neoorthodoxy

neoorthodoxy, influential 20th-century Protestant theological movement in Europe and America, known in Europe as crisis theology and dialectical theology. The phrase crisis theology referred to the intellectual crisis of Christendom that occurred when the carnage of World War I belied the exuberant optimism of liberal Christianity. Dialectical theology referred to the apparently contradictory statements made in the interests of “truth” by theologians in order to point out both the majesty of human life and the limits of human thought. The influence of neoorthodoxy waned in the 1970s, when various liberation theologies became increasingly significant.

The movement was led by a number of influential theologians, including Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Nikolay Berdyayev, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich. They and others who followed them were called neoorthodox because they spoke the traditional Christian language of the Bible, the creeds, and mainline orthodox Protestant theology. They wrote of the Trinity, the Creator, the Fall of humanity, original sin, Jesus Christ the Lord and Saviour, justification, reconciliation, and the kingdom of God. They were also concerned with contemporary social realities and found the language of Reformation Protestantism more adequate for addressing these concerns than the language of the theological liberalism in which they had been trained.

They disliked the term neoorthodoxy, however (it was given to them by others), because they repudiated the orthodox belief in biblical literalism. Instead, they accepted modern critical methods of studying the Bible and believed that it contains parts that are not literally true. For them, the miracle of the Christian faith was Jesus Christ and his gospel proclaimed in the church for the salvation of the world.

According to neoorthodox theology, God as the sovereign Other places humans under an inviolable responsibility. God speaks his Word to humans and thereby lays his claim upon them and obligates them to respond to him and thus to exist as human beings. The Word is Jesus Christ become flesh for the salvation of humankind. God reveals himself in the freedom, love, and forgiveness of Jesus. Forgiveness, however, reveals human sin; therefore, humans know God and know themselves as sinners. The knowledge of sin leads to an acknowledgment of both human misery and grandeur and is the antidote to both despair and pride and to the degradation of human culture that follows these twin evils.

For neoorthodoxy, sin is the violation of persons as seen in contrast to God’s love in Jesus for sinners. It is rebellion against life and comes both before and after repudiation of responsibility, which in turn is the sign of death both for the individual and for the community. Sin causes dehumanization and the consequent evils of egotism, stupidity, and guilt, as well as the loneliness, meaninglessness, anxiety, enmity, and cruelty that plague human life. The neoorthodox argue that their view of sin is biblical but also compatible with a realistic understanding of the human condition.

In North America, somewhat in contrast to Europe, neoorthodox criticism of modern culture led to an examination of political and economic institutions and a new awareness of their significance for responsible human existence. North American neoorthodox theologians, particularly Reinhold Niebuhr, argued that religion, ethics, economics, and politics are parts of a larger whole that is the culture of a society and cannot be understood and dealt with separately. They concerned themselves with social institutions and problems and attempted to understand the controversial issues of the day—such as communism, race relations, and nuclear weapons—from a Christian viewpoint.