#391. Karl Barths födelsedag…

”Karl Barth was born in Basle on 10 May 1886. He came into the world on a Monday morning, about five o’clock, at Grellingerstrasse 42, and he was called Karl efter his mother’s oldest brother. His parents’ names were Johann Friedrich (’Fritz’) Barth and Anna Katharina, née Sartorius. […] It was not an easy birth. And when he came into the world, one of his aunts said that he looked ’quite terrible’. He comforted himself later with the rule according to which ’the ugliest babies turn into the most handsome children and men’. He was baptized in the cathedral in Basle on 20 June 1886 by his grandfather Sartorius.” (Busch s 1,7)

Idag för 130 år sedan föddes Karl Barth. Han blev och var en pastor och teolog som förändrade sin och vår tids förståelse av vem Gud är, förståelsen av vad teologi är, förståelsen av vad kyrkan är och mycket annat som har med de frågorna att göra. Barths tankevärld fick inte och har inte fått något stort genomslag i svensk kyrklighet eller i svensk teologi. Om hur Barth har tagits emot i svensk teologi och om varför Barths teologi inte har fått något större fotfäste i svensk kyrklighet kan man läsa i Ola Sigurdssons mycket läsvärda bok Karl Barth som den andre; En studie i den svenska teologins Barth-reception.

Mest givande är förstås att läsa Barths egna texter. Om man inte vet var man ska börja någonstans då är The Center for Barths Studies vid Princeton Theological Seminary ett bra ställe att börja på. Där finns till exempel en bra lista med rekommenderad litteratur för den som söker en introduktion till Karl Barths tänkande och teologi. Länk nedan.

Kanske är det bästa sättet att hedra Karl Barth och fira 130-årsminnet av hans födelsedag att låta hans ord tala för sig själva. Här ur en predikan i fängelset i Basel den 31 december 1960 över texten ”My time is secure in your hands” (Psalm 31:15).

”’My time’—what is it? Well, my time is quite simply my life-time, my past from my birth, and my future right to my death, and in addition that most remarkable thing: my present, the constant transition from past to future, the present moment, which continually comes and continually passes—this moment this evening at the end of the year 1960, quite close to the arrival of the year 1961. Our lifetime is the space which is granted to all of us, the opportunity which is offered to all of us, for living. A restricted space, a single fleeting opportunity for living! For when death comes, we no longer have this space; it is past, together with the opportunity. This lifetime of mine, short or long, is secure in your hands! 

’My time’, however means more than that. The word translated by ’my time’ really means ’my destiny’. My time then is my life story: what takes place in my lifetime—everything that I have done and left undone and shall do and leave undone, perhaps even what I am doing or not doing at this very hour. My time is my whole life story, with all that I have endured or accomplished and perhaps shall still endure and accomplish—my life story with each and everything that I was and am and shall be. This life story of mine, this is secure in your hands! 

Finally, one can sum it all up and simply say: ’My time’—I am my time! I who have lived in it, and am living in it and would like to live a little longer in it—I myself with all that I understand and do not understand, that I can and cannot do, with my strong and my weak sides, with my good and my less good qualities. I am my time, I myself, with my high vocation to love God my Lord with all my heart, with all my soul and all my might, and my neighbour as myself. But I too am my time, I myself with the abyss of deceit and perversity that is in me. And so then: I, just as I was, am and shall be—as you very well know—secure in your hands.” (Barth s 42)

• Barth, Karl, 1967: Call for God; New Sermons from Basel Prison. London: SCM Press Ltd.
• Busch, Eberhard, 1976: Karl Barth, His life from letters and autobiographical texts. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers.
• Center for Barth Studies – Introductory Resources.