Authority, Mission, and Institution: A Systematic Consideration of Matthew 28.18-20 in Karl Barth's Doctrine of Baptism

Ecclesiology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Travis McMaken
Keyword(s):  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

AbstractMany of Barth's most faithful and devoted interpreters have taken issue with his unapologetically non-sacramental account of baptism in CD IV/4 and his attendant rejection of infant baptism. While many questions have been raised concerning the veracity of the exegesis that Barth produces in support of his position, little attention has been paid to the way in which Matthew 28.18-20, when systematically considered, relates to his account of baptism. Taking the themes of authority, mission and institution as analytic tools, this paper examines the role played by the Matthean passage throughout the Church Dogmatics period, and considers how these themes relate to Barth's rejection of infant baptism. It is suggested in conclusion that understanding baptism as the 'sign of the gospel' allows us to move beyond Barth's rejection of infant baptism without abrogating his concern for mission.

Karl Barth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul T. Nimmo
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the epistemology of theology that is described and deployed in the theology of Karl Barth. Drawing primarily on the second volume of the Church Dogmatics, the chapter first considers Barth’s understanding of the epistemology of theology with reference to the roles of Word and Spirit, the primary and secondary objectivity of God, and the place of analogy. It then turns to examine the impact of Barth’s position upon the way in which the discipline of theology engages in dialogue with other disciplines, observing Barth’s practice in respect of the conversations he conducts with general ethics and general anthropology. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways in which the work of Barth may have ongoing importance in respect of contemporary work in the epistemology of theology.

Menno Simons

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scot Mcknight
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Institutional Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter addresses the Anabaptist theology of the sacraments of Menno Simons. The way the Anabaptists viewed the sacraments took considerable courage because it could be life-threatening and lead to their martyrdom. Nevertheless, Simons advocated personal conversion and regeneration versus simply participating in the institutional church, believers’ baptism versus infant baptism, and all believers receiving both the bread and wine at Eucharist versus only clergy receiving the wine. Moreover, he maintained that baptism “accomplished nothing in sacramental terms” but was rather an act of obedience to Jesus’s command and example. Eucharist in his view did not involve any “re-sacrificing” of Christ, nor did the bread and wine undergo transubstantiation into the Body and Blood of Christ—rather, it was an expression of the love of God for the church. Thus the sacramental theology of Menno Simons and the Anabaptists could essentially be deemed non-sacramental.

scholarly journals Reading Karl Barth on Truth and Falsehood in the Post-Truth Age

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 593
Author(s):  
Geoff Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Form ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This article offers a close reading of two sections of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, i.e., §70.1 “The True Witness” and §70.2 “The Falsehood of Man” against the background of the post-truth environment. A brief discussion of the post-truth phenomenon highlights how some strands of the resistance to it trade on a binary of objective and subjective approaches to truth and epistemology, insisting on the triumph of the former over the latter as the way of overcoming the problems of knowledge and truth in a post-truth culture. The reading of the two selected texts from the Dogmatics indicate that Barth’s discussion of truth and falsehood cuts across that binary. Whilst much of what Barth says in these texts is said in earlier parts of the Dogmatics, it is sharpened in this context by Barth’s discussion of the “pious lie,” the distortion of the truth within the Christian community, as the fundamental form of falsehood. Alertness to this sin challenges the church to adopt a posture of self-criticism to its own knowledge of the truth. This can be its own form of witness in the post-truth age.

The freedom of the Spirit: the pneumatological point of Barth's ecclesiological minimalism

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-194
Author(s):  
Theodora Hawksley
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
General Lack ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

AbstractKarl Barth's ecclesiology has come under fire in recent years from those who find his work on the church insufficiently concrete. Proponents of concrete ecclesiologies argue that Barth's use of the wirkliche Kirche/Scheinkirche motif, and his general lack of attention to the way in which the assent of faith takes shape in the concrete church, result in the belittling of the concrete church. In turn, this lack of regard for the visible church creates problems relating to the role of the Holy Spirit. This article rereads Barth's lack of concentrated attention on the concrete church and argues that his ecclesiological minimalism functions as a theological crash barrier. By attending to the structure and doctrinal context of Barth's sections on the church in the Church Dogmatics, Barth's reticence to pronounce on the concrete church can be seen not as omission or denigration, but as a methodological principle preserving the freedom of the Holy Spirit in relation to the concrete church. The way in which Barth opens up space for the work of the Spirit in the historical, sinful church has much to offer those in search of a challenging, faithful, realistic and pastorally careful concrete ecclesiology.

AUX FONDEMENTS DE L’INSTITUTION ECCLÉSIALE: LA POSITION DE SAINT PIERRE PARMI LES APÔTRES (MT 16, 13–20) ET SON RETENTISSEMENT Á L’ÉPOQUE APOSTOLIQUE ET PATRISTIQUE

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Jacek Wojda
Keyword(s):  
Special Role ◽  
Church Community ◽  
Special Place ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

Big activity passed Popes, with the least Francis Bergoglio, is a question about receptiontheir lives and action, especially in times of modern medium broadcasting. Sometimes presentedcontent could be treated as sensation, and their receptiveness deprived of profound historical andtheological meaning. This article depends of beginnings of the Church, when it started to organizeitself, with well known historically-theological arguments. Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ andgot special place among Apostles. His role matures in young Church community, which is escapingfrom Jewish religion.Peter tramps the way from Jerusalem thru Antioch to Rome, confirming his appointing to thefirst among Apostles and to being Rock in the Church. Nascent Rome Church keeps this specialPeter’s succession. Clement, bishop of Rome, shows his prerogatives as a successor of Peter. Later,bishop of Cartagena, Cyprian, confirms special role both Peter and each bishop of Rome amongother bishops. He also was finding appropriate role for each of them. Church institution, basedon Peter and Apostles persists and shows truth of the beginnings and faithfulness to them innowadays papacy.Methodological elements Presented in the introduction let for the lecture of Gospel and patristictexts without positivistic prejudices presented in old literature of the subject.

scholarly journals Die roeping van die kerk

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco Beyers
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
God's Call ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

The calling of the church. The question as to the calling of the church is not a practical but a theological issue. The church can easily keep itself busy with activities that seem important. However, are these activities really the motivation behind God’s call to the church? This article investigates the calling of the church as perceived from various relationships: church and world, church and culture and church and church. Church and world addresses the age-old argument that the church is in the world but not of the world. The church does have an obligation in the world towards politics and ecology. Another factor addressed in the article is the way in which the church copes with the secularised society. Regarding culture, the premise is that the church has no obligation towards culture. Culture merely becomes a means to an end for the church. The church wants to exist in a ‘free culture’, as Barth suggests. When discussing the calling of the church, an ecclesiology of some sorts is in fact presented. This is reflected in the paragraph on church and church. The church is always seen in relationship with God’s intention with the community He assembles. This might be the true calling of the church: to be a community that calls others to community.

Church Discipline in the Later Middle Ages: the Priors of Durham as Archdeacons

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Margaret Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Church Discipline ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

It is often forgotten that the medieval Church imposed public penance and reconciliation by law. The discipline was administered by the church courts, among which one of the most important, because it acted at local level, was that of the archdeacon. In the later Middle Ages and certainly by 1435, the priors of Durham were archdeacons in all the churches appropriated to the monastery. The priors had established their rights in Durham County by the early fourteenth century and in Northumberland slightly later. Although the origins of this peculiar jurisdiction were long ago unravelled by Barlow, there is no full account of how it worked in practice. Yet it is not difficult from the Durham archives to elicit a coherent account, with examples, of the way penance and ecclesiastical justice were administered from day to day in the Durham area in this period. The picture that emerges from these documents, though not in itself unusual, is nevertheless valuable and affords an extraordinary degree of detail which is missing from other places, where the evidence no longer exists. This study should complement the recent work by Larry Poos for Lincoln and Wisbech, drawing attention to an institution which would reward further research. It is only possible here to outline what the court did and how and why it was used.

Le protestantisme et les modes d’institutionnalité du religieux. Complexifier le type « Église »

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-514
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Willaime
Keyword(s):  
Religious Groups ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

Protestantism includes Church-type as well as Sect-type ecclesiastical organizations. Its study therefore allows the Weberian typology to be elaborated. In terms of the way in which religious groups define their legitimacy, their ritual, ideological and charismatic characteristics acquire greater or lesser importance. As regards the Church-type, the author proposes a distinction between a ritual-institutional and an ideological-institutional model. In the Protestant world, legitimacy is better established through ideology (theology) and the authority of the ‘doctor-preacher’ than by ritual and charismatic function. Protestantism represents another mode of Church-type religious institutionalism as well as another mode of Sect-type religious association.

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