Thank you, Jared, for a very fine piece - an eloquent and profound recall to our proper place, blessed and informed/reformed under, and in witness to, God's gracious and life-giving commandment.
Reading this article, it becomes more more apparent to me that the Church isn’t "dead" per se—it’s been pushed to the fringes, where it’s always done its holiest work. What we’re witnessing in public life right now isn’t the collapse of Christianity but the exposure of its counterfeit forms, such as what you expose here in Driscoll's ministry. Meanwhile, the real Church—the one that still washes feet, shelters the stranger, and bears quiet witness to grace—has never stopped.
I recently wrote about one such woman, an elderly saint I met who embodied that light on the margins. She reminded me that faith doesn’t need a platform to be powerful—it needs presence, humility, and love.
No form of witness of the church denies, but rather supports, that the church’s witness is centrally vociferous: the proclamation of God’s Word, attesting His Word become flesh, (John 1), as we see from the very fact that God has given us the Holy Scriptures of His prophets and apostles.
The Word became flesh and ate and walked among us, and served us and loved us and healed us. This is embodiment. This is the Logos with feet and hands and a pulse.
Thank you. I share many of your concerns and believe we are seeing similar tendencies and movements here in the UK church; you may like to see my poem "Dangerous Religion" (also published on Substack)?
This has an echo of Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option,” and I love that it is directly focused on what we are confronted with in the present. I’m sure there are other schools of thinking as to how Christians *should* or *must* engage in this moment, but the idea of quiet humility and going about a life surrendered to God still holds the most true interpretation of our mission, for me. I appreciated this view, thank you!
I really disagree that Jared (and Barth) argues for “quiet humility.” Rather the call is to resistance to Christian Nationalism and the totalizing state. Not aligned with Dreher whatsoever.
“‘…pray and work…’” “‘a spiritual center of resistance.’” Your theological message here , as far as the church and politics, seems to be “stay Barthian,” “learn from Barth.” Am I correct that you are trying to find a proper theological way to encourage us as the Church of Jesus Christ today in the USA to continue to live with human “chaos,” or, rather, the juxtaposition between the knowlege and ignorance of God in our human world, including the state, and the church, and each of our own lives, notably by assuring us of God’s gracious command, notably that God commands us to keep doing the same theology, and keep gathering in the same communion with our churchly understanding of Jesus Christ as the same Savior of the same God and His saving suffering and saving death and resurrection for us all and thus protect the marginalized who also suffer and remind us of Him, our Saviour, unlike the ICE?
You’ve started out on the theme of personal and corporate political (?) “urgency,” and you end up with “ theological” and “communal” humanitarian self-satisfaction via offering us your own point of view on world “normalcy” and God and Jesus Christ and Salvation, and God’s gracious command, against the statement of Eric Trump and a famous pastor. The command of our gracious God, according to His own Word, yet without “urgency,” content with our own “ theological” and “communal” place, both with regard to God’s name and ourselves as human beings? Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His first disciples to begin to pray, beginning like this, “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name!” The gracious Word and Command of “the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord ( Jude .25) as opposed to the “Regime of Vacillation (Balance, Division, Twilight) 245ff, 253, 245f., 259f., 263f.,266” in The Christian Life, Karl Barth). Take to heart what Barth says about “pray and work”! Only God will overthrow the regime, but if we not hear God’s gracious command in Jesus Christ, trusting in Him, as He commands us to pray His own overthrow of what is a disgrace to Him and ourselves, the dishonoring of His name, we have no proper passion for the honor of God’s name, and we ourselves will never begin our own proper revolt against “normalcy” and we will never really engage in reforming the church. We indeed do our bit of theology, but it becomes, yes, disconnected from proclamation, which, as Barth said, it is clearly meant to support. You are referring precisely to proper Christian Church and Worldly State status and attitudes and orientations and relations in our general human worldly “ambiguity” (Barth) with respect to God and thus ourselves as fellow human beings, our “perversity.” So you got to preachers, and politicians, and ICE, but then passed by the preachers entirely. What is the full “ministry of witness” of the church? Eric Trump and perhaps more the pastor you mentioned, sound, perhaps, like they are trying to be “prophetic,” though it sounds more, as you say, reactionary and “moralistic.” You have omitted proclamation, and baptism, and prayer (generally preceding following the sermon) and praise to focus on theology and communion to remind us to help for those in peril, as commands of our gracious God through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Let’s focus, where you begin, with the “pulpit.” What about God’s gracious command to proclaim His Word, and faith, in thanksgiving and repentance? Eric Trump and the former pastor mistakenly have thought that the Christian church, or Christians, especially we who are preachers, must save God from obscurity, yet we confess that in Jesus Christ, God fully knowns the human being, and the human being fully knows Him, and, indeed, as He was crucified and now is risen for all of us, shining as Savior, all purported ignorance of Him, Jesus Christ, both the God who fully knows human beings and the human being who fully knows God, is only “a brute fact.” (Karl Barth, The Christian Life) Clearly, thus, as Savior, He shines for every human being, but thus what we see in the world that itHe is on the move, from His first manifestation to His apostles to His final manifestation to all. As you say, we ourselves attest Jesus Christ, as attested by His prophets and apostles, is Savior, from God our Savior, as He demonstrates to us that He is Savior. So theology is not the same as proclamation. What about Jesus own baptismal command to His eleven disciples in Matthew 28:16-20? Let me put this point blank: if we want to keep talking about preaching and politics and the Christian church and the American nation, and salvation, and God and human beings, and Jesus Christ as Savior and “renewal,” what if we talked together about what Barth wrote about preaching and praying and baptism in the Holy Spirit and baptism in water, in IV 4? Certainly that relates quite directly to “preaching” and “renewal.” The “ethos” of the Christian life is our calling upon the God who calls upon us. (Karl Barth)
The essential posture required of the church is one of humble receptivity, not audacious activism. We first listen, and understand, and pray, then we act on the basis of all that we have heard. And when God acts, it is unmistakably his own will and work. Like the Day of Pentecost, it is sudden, and it is heavenly.
We do need to be alert, and avoid any kind of naivety, in relation to large-scale, nationally grounded ‘movements’ which claim any kind of messianic character. Here in the UK many look at MAGA with detached bemusement rather than alarm. We need men and women who are mighty in the Scriptures, of a discerning spirit, and great courage to speak truth to power, and truth in power.
Very helpful little piece and fascinating to hear about Barth's diagnosis of his own political/cultural moment. I found the reference to Peter picking up his sword particularly helpful. I sense that this impulse to take hold of human instruments to bring about heavenly outcomes is at the heart of the issue.
Good, solid understanding of Barth's theology related to Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and to the United States in the 2010s and 20s. However, on the American scene, why is it that only those considered to be on the Right -- MAGA, evangelicals, Christian nationalists, and so on -- are understood to be misguided and just plain wrong with regard to Christ and His Church? Liberal and progressive Christians can also "totalize" -- that is, build ideological spaces to inhabit. The task for all American Christians and churches is to desire to hear, hear, trust, and obey God's living Word, which also transforms its hearers. This hearing offers an ecumenical opportunity that can join Christians of various political persuasions into one as they receive, trust, and obey God's Word.
Good, solid understanding of Barth's theology related to Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and to the United States in the 2010s and 20s. However, on the American scene, why is it that only those considered to be on the Right -- MAGA, evangelicals, Christian nationalists, and so on -- are understood to be misguided and just plain wrong with regard to Christ and His Church? Liberal and progressive Christians can also "totalize" -- that is, build ideological spaces to inhabit. The task for all American Christians and churches is to desire to hear, hear, trust, and obey God's living Word, which also transforms its hearers. This hearing offers an ecumenical opportunity that can join Christians of various political persuasions into one as they receive, trust, and obey God's Word.
Thank you! What about repentance, the obedience that is repentance? Even so, the message of the church is not simply transformation, but conversion, and thus we are back to the writer starting with an “urge.” As you are indicating here, the ecumenical church in and with and for the whole world attests a turning of God to human beings and of human beings to God, centrally and for us all, in Jesus Christ, thus God’s Holy Spirit “ transform”-ation that is from a “freedom from” to a “freedom for. ” Well said, I’d only add a more pointed emphasis on God’s transformation of both speakers and hearers of His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit by emphasis on the churches’ and Christians’ witness to God’s Word by the proclamation and hearing of God’s Word in Jesus Christ, notably publicly beginning together again in and with and for the whole world by baptizing and being baptized. There we see the public transformation or renewal of both the ecumenical church and Christian in and with and for the whole world. Yet, we never seem here even with the Center of Barth Studies to take up what Barth wrote about baptism in the Spirit and Baptism in water in CD IV4 and the newly published The Christian Life. As though this had nothing to do with the impossibility of a national or nationalistic Christian church?
Thank you, Jared, for a very fine piece - an eloquent and profound recall to our proper place, blessed and informed/reformed under, and in witness to, God's gracious and life-giving commandment.
Oh and..."eucharistic solidarity." That slays me. Where has that term been my entire life?
This is my own attempt at this sacred act: https://ericksierra.substack.com/p/my-city-has-become-an-occupied-terror
Reading this article, it becomes more more apparent to me that the Church isn’t "dead" per se—it’s been pushed to the fringes, where it’s always done its holiest work. What we’re witnessing in public life right now isn’t the collapse of Christianity but the exposure of its counterfeit forms, such as what you expose here in Driscoll's ministry. Meanwhile, the real Church—the one that still washes feet, shelters the stranger, and bears quiet witness to grace—has never stopped.
I recently wrote about one such woman, an elderly saint I met who embodied that light on the margins. She reminded me that faith doesn’t need a platform to be powerful—it needs presence, humility, and love.
https://ericksierra.substack.com/p/i-was-about-to-quit-the-corrupt-church
No form of witness of the church denies, but rather supports, that the church’s witness is centrally vociferous: the proclamation of God’s Word, attesting His Word become flesh, (John 1), as we see from the very fact that God has given us the Holy Scriptures of His prophets and apostles.
The Word became flesh and ate and walked among us, and served us and loved us and healed us. This is embodiment. This is the Logos with feet and hands and a pulse.
This is God with us, Immanuel. This is a holy mystery.
Thanks for so penitently bringing Barth to bear on our cultural moment!
Thank you. I share many of your concerns and believe we are seeing similar tendencies and movements here in the UK church; you may like to see my poem "Dangerous Religion" (also published on Substack)?
This is so good, Jared. Thank you.
This has an echo of Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option,” and I love that it is directly focused on what we are confronted with in the present. I’m sure there are other schools of thinking as to how Christians *should* or *must* engage in this moment, but the idea of quiet humility and going about a life surrendered to God still holds the most true interpretation of our mission, for me. I appreciated this view, thank you!
I really disagree that Jared (and Barth) argues for “quiet humility.” Rather the call is to resistance to Christian Nationalism and the totalizing state. Not aligned with Dreher whatsoever.
“‘…pray and work…’” “‘a spiritual center of resistance.’” Your theological message here , as far as the church and politics, seems to be “stay Barthian,” “learn from Barth.” Am I correct that you are trying to find a proper theological way to encourage us as the Church of Jesus Christ today in the USA to continue to live with human “chaos,” or, rather, the juxtaposition between the knowlege and ignorance of God in our human world, including the state, and the church, and each of our own lives, notably by assuring us of God’s gracious command, notably that God commands us to keep doing the same theology, and keep gathering in the same communion with our churchly understanding of Jesus Christ as the same Savior of the same God and His saving suffering and saving death and resurrection for us all and thus protect the marginalized who also suffer and remind us of Him, our Saviour, unlike the ICE?
You’ve started out on the theme of personal and corporate political (?) “urgency,” and you end up with “ theological” and “communal” humanitarian self-satisfaction via offering us your own point of view on world “normalcy” and God and Jesus Christ and Salvation, and God’s gracious command, against the statement of Eric Trump and a famous pastor. The command of our gracious God, according to His own Word, yet without “urgency,” content with our own “ theological” and “communal” place, both with regard to God’s name and ourselves as human beings? Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His first disciples to begin to pray, beginning like this, “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name!” The gracious Word and Command of “the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord ( Jude .25) as opposed to the “Regime of Vacillation (Balance, Division, Twilight) 245ff, 253, 245f., 259f., 263f.,266” in The Christian Life, Karl Barth). Take to heart what Barth says about “pray and work”! Only God will overthrow the regime, but if we not hear God’s gracious command in Jesus Christ, trusting in Him, as He commands us to pray His own overthrow of what is a disgrace to Him and ourselves, the dishonoring of His name, we have no proper passion for the honor of God’s name, and we ourselves will never begin our own proper revolt against “normalcy” and we will never really engage in reforming the church. We indeed do our bit of theology, but it becomes, yes, disconnected from proclamation, which, as Barth said, it is clearly meant to support. You are referring precisely to proper Christian Church and Worldly State status and attitudes and orientations and relations in our general human worldly “ambiguity” (Barth) with respect to God and thus ourselves as fellow human beings, our “perversity.” So you got to preachers, and politicians, and ICE, but then passed by the preachers entirely. What is the full “ministry of witness” of the church? Eric Trump and perhaps more the pastor you mentioned, sound, perhaps, like they are trying to be “prophetic,” though it sounds more, as you say, reactionary and “moralistic.” You have omitted proclamation, and baptism, and prayer (generally preceding following the sermon) and praise to focus on theology and communion to remind us to help for those in peril, as commands of our gracious God through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Let’s focus, where you begin, with the “pulpit.” What about God’s gracious command to proclaim His Word, and faith, in thanksgiving and repentance? Eric Trump and the former pastor mistakenly have thought that the Christian church, or Christians, especially we who are preachers, must save God from obscurity, yet we confess that in Jesus Christ, God fully knowns the human being, and the human being fully knows Him, and, indeed, as He was crucified and now is risen for all of us, shining as Savior, all purported ignorance of Him, Jesus Christ, both the God who fully knows human beings and the human being who fully knows God, is only “a brute fact.” (Karl Barth, The Christian Life) Clearly, thus, as Savior, He shines for every human being, but thus what we see in the world that itHe is on the move, from His first manifestation to His apostles to His final manifestation to all. As you say, we ourselves attest Jesus Christ, as attested by His prophets and apostles, is Savior, from God our Savior, as He demonstrates to us that He is Savior. So theology is not the same as proclamation. What about Jesus own baptismal command to His eleven disciples in Matthew 28:16-20? Let me put this point blank: if we want to keep talking about preaching and politics and the Christian church and the American nation, and salvation, and God and human beings, and Jesus Christ as Savior and “renewal,” what if we talked together about what Barth wrote about preaching and praying and baptism in the Holy Spirit and baptism in water, in IV 4? Certainly that relates quite directly to “preaching” and “renewal.” The “ethos” of the Christian life is our calling upon the God who calls upon us. (Karl Barth)
The essential posture required of the church is one of humble receptivity, not audacious activism. We first listen, and understand, and pray, then we act on the basis of all that we have heard. And when God acts, it is unmistakably his own will and work. Like the Day of Pentecost, it is sudden, and it is heavenly.
We do need to be alert, and avoid any kind of naivety, in relation to large-scale, nationally grounded ‘movements’ which claim any kind of messianic character. Here in the UK many look at MAGA with detached bemusement rather than alarm. We need men and women who are mighty in the Scriptures, of a discerning spirit, and great courage to speak truth to power, and truth in power.
Very helpful little piece and fascinating to hear about Barth's diagnosis of his own political/cultural moment. I found the reference to Peter picking up his sword particularly helpful. I sense that this impulse to take hold of human instruments to bring about heavenly outcomes is at the heart of the issue.
Good, solid understanding of Barth's theology related to Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and to the United States in the 2010s and 20s. However, on the American scene, why is it that only those considered to be on the Right -- MAGA, evangelicals, Christian nationalists, and so on -- are understood to be misguided and just plain wrong with regard to Christ and His Church? Liberal and progressive Christians can also "totalize" -- that is, build ideological spaces to inhabit. The task for all American Christians and churches is to desire to hear, hear, trust, and obey God's living Word, which also transforms its hearers. This hearing offers an ecumenical opportunity that can join Christians of various political persuasions into one as they receive, trust, and obey God's Word.
Good, solid understanding of Barth's theology related to Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and to the United States in the 2010s and 20s. However, on the American scene, why is it that only those considered to be on the Right -- MAGA, evangelicals, Christian nationalists, and so on -- are understood to be misguided and just plain wrong with regard to Christ and His Church? Liberal and progressive Christians can also "totalize" -- that is, build ideological spaces to inhabit. The task for all American Christians and churches is to desire to hear, hear, trust, and obey God's living Word, which also transforms its hearers. This hearing offers an ecumenical opportunity that can join Christians of various political persuasions into one as they receive, trust, and obey God's Word.
Thank you! What about repentance, the obedience that is repentance? Even so, the message of the church is not simply transformation, but conversion, and thus we are back to the writer starting with an “urge.” As you are indicating here, the ecumenical church in and with and for the whole world attests a turning of God to human beings and of human beings to God, centrally and for us all, in Jesus Christ, thus God’s Holy Spirit “ transform”-ation that is from a “freedom from” to a “freedom for. ” Well said, I’d only add a more pointed emphasis on God’s transformation of both speakers and hearers of His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit by emphasis on the churches’ and Christians’ witness to God’s Word by the proclamation and hearing of God’s Word in Jesus Christ, notably publicly beginning together again in and with and for the whole world by baptizing and being baptized. There we see the public transformation or renewal of both the ecumenical church and Christian in and with and for the whole world. Yet, we never seem here even with the Center of Barth Studies to take up what Barth wrote about baptism in the Spirit and Baptism in water in CD IV4 and the newly published The Christian Life. As though this had nothing to do with the impossibility of a national or nationalistic Christian church?