Neo-orthodoxy, which was invented in the 20th century, should be called neo-liberalism because it is not orthodox or doctrinally sound. Neo-orthodoxy is no friend of the truth. It is just only subtle and deceptive and less forthright in its unbelief than the old liberalism.
Neo-orthodoxy is known as “crisis” or “dialectical” theology in Europe.
Some of the fathers and influencers of neo-orthodoxy are Karl Barth (1886-1968), Emil Brunner (1889-1965), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), and Reinhold Niebuhr (1893-1971).
NEO-ORTHODOXY’S HERESIES
Neo-orthodoxy generally accepts many heresies of the old liberalism such as these: The Bible contains historical and scientific errors; the Genesis account of the creation and fall is not literal; Moses did not write the Pentateuch but it was written hundreds of years later during the time of the kings; the prophet Isaiah did not write Isaiah; Daniel was not written by the prophet Daniel; there was no a global flood, etc.
J. Sidlow Baxter observed, “My own reading convinces me that the leaders of the ‘Neo-Orthodoxy’ assume, generally speaking, the results of the more radical ‘Higher Criticism.’ The Higher Critics argued. The Neo-Orthodox assume. The former attacked the historical facts of the Christian faith; the latter now by-pass them as not vitally necessary to Christian faith. … the inner attitude of mind toward the Bible and the historical facts of Christianity and the miraculous is practically the same as that of the older Modernism” (Baxter, Explore the Book).
According to neo-orthodoxy, the Bible only becomes the Word of God as it is experienced by the hearer.
Karl Barth said, “The Bible is God’s Word to the extent that God causes it to be His Word, to the extent that he speaks through it” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1, 1, p. 109).
Neo-orthodox theologian Donald Bloesch says, “the Bible is the divinely prepared medium or channel of divine revelation rather than the revelation itself” (Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation, p. 18). Bloesch agrees with the Catholic mystic Bernard of Clairvaux that “the Word of God is not primarily a book of general truths and principles but a transforming energy that brings light to the mind and power to the will” (Holy Scripture, pp. 21, 22).
Neo-orthodoxy emphasizes that Jesus is known by a mystical encounter more than by the Bible.
“Truth is not a book … or a creed … Truth is a person. And Jesus is His name. Christianity, therefore, is not fundamentally about following a book” (Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet, Jesus Manifesto , 2010, p. 137). This book was recommended by Ed Stetzer, who was head of the research department of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay company.
This view is heretical, since it is impossible to know Jesus apart from the revelation of Him in Scripture. We are warned of false christs (2 Co. 11:4), and Scripture is the only way to discern the true from the false. A proper view of Jesus requires an infallible revelation of Him in Scripture.
Neo-orthodoxy claims that human language is incapable of communicating absolute, unchanging, eternal, inerrant truth.
Consider Eugene Nida who had a great influence on Bible translation worldwide by his work with the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies from 1943-1980. He wrote influential books and conferred with scores of translators on linguistic problems involving more than 200 different languages.
“… God’s revelation involved limitations. … Biblical revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. … The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. … The word is void unless related to experience” (Nida, Message and Mission, New York: Harper & Row, 1960, pp. 222-226).
This is neo-orthodoxy. The psalmist did not hold to Nida’s theories about the words of Scripture. He said, “The words of the Lord are pure words…” (Psalm 12:6). Throughout Scripture, it is the very words that are said to be important, not just the basic meaning. Three times we are told that “man doth not live by bread only, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (De. 8:3; Mt. 4:4; Lu. 4:4). The words of the Bible are something in and of themselves, regardless of whether they are related to anything else. The words of the Bible are intrinsically the eternal words of God.
Nida’s foundational error was the rejection of the fundamental doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration. “The languages of the Bible are subject to the same limitations as any other natural language” (Nida, Theory and Practice, p. 7).
The idea that human language is incapable of communicating the infallible Word of God is contrary to what Scripture itself teaches. God created man’s language for the purpose of divine revelation. The prophets claimed to speak the Word of God in the words of God. Paul described this in the beautiful passage of 1 Corinthians 2:7-13. Here we have some fundamental teachings about the Scripture from the apostle of Jesus Christ. (1) Scripture is “the wisdom of God.” (2) Scripture communicates “the deep things of God.” (3) Scripture is the product of “the Spirit of God.” (4) Scripture is given “in the words … which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” The inspiration is verbal, not general.
NEO-ORTHODOXY DANGER
Neo-orthodoxy is very dangerous.
It is subtle. It hides its unbelief beneath obscure language and biblical terms that are given a heretical meaning (e.g., speaking of the “bodily resurrection” of Christ or the “second coming” or “the inspiration of Scripture” but not believing these doctrines in a biblical sense).
Neo-orthodoxy also hides its unbelief by contradictions. This deceives the gullible. For example, the “evangelical” theologian Donald Bloesch seems, at times, to be sound in his view of the Bible’s divine inspiration. He criticizes liberalism and even criticizes neo-orthodoxy. He praises orthodox creeds such as the Westminster Confession of Faith which says, “The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical.” The Westminster Confession calls Scripture “the Word of God” and “infallible truth.” But Bloesch doesn’t believe this. He says, “God’s Word cannot be frozen in the pages of Scripture” (Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation, p. 67). He says the Scripture contains errors. He says, “[W]e need to recognize that not everything reported in the Bible may be in exact correspondence with historical and scientific fact as we know it today” (Holy Scripture, p. 37). He says that not every text of Scripture “can be shown to coincide exactly with objective history” (Holy Scripture, p. 112).
This reveals the great danger of neo-orthodoxy. A reviewer of Bloesch’s work warns, “Though Dr. Bloesch expresses a love for Christ and his written Word, and though some of what he says is true to the historical Reformed faith, his view of Scripture is false. If one takes the author’s ‘middle road’ view of the Word of God, which seems to the present writer to be virtually neo-orthodox, to its logical conclusion, one will find himself mired in skepticism” (W. Gary Crampton, “The Neo-orthodoxy of Donald Bloesch,” trinityfoundation.org).
The same can be said for neo-orthodoxy as a whole.
It is very dangerous.
KARL BARTH
“Those who … assume that Barth developed a valid view of the Bible, God, Christ Jesus, the resurrection, truth, or salvation will be in for a sad delusionment if they are honest with themselves. He began his career with his [commentary on] Romans and concluded his academic career with his lectures which were later published as Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. In these volumes, and in every volume in the interim, his approach to the Scriptures is the same; a rejection of them as the Word of God” (Raymond Waugh, Baffling Karl Barth’s Neo-Orthodoxy).
Consider some quotations from Barth:
“THE WORD [FROM SCRIPTURE] WHICH ENTERS HUMAN EARS AND IS UTTERED BY HUMAN LIPS, IS THE WORD OF GOD–ONLY WHEN THE MIRACLE TAKES PLACE. OTHERWISE, IT IS JUST A HUMAN WORD LIKE ANY OTHER. … What stands there, in the pages of the Bible, is the witness to the Word of God” (Barth, Romans).
“The prophets and apostles as such, even in their office … were … actually guilty of ERROR IN THEIR SPOKEN AND WRITTEN WORD” (Barth, Church Dogmatics).
“The assumption that Jesus is the Christ (1.4) is, in the strictest sense of the word, an assumption, void of any content that can be comprehended by us” (Barth, Romans, p. 36).
“THIS TOMB MAY PROVE TO BE DEFINITELY CLOSED OR AN EMPTY TOMB: IT IS REALLY A MATTER OF INDIFFERENCE” (Barth, The Resurrection of the Dead, p. 135).
Barth was considered for posts in the faculties of the schools at Halle and Freiifswald, but “his denial of the virgin birth in particular twice cost him a professorship” (Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, p. 10)
At a luncheon in Washington D.C., May 25, 1960, Barth was asked by Christianity Today editor Carl Henry if the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ were events which occurred in a normal historical sense. Barth got “visibly angry” at this line of questioning. Barth mockingly replied, “Did you say Christianity Today or Christianity yesterday?” He said “the resurrection of Jesus had significance only for His disciples,” implying that it had no significance to the world. The religious editor of United Press International, Louis Cassels, said upon leaving, “We got Barth’s answer; it was ‘Nein’ [German word for ‘no’]” (Gordon H. Clark, Historiography–Secular and Religious, 1972).
Though Barth wrote a commentary on Romans, he was a philosopher rather than a Bible teacher. He spoke and wrote so obscurely it is difficult to know what he was saying. Barthian experts disagree among themselves as to the interpretation of his theology. It is this very obscurity that attracts those who fancy themselves to be intellectuals and scholars. Consider this excerpt from Barth’s writings:
“If you ask about God and if I am really to tell about him, dialectic is all that can be expected from me. … Neither my affirmation nor my denial lays claim to being God’s truth. Neither one is more than a witness to that truth which stands in the center, between every Yes and No. And therefore I have never affirmed without denying and never denied without affirming, for neither affirmation nor denial can be final. If my witness to the final answer you are seeking does not satisfy you, I am sorry. It may be that my witness to it is not yet sufficiently clear, that is, that I have not limited the Yes by the No and the No by the Yes incisively enough to set aside all misunderstanding–incisively enough to let you see that nothing is left except that upon which the Yes and the No, and the No and the Yes, depend. But it may also be that your refusal of my answer arises from your not having really asked your question, from your not having asked about God–for otherwise we should understand each other” (Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, Pilgrim Press, p. 209).
This is Barth, the “giant among theologians.” You say, I don’t understand the man. Neither does anyone else, if they would be honest. The Bible, on the other hand, comes to us with plain speech. The apostle Paul warned the puffed-up Corinthians that it is the devil who complicates the simplicity of Bible truth.
“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Co. 11:3).
Paul warned, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).
Barthianism is human philosophy rather than Bible-believing Christianity. It is rank heresy.
Beware of the Barths of this world AND of those who speak highly of them.
Barth’s Adultery: “In 1924 Georg Merz introduced Charlotte von Kirschbaum to Barth [she was 13 years younger]; she soon became a loyal assistant and joined his household in 1929. … In September 1925 Barth stayed at the Bergli (a remote cottage) again. This time he got to know Charlotte (‘Lollo’) von Kirschbaum more closely. … Many people, even good friends, and not least his mother, took offense at the presence of ‘Lollo’ in Barth’s life, and later even in his home. There is no question that the intimacy of her relationship with him made particularly heavy demands on the patience of his wife Nelly. Now she had to retreat into the background. Nevertheless, she did not forsake her husband. … However, it was very difficult for the three of them to live together. … The result was that they bore a burden which caused them unspeakably deep suffering. Tensions arose which shook them to the core. To avoid these, at least to some extent, was one of the reasons why in future Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum regularly moved to the Bergli during the summer vacation.” (pp. 158, 164, 185-86).
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Like other Neo-Orthodox theologians, Bonhoeffer’s writings are obtuse and often contradictory. He did not speak with the clear voice of truth. For thisreason, he can sometimes be cited on both sides of theological issues, but any man who speaks with such lack of clarity on the fundamental issues of the faith should be avoided as a dangerous spiritual guide.
The following list of some of Bonhoeffer’s heresies is from Don Jasmin’s Fundamentalist Digest: 1. He denied the verbal-plenary inspiration of Scripture, believing that the Bible is only a “witness” to the Word of God and becomes the Word of God only when it “speaks” to an individual; otherwise, it was simply the word of man (Testimony to Freedom, pp. 9, 104; Sanctorum Communio, p. 161). 2. He denied the biblical God, believing that the concept of God as a “supreme Being, absolute in power and goodness,” is a “spurious conception of transcendence,” and that “God as a working hypothesis in morals, politics, and science … should be dropped, or as far as possible eliminated” (Letters and Papers from Prison, S.C.M. Press edition, Great Britain: Fontana Books, 1953, pp. 122, 164, 360). 3. He questioned the Virgin Birth (The Cost of Discipleship, p. 215). 4. He denied the deity of Christ, advocating that “Jesus Christ Today” is not a real person and being, but a “corporate presence” (Testimony to Freedom, pp. 75-76; Christ the Center, p. 58). 5. He denied the sinlessness of Christ’s human nature and further questioned the sinlessness of His earthly behavior (Christ the Center, pp. 108-109). 6. He denied the physical resurrection of Christ, believing that the bodily resurrection is in “the realm of ambiguity,” and that it was one of the “mythological” elements of Christianity that “must be interpreted in such a way as not to make religion a pre-condition of faith.” He also believed that such things as miracles and the ascension of Christ are “mythological conceptions” (Christ the Center, p. 112; Letters and Papers from Prison, S.C.M. Press edition, Great Britain: Fontana Books, 1953, pp. 93-94, 110). 7. He believed that Christ is not the only way to God (Testimony to Freedom, pp. 55-56). 8. He was an evolutionist (No Rusty Swords, p. 143) and believed that the book of Genesis is scientifically naive and full of myths (Creation and Fall: A Theological Interpretation of Genesis 1-3). 9. He adhered to neo-orthodox theology and terminology concerning salvation (Testimony to Freedom, p. 130), was a sacramentalist (Life Together, p. 122; The Way to Freedom, pp. 115, 153), believed in regenerational infant baptism (Letters and Papers from Prison, Macmillan, pp. 142-143) as well as adult baptismal regeneration (The Way to Freedom, p. 151), equated church membership with salvation (The Way to Freedom, p. 93), and denied a personal/individualistic salvation (Letters and Papers from Prison, Macmillan, p. 156). Dr. G. Archer Weniger declared, “If there is wholesome food in a garbage can, then one can find some good things in Bonhoeffer, but if it be dangerous to expect to find nourishment in a garbage can, then Bonhoeffer must be totally rejected and repudiated as blasphemy. It is worse than garbage” (FBF Information Bulletin, May 1977, p. 12).
NEO-ORTHODOXY AND EVANGELICALISM
Neo-orthodoxy has spread widely within evangelicalism. A great many evangelical theologians and writers are Neo-orthodox. This is one of the terrible dangers that are everywhere present in wishy-washy evangelicalism today.
“Since the 1960s, many evangelical seminaries and colleges, denominations and organizations have been infected by the prevailing fog of Neo-orthodoxy. Many sincere evangelicals, including many pastors and professors, are Neo-orthodox liberals in regard to Scripture and don’t even know there is anything wrong with their view. … many evangelical seminaries and colleges sent their bright young scholars to European universities to get their doctorates. A large percentage of these young scholars were infected with liberal and Neo-orthodox views of the Bible; and then they returned to their evangelical schools to teach a Neo-orthodox view of the Bible (what they sincerely believed were the ‘latest, most scholarly’ views) to their students” (Jay Grimstead, “How the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy Began”).
In December 11, 1995, Christianity Today called Karl Barth “the giant of this century’s theologians.” Instead of labeling Barth the rank heretic he was, they largely praised him.
In 2006, Mark Devine, a professor at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Midwestern Baptist Seminary, praised the Neo-orthodox Deitrich Bonhoeffer in Bonhoeffer Speaks Today. It was sold by LifeWay Christian Stores and positively reviewed in the Baptist Press. While admitting that Bonhoeffer was not “an evangelical,” Devine claims that since Bonhoeffer “got many things right” he therefore “belongs to the entire Church” and should be given a hearing.
We could not disagree more strongly. By denying Christ’s virgin birth, miracles, bodily resurrection, and ascension, Bonhoeffer worshipped a false Christ and taught a false gospel. By denying the infallible inspiration of Holy Scripture, Bonhoeffer destroyed the very foundation of the faith. He was, in fact, an unbeliever, and this unbelief perverted everything he did and wrote. To deny the infallible inspiration of Scripture alone is a “damnable heresy,” meaning that a truly saved person will not commit this sin. The Lord Jesus Christ quoted from every part of the Old Testament and upheld all of it as divinely inspired and wholly authoritative. He quoted even obscure and difficult passages and testified that “the scripture cannot be broken” (Joh. 10:35), meaning the Scripture’s testimony is 100% true. We are not to sit at the feet of heretics to see how much we can learn from them; we are to separate from them because they are spiritually dangerous.
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” (Ro. 16:17-18).
“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Co. 15:33).
By rejecting biblical separation, which is the divine means of spiritual protection, evangelicalism opens itself to destructive influences. Though the Southern Baptist Convention claims that it has cleansed its seminaries of theological liberalism, unbelieving leaven is still present. The writings of unbelievers such as Kurt Aland, Bruce Metzger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, and F.F. Bruce, to name a few, are available without warning in the seminary bookstores, are cited by the teachers, and are used in the classrooms, and are thus quietly spreading the leaven of unbelief.
Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service, a service for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979.