Posted on 02/25/2010 1:19:16 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Neo-orthodoxy is the term used to identify an existentialist variety of Christianity. Because it denies the essential objective basis of truth—the absolute truth and authority of Scripture—neo-orthodoxy must be understood as pseudo-Christianity. Its heyday came in the middle of the twentieth century with the writings of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebaur. Those men echoed the language and the thinking of [Soren] Kierkegaard, speaking of the primacy of “personal authenticity,” while downplaying or denying the significance of objective truth. Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy, explicitly acknowledged his debt to Kierkegaard.
Neo-orthodoxy’s attitude toward Scripture is a microcosm of the entire existentialist philosophy: the Bible itself is not objectively the Word of God, but it becomes the Word of God when it speaks to me individually. In neo-orthodoxy, that same subjectivism is imposed on all the doctrines of historic Christianity. Familiar terms are used, but are redefined or employed in such a way that is purposely vague—not to convey objective meaning, but to communicate a subjective symbolism. After all, any “truth” theological terms convey is unique to the person who exercises faith. What the Bible means becomes unimportant, What it means to me is the relevant issue. All of this resoundingly echoes Kierkegaard’s concept of “truth that is true for me.”
Thus while neo-orthodox theologians often sound as if they affirming traditional beliefs, their actual system differs radically from the historic understanding of the Christian faith. By denying the objectivity of truth, they relegate all theology to the realm of subjective relativism. It is a theology perfectly suited for the age in which we live. And that is precisely why it is so deadly…
[Contemplative Spirituality aka] Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence. The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, of other purely subjective means. Objective truth becomes practically superfluous.
Mysticial experiences are therefore self-authenticating; that is, they are not subject to any form of objective verification. They are unique to the person who experiences them. Since they do not arise from or depend upon any rational process, they are invulnerable to any refutation by rational means… Mysticism is therefore antithetical to discernment. It is an extreme form of reckless faith. Mysticism is the great melting pot into which neo-orthodoxy, the charismatic movement, anti-intellectual evangelicals, and even some segments of Roman Catholicism have been synthesized.
It has produced movements like the Third Wave (a neo-charismatic movement with excessive emphasis on signs, wonders and personal prophesies); Renovaré (an organization that blends teachings from monasticism, ancient [Roman] Catholic mysticism, Eastern Religion, and other mystical traditions); the spiritual warfare movement (which seeks to engage demonic powers in direct confrontation); and the modern prophesy movement (which encourages believers to seek private, extrabiblical revelation directly from God).
The influx of mysticism has also opened evangelicalism to New-Age concepts like subliminal thought-control, inner healing, communication with angels, channeling, dream analysis, positive confession, and a host of other therapies and practices coming directly from occult and Eastern religions. The face of evangelicalism has changed so dramatically in the past twenty years that what is called evangelicalism today is beginning to resemble what used to be called neo-orthodoxy. If anything, some segments of contemporary evangelicalism are even more subjective in their approach to truth than neo-orthodoxy ever was. (Reckless Faith: When The Church Loses Its Will To Discern, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
Gobbledygook. MacArthur doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about. I bet he’s never even read any Barth. Anyone who knows Barth, Niebuhr, Kierkegaard and the last two centuries of historical theology is laughing himself silly as he reads this.
I wouldn’t give this a passing grade if one of my freshmen turned it in as a term paper.
MacArthur has cobbled it together from sound-byte/Cliff’s Notes/internet wallpaper. He stitches a few word-associations together but has not notion of what the words mean (existentialist, postmodern Neo-Orthodox).
btt
Now, having read your ad hominem attack on one of the finest Bible teachers in the country, perhaps the world, would you care to be specific in your "criticism"?
“dream analysis, positive confession, and a host of other therapies and practices coming directly from occult and Eastern religions”
Hey John I guess that makes Daniel and Joseph occult followers. MacArthur is really beginning to confuse himself alot these days.
I’m shocked at how many people follow these internet theologians as if they are somehow authoritative.
To expand Litekeeper’s request, why don’t you write an essay for us that you merit an “A”?
Does Macarthur have a problem with that?
I have a great deal of respect for Macarthur from my protestant days, but he is so wedded to Sola Scriptura (which is, to be sure, a hallmark of evangelicalism) that he throws the baby out with the bathwater. Renovare, for instance, is much more comfortable including Macarthur in the kingdom than Macarthur is including Renovare. His list is an absurd “straw-man” mix that displays an ugly arrogance that has no place in the kinngdom. It has taken many of us who have made the move from fundamentalism/evengelicalism to Eastern Orthodoxy a long time to recognize how spiritually untenable the dogma of Sola Scriptura actually is. In fact, I believe that it has been one of the key factors in the complete fragmentation of western Christianity, with tragic results for modern culture.
It wasn’t ad hominem. It said, basically, that the content of the article is drivel.
For starters, what Barth learned from Kierkegaard is not Kierkegaard’s so-called existentialism (which doesn’t necessarily have all that much in common with the 20thc existentialism of Camus etc.) but Kierkegaard’s scathing critique of established neo-Kantian de-sacralized, Kulturprotestantismus.
And Barth’s response was indeed to accent Sola Scriptura over against that 19thc Protestant Liberal faith-in-human-progress by Zeitgeist.
Macarthur’s sophomorism lies in having apparently followed a chain of pseudo-reasoning something like this:
Kierkegaard has been called in some sense an existentialist.
Barth liked some things about Kierkegaard
Therefore Barth is a big-time Existentialist
and since Barth founded the so-called neo-orthodox movement and Niebuhr was sometimes called a neo-orthodox, then anything (falsely) attributed to Barth gets attributed to Niebuhr
and since all Neo-Orthodox are therefore Existentialists, therefore they are all off-the-wall because New Agey occultist weirdos of all sorts appeal to “authenticity” as in “Hey, man, I’m like, you know, really authentic, you know.”
and they’re all the same because, like, you know, Kierkegaard was all into “authenticity” too, you know. Like.
The trouble is that “authentic” and “existential” don’t mean the same for Kierkegaard or Barth or Johnny-pony-tale New Age Guru down the street.
Now, if Macarthur wants to attack Barth, I’ll give him a tip.
The late Barth was different from the early Barth. The late Barth retreated from his stark Sola Scriptura Christological center and became almost, gasp, catholic in his embrace of the need for Church and sacrament etc.
Since Macarthur loves to denounce Catholicism for all those idolatrous things, he’d find a good target in the late Barth.
But then he’d have to abandon his “Barth as the source of New Agey Authenticity” stuff.
And he’d have to read enough Barth to know which writings belong to the young-turk young Barth and which to the (Cranky) Old (Crypto-Catholic) Barth.
It’s a lot easier just to slap Barth and Niebuhr around a bit and impress the Bible Church natives.
Therefore Barth
Any one who puts Paul Tillich and Karl Barth in the same theological pigeonhole and labels it existentialist makes himself a laughingstock to anyone who has even the slightest acquaintance with Tillich and Barth. They belong to very different theological trajectories. Neither of which trajectory is the source of Johnny-authenticity post-modern.
It gets worse. What Macarthur writes here about “mysticism” is ludicrous. Precisely the anti-liberal, sola-Scriptura Neo-orthodox school of Barth and Brunner was SUSPICIOUS of “mysticism” which they thought depended on ontological continuity between the divine and the human that was unscriptural and which led to Hegelian divinization of the Zeitgeist. They wrote books attacking “mysticism.”
Now, the Christian mysticism they wrongly attacked had NOTHING to do with New Age mysticism that Macarthur attacks.
So, he delivers a two-fer here: first he attributes pro-mysticism views to one of the most anti-(Christian)-mystical movements (Neo-Orthodoxy) and he, not knowing better, thinks “mystical” = “mystical” = “mystica”—word association out of ignorance, again (as he does with “existential”).
The Christian mystical tradition works with a clear distinction between God and human and asserts a close union of the two without ontological confusion. It’s very consistent with the NT.
The Eastern mystical traditions are monist and the New Age mystics come out of that monism: “Hey, dude, it’s all One, you know, and like, hey, when we smoke up, man, it’s really cool and we’re all united with the One and we feel just real cool man.”
There’s a possible compatibility between that and Hegel’s “mystical” Zeitgeist, yes,
BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT BARTH was reacting against. He and his buds, sadly, confused classic Christian mystical union (which is not monistic and keeps God/Christ distinct from but united via the Incarnation with each other) with Hegelian monism and rejected both.
Macarthur manages to toss them all into the same pot and the gumbo that he ends up with is not palatable.
John Mac though well read and solid on many things is sadly becoming like the “global warming” scientific crowd in his discernment.
Hi Houghton, just becuase I post something from Macarthur does not mean I agree with his every word. I already disagree with his eschatology for one thing, and his views on several other matters...
But from what I do know about these 20th Century thinkers, while they themselves may not have been out and out subjectivie/existential whatevers—I believe their theological deviations from Scripture, however *slight* did plant the SEEDS for such ideas to eventually gain steam throughout the century...
It does not mean that those men were not really believers or something. Merely that their ideas are flawed. Some of Macarthur’s are too—but that doesn’t mean his criticisms don’t have some semblance of validity.
Sola Scritura rejects neo orthodoxy, and will never overcome it!
“Whoa to those who call good evil, and evil good”.
Yeah,I agree: Whoa, there.
Thanks for the post, I "got" it. :o)
Yeah amazing how the concept of putting absolute truth in the very Word of God could get under people's skin so much? The Gospel of John refers to Christ as "The Word made flesh." So obviously, the WORD is of *utmost* importance!
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