Disturbing Reading about Barth's Discipleship--
To Be Postponed for Deep Consideration for Later--
On the Principle of Charity

I have just finished reading Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth... by Suzanne Selinger (1998); I am almost of mind that this should not be my first-- easiest-- reach for Barth's motivation. For the principle of charity I am diligently trying to follow, I shall put the contents of this writing 'on a back burner' when trying to present Barth's 'strongest case'-- in the spirit of reductio ad absurdum ultimately if that seems warranted. Clearly this material presents in an ad hominem way all the 'fuel to fire' castigation of this Church Father as hypocrite. Barth's strongest suit is not his relationship with his secretary-- which could be said to present either sin or stumblingblock to those who wish to utter pejoratives.

Clearly Barth is 'a European boy' in his facile treatment of marriage in his private life. This screams at one who senses that here is a theologue who is vigorously anti-feminist in his preaching. He may not have had a mistress. But Barth did everything but publicly announce that he had Charlotte as his mistress. An 'American boy' who had recourse to such behavior could be said to 'follow after the sin of Bill Clinton and Monica.' I shall not dwell on this any more than I have to, and mostly in this entry.

The cohabitation of Barth with von Kirschbaum seems to have gone on for more than 30 years. At one point for some months Barth lived with Charlotte apart from his married family. Of course many kinds of ideas come to the natural mind in contemplating this situation. It would be almost demagogic to go beyond here, to say more in going into an alleyway of this type. It is hard not to call it rather 'my stumblingblock,' I repeat, if not Barth's actual sin.

Barth was in the public eye, holding himself out as a Christian exemplar of orthodoxy or neo-orthodoxy. This in itself is different from my stance, holding myself to be nothing in the eyes of God but a sinner. But the sin that crosses my mind as a total possibility with Barth and Charlotte is NOT what I would ever aspire to do-- Christian enough, trying hard enough to seek total discipleship to Jesus. In this I sometimes fail. The question does become: how far down the path to adultery in the Matthew 5:28 sense did this Church Father Barth go? Or was this 'holy sin'??? If the latter possibility obtains, then indeed Barth is 'paradoxed' logically and scientifically with tautology of the Great Sermon violently going counter to the conduct of his life (the A = B in the Fregean sense.) By one more criterion in other words, we may never believe nor disbelieve Barth-- but we shall see how well such theses 'play' in the deep-consideration Barthian reading demands.

It HAS been extremely trying to do these studies. Barth seems to have reputation-- something I do not as a person with bipolar disorder-- several times in mental court-- one 'd.c' (disorderly conduct) NOT filed away in my criminal record. Whether Barth-- holding out himself to be 'some great one' (see Acts 8:9-- about Simon Magus) at least insofar as profession of Divinely Revealed Message-- was indeed 'in the American boy sense' as great as all that.

The American-boy sense-- "one life and one wife"-- of marriage is with near exactitude the New Testament sense-- going no further ethically than the modified 'liberalism' of St. Paul's 'concession' in 1 Corinthians 7. In every way, in ways that Friedrich Schleiermacher Barth's nemesis did not behave, Barth's conduct is violative of New Testament marital ethics. And what is more, it is a violation of Barthian theology-- the 'Anthropologie' of the marriage covenant.

I will say this much: here Schleiermacherian Verstehenanalyse abets a somewhat sympathetic reading of Barth. So Barth behaved in a classically European, cavalier way to Christian marriage. Verstehen aids in a more-positive interpretation, not otherwise. Barth must be understood-- on his strongest logical argument-- from a Schleiermacherian standpoint, not by a Barthian criterion.

I cannot be much kinder to a Church Father-- modelling himself so clearly to be a 'deutero-Aquinas'-- who resorts to this unflattering conduct, in an even more unflattering flaunting of his own teaching. Only belatedly, for the principle of charity I say, shall I dwell much more on this unseemly topic.

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
Time of Veil (Coptic Office)
Day of St. William of Roskilde (Western Church)
Day of St. Mamas, Martyr (Orthodoxy)