me was whether or not I could continue to read and learn from Barth. For me he wasnā€™t some modern demon, but a faithful explicator of the Word of God; in ways that could be in parallel with the church fathers of the patristic period. And so now, I would imagine, the same question is being pushed upon those who sat under Lawson for so many years and decades. They are wondering whether or not they can ever listen to another sermon preached, or ever read another publication from Lawson again.

In light of my own struggles with this and Barth, I would say: yes. For me this has always come back to the objective reality of the Gospel itself/Hisself. The Gospel is greater than its messengers, than its witnesses. Bobby Grow does not predicate the Gospel, nor does Karl Barth, or Steven Lawson, or anyone. The Gospel and its reality in Jesus Christ stand on the power of His indestructible life, and no filth or sin of those who bear witness to it can smear or corrupt its reality at the Right Hand of the Father. And yes, there can be reproach brought upon the witnesses to the Gospel when the witnesses themselves fall into a variety and sundry sins and immoralities. But ironically, even that reproach is ultimately reversed by the Gospel they have been bearing witness to; even while living in egregious sin. That is to say, the whole point of the Gospel is to bring salvation to sinners; even those who have been given the role to teach and preach it for the church. As James says, ā€˜the teacher will be under a stricter judgment.ā€™ Indeed, we can see this playing out currently in the life of Lawson. But ultimately, he is not condemned before God in the risen Christ, because Christ is risen. There are some temporal consequences that Lawson will now have to bear up under, and hopefully he will be genuinely repentant; and not just upset that he got caught. Indeed, as long as Steven responds in the right way the Lord can and will use this in his life to prune and shape him more into the man of God God sees him to be in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, we are all Steven Lawsons and Karl Barths. This is no excuse for engaging in sinful activities, it is simply to acknowledge that we all need to be vigilant in our walks with Christ; we all need to understand that we are in a spiritual battle that we have no resource to fight without being fully dependent upon the One who raises the dead.

I understand there will always be an asterisk next to Lawsonā€™s name. But insofar that the LORD truly used and spoke through him to genuinely bear witness to the risen Christ, it would be foolish to think everything he preached and wrote was all rubbish (bearing in mind I am a heavy critic of the type of Lordship salvation and 5-point Calvinism he was a proponent of). Again, the measure of reality is not Steven Lawson or Karl Barth, it is the reality of the risen Christ and the triune God. We are all sinners while simultaneously being used of God to point people to Christ, if we are.

Barth on Adultery in the Church Dogmatics and 1 Corinthians 11

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

Almost seven years ago now I wrote a post based on Christiane Tietzā€™s just releasedĀ essay (at that point) where she offers some of Karl Barthā€™s and Charlotte von Kirschbaumā€™s love letters, translated for the first time from their original German into English. My initial blog post ended up going relatively ā€œviralā€ 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-Ć -vis Barthā€™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 Iā€™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-Ć -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 ā€œtheyā€ write directly bears witness against them and their relationship, they still write it. Letā€™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 oneā€™s own right by oneā€™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 į½‘Ļ€ĪæĻ„Ī±ĻƒĻƒĻŒĪ¼ĪµĪ½ĪæĪ¹ [submitting] of v. 21 applies equally to all, each in his own place and in respect of his own way. What it demands is į½‘Ļ€ĪæĻ„Ī±ĻƒĻƒĻŒĪ¼ĪµĪ½ĪæĪ¹Ā į¼€Ī»Ī»Ī®Ī»ĪæĪ¹Ļ‚Ā į¼Ī½Ā Ļ†ĻŒĪ²įæ³Ā Ī§ĻĪ¹ĻƒĻ„Īæįæ¦ [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 į½‘Ļ€ĪæĻ„Ī±ĻƒĻƒĻŒĪ¼ĪµĪ½ĪæĪ¹ 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: ā€œFor 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.ā€ 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 Barthā€™s critics ā€œout thereā€ (who typically havenā€™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 Barthā€™s (and Charlotteā€™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 Barthā€™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 Godā€™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 Barthā€™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,Ā Church Dogmatics. The Doctrine of GodĀ III/2 Ā§45 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 108ā€“09 [emboldening and brackets mine].

Barmen, Barth and Agamben in Contradiction to BigMedicine as the State Church

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What is the relationship between the state and church? This question was thrown into intense relief at the outset of the so-called Nazification of the church in Germany back in the thirties. Because of this serpentine evil pressed against the people, and thus the German church, leaders in both the Lutheran and Reformed communionsĀ came together to form what would become known as the Confessing Church. Its most well-known participants were Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The leaders in this emerging church felt compelled to offer a declaration that would galvanize theirĀ respective position against what they discerned to be an overstep (understatement) of Hitler and his state church. The Confessing Church leadership believed, and rightly so, that the state had no business interfering with the churchā€™s business; equally, they were convicted that the state itself had its own God-ordained integrity, to maintain order and law in and among the broader population. They articulated what they believed, with reference to these matters, in what came to be known as theĀ Barmen Declaration. It is composed of various theses, under which explanation, both positive and negative is given. The thesis that particularly focused on the relationship between church and state is found in thesis 5; it reads as follows:

    1. ā€œFear God. Honor the Emperor.ā€Ā 1 Pet. 2:17

Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to Godā€™s Dominion [Reich], Godā€™s commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfil the vocation of the Church as well.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.1

Christiane Tietz in her recently released book,Ā Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict, offers the following commentary and context for thesis 5:

The fifth thesis describes the relationship between church and state. The state is to provide justice and peace, the church is to remind the state of the kingdom of God and make the state aware that it must answer before Godā€™s commandment and righteousness. There are two statements of rejection expressed under this thesis: the doctrine of the ā€œtotalitarian stateā€ that seeks to dominate all areas of life, including the church, is rejected, as is the teaching that the church should take over the tasks or characteristics of the state. Barth later noted that a strong and vital church would have needed to judge the abuses of the Nazi state even more strongly. Even for these statements however they had to summon all their courage. In light of the ideology of that era the theses were ā€œan immense contradiction.ā€2

Because my audience is varied, and probably not generally in-step with me on discerning our times, I want to provide further elaboration on what I think is actually happening in the state; and then how that is related in sinister form to the church at large. In order to help me elucidate my own perspective I will share a passage from Giorgio Agamben where he discusses the collapse of state directed medicine into a religion of its own. He writes:

The medical religion has unreservedly adopted from Christianity the eschatological appeal dropped by the latter. Capitalism, byĀ secularisingĀ the theological paradigm of salvation, had already eliminated the idea of the end times, replacing it with a permanent state of crisis without redemption or end. ā€˜Krisisā€™ was originally a medical concept which designated, in the Hippocratic corpus of texts, the moment when the doctor decided whether the patient would be able to survive the disease. Theologians reprised the term to indicate the final judgement that occurs during the last day. If we look at the state of exception which we are now experiencing, we could say that the medical religion combines the perpetual crisis of capitalism with the Christian idea of the end times, of anĀ eschatonĀ where the extreme decision is constantly ongoing and where the end is simultaneously rushed and deferred in an incessant effort to govern it, without its ever being resolved once and for all. It is the religion of a world that feels itself to be at its end, and yet it cannotā€”like the Hippocratic doctorā€”decide whether it will survive or die.3

Lots of rich insight and perspective provided for by Agamben, but for my purposes what serves instructive is the link that is made between the medical superstructure, particularly as that is supported by the state (ieĀ FDA, CDC,Ā BigPharma, WHO etc.), and how this has sought to displace the churchā€™s role as the church. Attendant to this sublation, of the church by the state, the medicine-stateĀ asĀ religion now seeks to baptize all of its elect (even by the sword if necessary) with their ā€˜means of graceā€™ administered through the various holy waters on offer; whether that be mRNA based, or not. But without getting into those details further, suffice it to say, the church now is in just as precarious of a situation, and even greater than, what the Confessing Church was facing in the natural theology being promulgated by the state church of the Third Reich and Hitler. Things have been sophisticated since the 1930s by way of technology, and new communicative strategies and platforms for mass media and propaganda; but the sinister nature, and unholy ingress of the state into the sphere of the church is at an all-time high.

When state tyranny infringes on the people in general, and the church in particular, it is the churchā€™s rightful place to say a resounding and holy,Ā Nein!Ā The church is here to bear witness to the reality of Godā€™s life for the world, and the truth that comes with that kind of life as the ground and grammar of everything. When the state conflates itself with the church as the church, when it has ministers on the payroll, as they do in America through COVID relief, so on and so forth, this is the time for the Confessing Church of the 21stĀ century to yell out a resounding,Ā No!Ā The Confessing Church is like the sons of Issachar who had ā€œmen whoĀ had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do (I Chronicles 12.32)Ā . . . .ā€ When the church discerns a tyrannical state using the name of Christ to grow its tyranny, particularly as it does that in the place of and as the church, then it is time for the churches, and any semblance of an emerging Confessing Church to take the mic and say, No!

Unfortunately, most mainstream evangelical pastors, and other church pastors of various movements and traditions, have failed to call out the statism asĀ churchismĀ currently underway in the world. They have failed to recognize, unlike Agamben, that there is a new religion in the world, and it isĀ BigMedicineĀ as a proxy for the state. Until pastors and theologians in the mainstream come to this realization, they will continue to bow the knee to Caesar, not realizing that they are even doing so. They will continue catechizing their people with notions that the ā€˜lovingā€™ thing to do is to be baptized into this new religion, and bear witness to the fact that salvation has come to the masses in and through this new form of baptismal regeneration. Indeed, here is a learned pastor, I know, who just yesterday posted the following on Facebook:

Regardless of whether or not a government has the ā€œrightā€ to mandate vaccinations, masks, and social distancing, and regardless of whether or not I as an individual have the ā€œrightā€ to refuse, because I am a follower of Jesus called to love my neighbor, I have been fully vaccinated, I wear a mask and practice social distancing in public, and I avoid crowds. Iā€™m not afraid of COVID-19. I love you enough to do whatever I can to protect you. If I catch SARS-CoV-2, Iā€™ll likely recover fairly quickly because I am fully vaccinated, but I could still transmit it to someone who isnā€™t or to someone with a compromised immune system. As a follower of Jesus, Iā€™m called to lay down my ā€œrightsā€ and serve. I donā€™t want you or any of your loved ones to wind up on a ventilator in an ICU. Iā€™ve been in too many ICUs to wish that on anyone. Nor do I want you or your loved ones to die from a deadly pandemic. Iā€™ve officiated at far too many funerals to ignore that possibility.4

This is a perfect example of how the state has reached into the church, and in the name of health and safety, presented ministers of the Gospel with a new law-code and Great Commission to be followed. It is couched in subterfuge and misinformation, and on this pastorā€™s part, received without any critical investigation whatsoever. As a result, he has become an unwitting tool in the hands of the angel of light, declaring health and safety over the masses in the name of an elixir that self-proclaims itself as the current means of salvation for the world.

The Confessing Church of the 21stĀ century needs to cry out,Ā Nein!,Ā over and over again; and to do so as the sons and daughters of Issachar:Ā viz.Ā with understanding!

 

1 Barmen Declaration.

2 Christiane Tietz, Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 235 kindle.

3 Giorgio Agamben, Where Are We Now?: The Epidemic As Politics (Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield, 2021), 53.

4 Anonymous, accessed 09-13-2021.