Markus Barth’s Criticisms of American Foreign Policy

I greeted with great pleasure the unlooked-for arrival on my desk of Mark Lindsay’s newest book, Markus Barth: His Life & Legacy. It is an occupational hazard for academic administrators such as me to find it increasingly difficult to read scholarship in their field, but that proved not to be the case with reference to this engaging volume—I gobbled it up in a weekend! Lindsay has done an admirable job in bringing to light the younger Barth’s many significant contributions while also narrating his story in a compelling and enjoyable manner. Well done, Mark!

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in exploring a broader “Barthianism,” in political theology, in Jewish-Christian dialogue, and / or in the theology of the sacraments.*

As is my habit, I’d like to highlight a passage of this volume for you, gentle readers, wherein Lindsay narratives some criticisms that M. Barth made of American foreign policy, specifically. However, they are relevant beyond their time and the specific foreign policy issues in view because they identify harmful dynamics at the heart of American political discourse. As always, bold indicates my own emphasis:

“In a springtime address to the Christian Frontier Fellowship in Chicago, [M. Barth] openly criticized US foreign policy on three grounds, each of which he likened to a specific doctrinal locus. First, using the analog of sin, Barth critiqued the tendency to bifurcate the world into two distinct categories of people—the (Western democratic) good, and the (Eastern communistic) evil. … While consistent with traditional Calvinist understandings of predestination, this simplistic bipartition, said Markus, was nothing other than ‘watered down, folklore Christianity—ancient myth and Victorian morality in perfect pious harmony.’ As far as Barth was concerned, not only did this bifurcation of humanity not accord with the narrative of Scripture, it also blinded the US to more complicated foreign policy issues. …

Second, Markus challenged America’s sense of being entitled to ‘world leadership.’ Referencing soteriology, he agreed that the US had in fact rescued Europe from totalitarian regimes ‘twice within a generation.’ … The problem, however, was that such pretentions to global moral leadership undermine the very goal of peace that they claim to serve. ‘Any nation’s claim to world leadership spoils the international coexistence which is a presupposition of peace’ because, in the end, it is no less than ‘an imperialist intervention which treats other nations like animals to be dominated.’ Even more dangerously, insisted Barth, such a claim ‘interferes directly with the kingship of God.’ …

Finally, with eschatology as his doctrinal referent, Barth rejected the idea—implicit, in his view, within American foreign policy—that the expansion of US democracy throughout the world was the prerequisite to the moral perfection of humankind. On the contrary, he argued, peace and righteousness would be secured, not through particular national brands of virtue, but through ‘the power of God through Christ to make right the affairs and life of wicked men.’ By repudiating any fixed ‘system of moral values,’ Barth thus insisted on the need for a constant re-evaluation of decisions, priorities, and presuppositions.” (p. 117–18)

* Indeed, I have only two small nits to pick with Lindsay’s volume—and allow me to admit up front that these nits are as formally self-serving as they are material! First, Lindsay rightly narrates both of these against the background of K. Barth’s own work. I confess that it would have been gratifying to have found my own work on K. Barth’s doctrine of baptism, especially given that I assess the influence of the younger Barth on the older (e.g., SotG, pp. 37–38, p. 42, p. 51, p. 57, etc.). Second, it would have painted a fuller picture of M. Barth’s location both within the broader legacy of K. Barth’s work and with reference to the larger theological conversation if Lindsay had devoted some time to the intersection of M. Barth and Helmut Gollwitzer’s thought. For example, both M. Barth and Gollwitzer sought to make political application of K. Barth’s theological insights, and both were pioneers (M. Barth working about a decade behind Gollwitzer, and initially in the United States rather than the Bonn Republic) in Jewish-Christian dialogue who took sometimes unpopular critical stances toward the state of Israel—although never against the inclusion of Jews and Christians together within God’s covenant with humanity. However, these nits in no way mitigate my enthusiastic recommendation of Lindsay’s work: tolle lege!

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