Neo-Orthodoxy

Definition and Meaning

Neo-orthodoxy is a Protestant theological movement that emerged in Europe after World War I. Nineteenth-century liberal theology had taken human religious experience and reason as the starting point of theology. Neo-orthodoxy, by contrast, took as its starting point God's own act of self-disclosure, that is, revelation. Its name reflects its aim of reviving the orthodox theology of the Reformation in a new form. Because it emphasizes the qualitative difference between God and humanity, it is also called "dialectical theology" or "crisis theology." These names, however, were largely applied by outsiders, and Barth himself is reported to have disliked the label "neo-orthodoxy."

Neo-orthodoxy understands revelation as the event in which God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. It holds that the Bible is a witness to this revelation and that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, it becomes the Word of God for readers today.

Biblical and Historical Background

The movement's leading figure is the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Barth's commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, published in 1919, is regarded as the movement's starting point. Emil Brunner, Friedrich Gogarten, and Eduard Thurneysen were early associates, and in the United States Reinhold Niebuhr is classified as a closely related figure. Appealing to John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh," and to Hebrews 1:1–3, they hold that the Word of God has been given above all in Christ.

In 1934 Barth debated Brunner over "natural theology," that is, the question of whether God can be known through nature and reason apart from revelation. In the same year he played a leading role in drafting the Barmen Theological Declaration, which opposed churches sympathetic to the Nazis. This episode is regarded as a significant moment in the German Church Struggle.

Conservative Reformed theologians sharply criticized the movement. Cornelius Van Til argued that neo-orthodoxy undermines biblical inerrancy by distinguishing the Bible itself from the Word of God, and he called it "the new modernism." Proponents of neo-orthodoxy respond that they sought to ground the authority of Scripture not in human theories but in God's own speaking.

In the Korean Church

Neo-orthodoxy was introduced to Korea by theologians who had studied in Japan and the United States. Kim Jae-jun embraced biblical criticism, which led to a controversy over the doctrine of Scripture with Park Hyung-ryong and others. This controversy formed part of the background to the 1953 separation of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea from the Presbyterian Church in Korea (see Presbyterian schisms in Korea).

Denominational positions divide as follows:

• Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea and Hanshin University: Actively embraced Barthian theology.
• Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapdong), Presbyterian Church in Korea (Kosin), and the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapshin): Since the time of Park Hyung-ryong and Park Yune-sun, they have treated it critically from the standpoint of Reformed theology and biblical inerrancy.
• Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap) and the Korean Methodist Church: Study Barth relatively broadly, chiefly in their seminaries.

The term is rarely used among ordinary church members. It appears mainly in seminary lectures and in theological debates between denominations, and in conservative denominations it is sometimes used, alongside liberalism, to designate a position to be guarded against.