Today, apart from taking time to start on Rowan Williams's excellent and demanding Faith in the Public Square, I met an academic friend at the University of Basel and then we went to visit Karl Barth's house and archive.
Barth's house is not marked in any way and I wouldn't have found it by myself. The archivist, Dr Peter Zocher, was very welcoming – and is clearly an expert on the great man. I know this is really cringy, but I found it moving to hold in my hand Karl Barth's copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf and read the margin notes, underlinings, question marks and exclamation marks he had written in pencil. Having replaced that, Peter then opened up a document file and showed me the original handwritten draft of the Barmen Declaration of 1934 – probably one of the most important political and theological documents of the twentieth century.
I have to keep reminding myself that Barth didn't know how the story would end. As Hitler consolidated his power, it took great courage and clarity of mind to challenge him and the violent worldview he was soon to inflict on the whole world. All Barth and his friends had to go on was what they saw and heard at that point, and yet they recognised the evil that was being grown among them. (Barth himself refused to swear the personal oath of allegiance to Hitler, resigned his professorial chair at Bonn, and moved back to Basel.)
I also looked through Barth's personal copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's first books – including Nachfolge (translated into English as The Cost of Discipleship). Again, he had marked the text with questions and comments I couldn't decipher.
There is something powerful about holding and reading books that had belonged to, been read by and marked by a giant of twentieth century theology.
However, what I found haunting – and very difficult to put out of my mind – was the discrepancy between the theological sharpness of Barth and his domestic arrangements. Charlotte von Kirschbaum had moved in to the Barth home in Germany and moved with the family (his wife, Nelly, and their five children) to Basel. They lived, effectively, as a ménage-à-trois until von Kirschbaum was elderly and ill. Karl died in 1968, Charlotte in 1975 (after suffering from Alzheimer's for many years), and Nelly was the last to pass away in 1976. All three are buried in the same grave in Basel's main cemetery.
Barth's social skills were not great. Those still alive who remember him relate how difficult it was to know how to handle him. If you wanted to invite him for dinner, who did you invite come with him – Nelly, Charlotte or both? When Barth was away he would write letters to Charlotte, but never to his wife.
One of my abiding questions is how we judge theology in the light of the experience of those who propagate a particular theology. For example, does the fact that Heidegger supported Hitler (which Barth condemned) influence the credibility of his theological perspectives or his philosophical project? Is there a relationship between the nature of Rudolf Bultmann's theology and the fact that he was able to retain his professorial chair under Hitler when other Christians were paying a very high price for their discipleship of Jesus? And, if we are to take this seriously, how does the reality of Barth's domestic relationships impinge on his theology – especially the clarity of his ethical writings?
Or doesn't it matter?
Correction: I had misunderstood a point about Barth's letters. He wrote many letters to his wife, too, but these have not been published. Barth put in his last will and testament that his private correspondence with his wife should not be published.
February 28, 2014 at 2:08 am
Dear Nick,
Thank you for this.I read what you wrote a good half-an-hour ago and am still pondering!
I’m not a theologian, but your final question: ‘Or doesn’t it matter?’ has got me wondering.
I think of a sort-of analogy in my own life which is not about Christian faith and yet it has come into my mind anyway. I love Scott Joplin music and play it as best I can on the piano. When I discovered that Scott Joplin had syphilis I was devastated. How could I go on playing the music of a man who had syphilis? How could a man who had syphilis write such lovely music anyway?Yet I loved the music of this man who had syphilis, so what did that say about me?
A picture has come into my mind of a strawberry growing in a dung heap and I think of God’s wonderful way of creating something delightful and good from something I think of as none-too-appealing.
So maybe Karl Barth’s rather unappealing family life does not invalidate the greatness of his theology?
Best wishes,
Christine Quinn-Jones
February 28, 2014 at 7:02 am
Reblogged this on hungarywolf.
February 28, 2014 at 6:44 pm
Overall, a very good post. But I think it’s important to correct your perception of Bultmann. Bultmann was one of the most vocal opponents of the Nazi regime, and he engaged in more anti-Nazi activity than even Barth. Konrad Hammann’s biography of Bultmann documents this very well. One of the things he observes is that the Nazi leaders tried to fire Bultmann, but Bultmann had made himself so internationally well-known and respected that he was basically untouchable. He and Hans von Soden used this academic power to turn Marburg into a safe haven for Jews during the Third Reich.
More importantly, there *is* a very strong, direct, and important connection between his theology and his anti-Nazi activism, though I can’t go into it here. Suffice it to say, there is a reason why he joined Barth’s school of dialectical theology and considered himself (rightly, in my view) a dialectical theologian until the end.
February 28, 2014 at 10:42 pm
David, thanks for this. I was a bit quick to cite Bultmann, but your response is helpful.
March 1, 2014 at 1:57 am
Barth’s domestic arrangements did not fit the criteria of fidelity and integrity of a married man – but as Christine Quinn-Jones says, that doesn’t invalidate his intellectual powers as a theologian. His work should be respected by those interested in theology. And those who aren’t. He was as flawed as the rest of us.
March 1, 2014 at 10:53 am
Pam, I think the issue there is that Barth himself would not have agreed with you that this is an adequate way of doing ethics. That is why the question of public theology and private life is such a difficult one.
March 1, 2014 at 11:26 am
[…] on from Thursday's visit to Karl Barth's house and my sight of Barth's original handwritten draft of the 1934 Barmen Declaration, I wonder if […]
March 1, 2014 at 9:31 pm
Nick, I didn’t mean to imply his lifestyle was an ‘adequate’ way to do ethics. I’m sure the paradoxes of his situation would have been all too apparent to him. It’s difficult, for sure, I only wanted to make the point that ethicists or theologians face the same battles we all do.
March 7, 2014 at 4:11 pm
I think this raises a particularly pertinent question. Does the integrity of one’s personal life act on an audience’s appreciation of espoused values. It seems to me that the question is can a ‘body of work’, whether Joplin’s or Barth’s, ‘teach’ separately to its’ creator? I don’t know if there is an answer I think, as an ex-Catholic who has become an Anglican, that we do not know if he died in a state of grace. In writing this I realise I can appreciate the work separately, others may not. An interesting debate. Cathie