The Political Correlatives to Radical Grace

Apolitical Christianity is pure delusion

In our weekly examination of Karl Barth’s work on the Barmen Declaration, the political correlative of the gospel kerygma has proved unavoidable. The chief claims of gospel faith are at once, simultaneously, exercises of that same faith. Just so, Barth’s penultimate fifth thesis in the Barmen Declaration confesses:

“Fear God. Honor the Emperor.”

— 1 Peter 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 God’s Dominion [Reich], God’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 fulfill 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.

According to Barth in the Barmen Declaration—

Apolitical Christianity is pure delusion.

But so is an overly politicized Christianity which collapses the church into the state. Just as law and gospel are God’s two words, the church and the principalities are both God’s modes of working in the world to shepherd it towards the future Fulfillment promised by the gospel. Thus, the Reformation’s call for radical faith in the gospel carries with it every day political implications.

A student of Barth’s, Robert Jenson, suggests some political ramifications to Luther’s rediscovery of the doctrine of justification.