Young Theologians

Dies irae, dies illa,

Solvet saeclumm in favilla. . . .

A gloomy, wrathful day, gloomy as the days of the 13th Century friar who cried Dies Irae! Capitalism totters. Socialism? Communism? No, man is corrupt, his society is decadent, even his systems of worship are sterile. . . . There is still God. But are there not many Gods?--the Jehovah of the Fundamentalists, the incense-wrapped God of the Anglo-Catholics, the polite God of the Episcopalians, the companionable God of such new faiths as Dr. Frank Buchman's Groups? There are also many prophets, cultists, purveyors of fancy panaceas to the dejected. They are in the market place. But in the study is one who also is beginning to be heard again: the theologian.

In the U. S. theology is currently not so dead as it was a decade ago, and in gloomy, depressed Europe it is actually alive. Who are its leaders? Most thoughtful Europeans know of Lecerf the French neo-Calvinist, Heim the Lutheran. But all are aware of Karl Barth, 45, Swiss founder of a potent Christian philosophy.

Before the War, Karl Barth preached in the German Reformed Church. Like his professor-father he is an eminent theologian. His theology, now called Barthianism, is pessimistic, dogmatic. It offers the dun-colored thesis that Man is immoral, selfish, bound to be an "unprofitable servant" to the end. Man achieves nothing, will be saved only by grace and belief in the "absolute otherness of God." Barthianism rejects Modernism in so far as Modernism throws out too much of the Bible, too much of God. Fundamentalism also is rejected insofar as it is hampered by the Bible.

In the blackness of spiritual despair Theologian Barth--now married and professor of theology at the University of Bonn--has attracted an immense following. Like a wan light amid disillusion and doubt, Barthianism nourishes in German and Swiss universities. Religious socialists join in, go on working for social betterment although it will not change mankind. Man achieves nothing. Christian Philosopher Barth, thin, stooped, slightly weak-eyed but rather jolly, does not evangelize. He will not come to the U. S. because the U. S. is too worldly. Nevertheless his U. S. admirers--who are many--wish he would come because they believe he would take the disillusioned, disappointed colleges by storm.

To Basle last month, from all over Europe, went delegates to a conference of Young Theologians. News of them reached the U. S. last week. They discussed their attempts to rescue the Modern Man. Chief feature of the conference was a one-act play presented by the British delegates, in which the Modern Man is approached by a Fundamentalist with an enormous Bible, a pompous Anglo-Catholic, a cordial member of the Buchman Groups, a Modernist who cuts most of his Bible into little bits. None succeeds in rousing Modern Man from his sleep. At last comes a Barthian. He is successful.

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