The Neo-Orthodox View of the Bible as Revelation and the Implication in the Life of Believers - Essay Example

DISCUSS THE NEO-ORTHODOX VIEW OF THE BIBLE AND AS REVELATION AND EVALUATE THE IMPLICATION IN THE LIFE OF BELIEVERS By of the Name of the professor Name of the School City, State 22 December 2014 Introduction This paper focuses on Neo-Orthodox beliefs the role that Neo-Orthodoxy plays in the life of a believer. Neo-Orthodoxy is a religious movement that began just after the World War I, which was formed to react against the failed ideas of liberal Protestants. It was founded by Karl Barth and Brunner who was a Swiss theologist (Lindberg and Lumbers, 1986). They were reacting against liberal nineteenth-century Protestantism. Karl Barth in Switzerland questioned about preaching, baptizing, confirming, bell-ringing and organ playing. In some respect, it’s between the liberal and the orthodox view of the scripture. Karl Barth revolted against the liberal theological training by replacing it with neo-orthodox. The movement had been formed for a number of reasons. Some claimed it had left the traditional protestant and formed a new movement. Others viewed the movement as narrowing the traditional protestant, while others said the movement was as an effort to back idea of the Protestants. Discussion In the early twentieth century, two theologians mounted an agreement on liberalism. The two theologians tried to find the historical Jesus by discounting the testimony of the Bible and giving their own statement of what happened. They continued to argue that the Bible was the word of God and that God inspired it, but what they meant was different from the belief of Christianity (The Neo-Orthodox View, 2014). Like Barth, Brunner preached on the self-disclosure of God in his basis of the theology. He stated that in self-disclosure or self-revelation of God, He makes himself known. Brunner’s preaching differs from Barth on the idea that revelation was to understand the personal encounter. He sometimes referred it to the crisis theologian of the Neo-Orthodoxy movement. Brunner stated that revelation should be a personal encounter. He stated that God brings us to the point of crisis when experiencing something of God through the witness scripture. Brunner rejected the idea that Jesus is a man and not God. They both stated that Jesus was a man and He was a true God and Man. Nevertheless, they both denied the critical view of Jesus. Despite the criticism, they didn’t reject all the ideas. Brunner argued that the natural theology was a way of knowing God through looking at nature, while Barth argued that believing by entering into faith, one could then perceive the world correctly (Doctrine of Scripture, n.d.) They tried finding the historical Jesus by discrediting the testimonies in the Bible and creating the biblical evidence according to their own understanding of what might have happened. They used science to prove that the Bible was merely a collection of the human opinion about God and not the actually word of God. Neo-Orthodox had several problems that differed from the traditional Orthodox. They stated that the Bible was the word of God and that God had inspired it, but this meant that the statements were profoundly different from true Christianity (Doctrine of Scripture, n.d.). Barth and Brunner rejected that the Bible was the word of God in a detached sense. They suggested that the Bible was a collection of human documentation, and said that God uses these people create encounters with the reader, so that the Bible can become the word of God as we read it. Reading the Bible was viewed to have actual errors, which sparked these encounters. Neo-Orthodoxy teaches that the Bible is a means of revelation, while the Orthodoxy believes it’s a revelation. Neo-orthodoxy theologians explained that revelation depended on the experience of an individual. They stated that the Bible can only be considered as a word of God when God uses the words to point someone to Christ. The statements in the Bible are not as important as having a life changing encounter with Jesus. Neo-Orthodoxy viewed sin as an ignored responsibility to treat people well. Thus the result of sin is dehumanization accompanied by unkindness, unforgiveness, loneliness and societal ills, and that salvation comes to those that are subjected to encounters with Christ, and no set of truth is required. (Smith, 2009). Their view on inspiration and revelation is earthly. Inspiration and error are made customers. If a bible writer was wrong in an area, then how can one respond, “I have spoken to all the earthly beings and yet they do not believe; how then will you believe me if I speak of heavenly things”. (The Bible, John 3:12). They explained that people can’t believe in what is not true, if people can’t see the visible things. In the Neo-Orthodox approach on a subject basic, a verse might be accepted as the word of God, but maybe rejected by another. There is no objective revelation. The ancient allegorical stated that the word of God is true, although they considered this statement as false. The Neo-Orthodox saw the people as sinful, and who needed to know God (Richards and Bredfeldt, 1998). According to their belief, God’s revelation is received through the Bible. They also believed that the Bible had a place in the Christian training and teaching. Barth rejected the liberal approach that God is found within the human feelings and emotions. He returned the theological standard and approach which acknowledged and worshiped a transcendent God. The idea of Divine revelation was an idea that men and women couldn’t know God or anything about God. This became an important teaching. He was actively putting up the agenda of a transcendent God, human sin and the dynamic revelation of Christ. Barth stressed on the sin of mankind. He led the theology away from the influence of modern religious philosophy back to the idea of reformation and the prophetic teaching of the Bible. The evangelical theologians stressed on the biblical inerrancy, but Barth on the other hand made claims that the biblical inerrancy as being the foundation of theology, and that the understanding of the scripture accuracy and value could properly merge from a consideration point of view(The Neo-Orthodox View, 2014). Barth emphasized on the idea of human concept which can never be considered as identical to God’s revelation. He argued that the scripture is written in the human language which meant expressing the human idea and undeniably the Holy Scripture witness the divine intervention in the human affairs. He insisted that Christ is the center of everything which we believe, which stands in the full support of the biblical inerrancy. Barth stated that biblical inerrancy was like worshipping the scripture, but he said that only God should be worshipped. His idea of freedom and love was revealed to him through the human language and concept by God, as seen in the Bible records. Barth once stated that Jesus doesn’t give recipes that show the way God and His teaching of Christianity do. He is in Himself. Barth held the scripture with the highest respect and felt he had to resist the teachings which insisted that work be forced on many men over several decades could be invaluable (Doctrine of Scripture, n.d.). He acknowledged that the Bible was a record of revelations and that the Holy Spirit was an inspiration. But nevertheless, he saw other religions to worship the holy books and rejected similar approaches being adopted towards the Bible. He also believed that the Bible had errors and insisted that it is inevitable and there are no problems to faith except where one blind lily insisted on inerrancy. Neo-Orthodoxy was aware of the mistakes made from the older scripture interpretation. The events that took place emphasized on the fundamental disunity between God and man as opposed to the liberalism that viewed humanity’s basic unity with God through the inward religious feelings. Barth and his fellow neo-orthodoxy accepted the theological aspect in which the biblical events had been erased from the human history, but this school believed that the human history didn’t matter at all, and that God was beyond the human history. When it came to Divine elections, Barth placed Christ as the center of election. He viewed election as being the sum of the gospel. According to Barth, this doctrine is based on two assertions. One that Jesus Christ is electing God and two, Jesus Christ is an elected man (Kooi, 2005). He stated that Jesus is the subject in the doctrine of election and He elects others, and Jesus becomes the object of Gods election. Barth explains that God elected in the eternal election of Jesus Christ. He continued to state that God has two sided will in the election of Jesus Christ. In the election of Jesus, God positively ascribed salvation and life to man and negatively, God ascribed reprobation and death to Himself. God negatively elected Himself to be man’s partner and took up the cross of rejection, death and hell that man deserved. Barth’s view of fortune leads to divine glory, blessedness and external life for man. According to Karl Barth, God is the creator, reconciler and redeemer. Barth agreed that a true Christian theology must have two criteria’s; it must be church theology that is directed to and satisfactory for the internal dialogue among the believers and it must assert about God and His actions in terms of life, death and resurrection of Christ (Kooi, 2005) . Neo-Orthodoxy emphasized more methods than preaching or teaching the word. Their methods include the social gospel of feeding or clothing the poor and their viewed. Neo-Orthodoxy had made a major contribution to their twentieth century theology. Theological neo-orthodoxy values Christian moral teachings about the value of human individuality, freedom and history. Many churches have acquired these ideas because they get crowds of people but have no knowledge of the saving grace of God. With their emphasis of the scripture, it helped precipitate a new hermeneutics. Neo-Orthodoxy had a great influence on the less-conservative religions like the Presbyterian and the Lutheran church (Benavides and Daly, 1989). Its main idea was to provide a biblical alternative to liberalism, but the Neo-orthodoxy teaching carried an inherent danger. One can have a life-changing encounter with Jesus without him or her believing some of the facts portrayed in the Bible. The Bible narrates that Faith comes from hearing the message through the word of Christ (The Bible, Roman 10:17). The faith is witnessed in the death and resurrection of Christ. Conclusion Neo-orthodoxy is a movement that was formed after the 1st World War to react against the failed ideas of liberal Protestants. It was founded by Karl Barth and Brunner, a Swiss theologist. The movement was formed for a number of reasons. Some claimed it had left the traditional protestant and formed a new movement. Others viewed the movement as narrowing the traditional protestant, while others say the movement was as an effort to back idea of the Protestants. They preached about revelation and argued that the people who wrote the bible had errors and that an encounter with God was seen through Jesus, but not as the bible stated. In my view, neo-orthodoxy plays a major role in the life of a believer. It differs from traditional orthodoxy in a number of ways. The main difference comes from the fact that neo-orthodoxy teaches that the Bible is a means of revelation, while the Orthodoxy believes it’s a revelation. Bibliography Benavides, G. and Daly, M. W., 1989. Religion and Political Power. New York: State University of New York. Biblical Training, n.d. Doctrine of Scripture. Available at: [Accessed 21 December 2014] Brace, R. A., 2005. KARL BARTH; Time for an Evangelical Reappraisal? Available at: [Accessed 21 December 2014]. Got Questions Ministries, 2014. What is Neo-Orthodoxy? [Accessed 22 December 2014] Kooi, C. V., 2005. Als in Een Spiegel: The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV. Ligonier Ministries, 2014. The Neo-Orthodox View. < http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/the-neo-orthodox-view/> [Accessed 21 December 2014]. Lindberg, D.C. and Numbers, R. L., 1986. God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science. England: University of California Press. Richards, L. O. and Bredfeldt, G. R., 1998. Creative Bible Teaching. London: Moody Publishers. Smith, J. E., 2011. Is There any Word from the Lord? Florida: Florida Christian College. The Bible. New International Version, 2011. Washington: Biblica. Read More