Excursus: Barmen Declaration (1934)

May 31, 2009

The Barmen Declaration: 75th Anniversary

The seventy-fifth anniversary of The Barmen Declaration [Barmer Theologische Erklärung] May 29-31, 1934, is marked in the German churches here.  That link includes a link to the German text here or in .pdf here.  Hans Asmussen's Einbringungsreferat [introductory guide] can be found here.

A link to a stable URL for an English version can be found here.  More explanatory material can be found in the online essays of the Boston Theological Collaborative Encyclopedia here.

Eberhard Busch's essay, "What Does It Mean for the Christian Church to Confess and to Reject?" (Princeton Seminary Bulletin 25:2 [2004]) --online version here -- also sets the Barmen Confession in wider context.

Adapted from the Common Collect for Martyrs (A), Book of Common Prayer 1979:

Almighty God, who gave to your servants gathered at Barmen boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be read to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Posted in Excursus: Barmen Declaration (1934) |

As A Tangent

  • As A Tangent

    The Resurrection is the revelation: the disclosing of Jesus as the Christ, the appearing of God, and the apprehending of God in Jesus. The Resurrection is the emergence of the necessity of giving glory to God: the reckoning with what is unknown and unobservable in Jesus, the recognition of Him as Paradox, Victor, and Primal History.

    In the Resurrection the new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is, without touching it. And, precisely because it does not touch it, it touches it as its frontier: as the new world. . . . What touches us --and yet does not touch us--in Jesus the Christ, is the Kingdom of God who is both Creator and Redeemer."

    Karl Barth, commenting upon St. Paul's introduction of his letter to the Romans (1.4), The Epistle to the Romans, transl. from the 6th ed. by Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 30.

    Die Auferstehung ist die Offenbarung, die Entdeckung Jesu als der Christus, die Erscheinung Gottes und die Erkenntnis Gottes in ihm, der Eintritt der Notwendigkeit, Gott die Ehre zu geben und mit dem Unbekannten und Unanschaulichen in Jesus zu rechnen, Jesus als das Ende der Zeit, als das Paradox, als Urgeschichte, als Sieger gelten zu lassen.

    In der Auferstehung berührt die neue Welt des Heiligen Geistes die alte Welt des Fleisches., Aber sie berührt sie wie die Tangente einen Kreis, ohne sie zu berühren, und gerade indem sie sie nicht berührt, berührt sie sie als ihre Begrenzung, als neue Welt.. . . . sondern was uns in Jesus dem Christus berührt, indem es uns nicht berührt, das ist das Reich Gottes, des Schöpfers und Erlösers. "

    Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, (Zollikon–Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1940), 6.