June 10

Today marks the death, in 1930, of New Testament scholar Adolf von Harnack, a major force in the historical-critical method of studying the Bible and the early church. He believed everything in Christianity was on the table and open for debate, and was an icon of liberal theology at the beginning of the 20th century. He wound up on the wrong side of history, though, defending German nationalism and expansionism in World War I, in part because of his radically individualistic and state-supporting view of Christianity. This moral failure of liberal theologians to stand up to government violence would inspire Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Reinhold Niebuhr, among others, to develop new theologies of politics and power. 

Today marks the death, in 2014, of New Testament scholar and early church historian Robert Grant, who taught at the University of Chicago. He stood up to the trustees at the University of the South when they opposed desegregation in 1952, and he joined in the March to Selma in 1965. Unlike Harnack, he understood that the call of Jesus is not just a matter of the individual intellect or the heart, but a call to the church to oppose the unjust actions of governments and institutions.

Today also marks the death, in 1936, of Henrietta Barnett, who founded the settlement house Toynbee Hall with her husband, Samuel. They were Chrisitan socialists committed to addressing poverty and reducing class divisions in England, and they saw mission-minded living among the poor as key to their efforts.

Reflection:  

Rowan Williams offers an interesting historical lesson on Harnack’s legacy. Harnack was after the core of Jesus’s teaching, stripped of the layers of accumulated church doctrine over the centuries. He dismissed the Gospel of John as being less historical than the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and questioned the creeds. He believed Christianity should be about following the ethical core of Jesus’s message, which was about intimate love of God and love of neighbor. I don’t have any problem with these intellectual positions, and I think he was bold to apply scientific thinking to biblical studies, and he faced opposition for doing so. 

But without a reference to the ways love of God and love of neighbor place us in conflict with the sinful power of this world, or the way God acted definitively in Christ to overturn that power, I think Harnack was left without a firm place to stand. He wound up serving the interests of the state, though he opposed the rising tide of antisemitism in Germany.

The lessons of the 20th and 21st century, I think, show us the dangers of a church that serves the state, or functions to legitimize the policies of rulers.

Prayer: Jesus, you did not come to make us good citizens, but to give us eternal and abundant life. Help us to seek no kingdom but yours. Amen.