LAW AND GOSPEL, OR THE LAW

OF THE GOSPEL?
Karl Barth's Political Theology Compared with
Luther and Calvin

Jesse Couenhoven

ABSTRACT
This essay is an attempt to understand the significance of Barth's redef-
inition of the "law/gospel" rubric for political theology. Barth's thought is
exposited at length, and illumined by comparison with Luther and Calvin.
Luther emphasizes the distance between gospel and the law, distinguish-
ing between serving God in the secular regiment, and serving Christ in the
spiritual regiment. He thereby challenges the improper relation of state
and church, but does so in a manner that can lead to a passive dualism.
Calvin holds that preaching the law to the state includes preaching the
gospel; thus, the church has a positive vision against which it can evaluate
the state's service to God in Christ. This leads, however, to the danger of a
'clerical guardianship' of the state.
Barth finds a positive connection between the two governments in the
fact that both communities are based in Christ, in whom the gospel is their
law. This grounds his high view of the state as predecessor to the heavenly
kingdom, as well as a prophetic mission of the church to the state. This does
not lead to a new Christendom, however, first, because Barth hopes not for
a kingdom wrought by human hands, but for the Theocracy of God, and
second, because Barth sees the fallen reality of both church and state, the
state pagan and violent, and the church a poor witness. In the end, though
Barth makes a strong case for supporting theological critique of the state,
while avoiding Constantinianism, he is unable to solve the problem of how
to connect the gospel and the law in the civil community.
KEY WORDS: Barth, Luther, Calvin, law, gospel, politics

KARL BARTH ONCE WROTE THAT "wherever there is theological talk, it is al-
ways or implicitly political talk as well" (Busch 1976, 292). It has proved
difficult, however, for many of his interpreters to see the truth of this
statement as applied to his own theology. In spite of the fact that Barth's
essay "Gospel and Law" was published, in English, in the same volume

JRE 30.2:181-205. © 2002 Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc.

182 Journal of Religious Ethics

with his two most complete essays on political theology,1 the relationship
between his novel views on gospel and law and his political theology has
hardly been mentioned, let alone explored.2 His belief that a Christian
understanding of politics has a Christological foundation has been more
widely noted, but, again, the essential connection between this Christo-
logical foundation and Barth's discovery of "the law in the Gospel, and the
Gospel in the law" has generally been ignored. This essay is an attempt to
understand the significance for political theology of Barth's redefinition
of the rubric "law and gospel." This approach may be helpful in drawing
out the ways in which Barth's Christian theology is also political theology.
I will illumine Barth's political theology by contrasting it with Martin
Luther's and John Calvin's. This essay will, therefore, be a follow-up
to my "Grace as Pardon and Power," where I investigate some of the
ways in which Luther's, Calvin's, and Barth's pictures of the Christian
life are influenced by their different understandings of law and gospel.
I note in that essay that their respective positions on law and gospel
have important ramifications for their political theologies.3 I develop
that point at length here.
I will do little more than sketch Luther's and Calvin's views, as their
positions are well known and have been discussed with more insight
and depth than I can attempt here. These sketches should prove useful,
however, in suggesting some initial contrasts and similarities between
them, in order to provide a background for my discussion of Barth.
My discussion of Barth is an attempt, first, to clarify his views and
tease out their implications; he was not as forthcoming on political theol-
ogy as on so many other matters, and it is often hard to see where he was
going. In spite of these limitations, my presentation should show that a
significant over-all pattern does emerge when one surveys Barth's larger
corpus. Second, I consider how his position differs, or fails to differ, from
the reformers, and what we might learn from that. With each thinker
we will find that something Barth said of Calvin is true of all: "his po-
litical attitude is distinguished by the same light, but also by the same
shadows, which are characteristic of his theology" (Busch 1987,180n98).

1. Luther: Two Kingdoms and Two Regiments 4

It is well known that Luther held that God's word takes the two differ-
ent forms of law and gospel, and that there is a definite historical order
1
"Church and State" (hereafter CS) and "The Christian Community and the Civil Com-
munity" (hereafter CC).
2
See Smit and Durand, however, for essays that investigate some of these themes.
Hunsinger touches on some of the concerns of my essay in chapter 5 of Hunsinger 2000.
3
For more details about Luther, Calvin, and Barth's positions on law and gospel than
I can give here, see Couenhoven 2000.
4
My main sources for this summary are Luther 1523; Althaus; Moltmann, ch. 4; and
Thielicke 1987.
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 183

between them, the gospel following the law. For Luther, the theologian's
task is to discriminate between law and gospel, neither separating nor
confusing them, and knowing when to apply each.
According to Luther, a legal order was needed after the fall, because
God found it impossible to direct human affairs, as he had, "with his little
finger" (Thielicke 1987, 296). The kingdom of the devil was in rebellion
against the Kingdom of God, and humans had become internally divided
between the two. God promulgated the law to rule human affairs, and
turned to the "emergency order" (a post-lapsarian "order of patience")
of the state as the earthly power that would uphold the law by force.
In the secular (or worldly) regiment—of which the state is an essential
part, though not the whole—the law functions as a guideline of behavior
(Luther 1531, 139).
In relation to the spiritual regiment—of which the church is an essen-
tial part, and perhaps the whole—Luther usually speaks of the law as
threats that drive us to the good news of the gospel. The gospel, however,
comforts and forgives. Especially in the Sermon on the Mount, it tells us
of a new world order based on love and peace.
Thus, in accordance with the distinction between law and gospel,
Luther assigns the use of the gospel to the spiritual regiment, and any
positive use of the law for moral guidance to the secular regiment. The
two forms of God's word must be separated, because, in the fall, there
comes about a separation between God's perfect will, instituted in the
creation, and God's imperfect will, instituted in the orders of this world.
Luther fears, however, that many fail to draw this distinction and con-
sider its ramifications. Thus, they fall into a Utopian fanaticism—under
the delusion that God's perfect will is a possibility that can be real-
ized in this world—or into the tyranny of sacralizing the world as it
is—believing that this world and its current systems are perfect, in need
of no change. The doctrine of the two regiments hence has its source both
in Luther's understanding of creation and fall, and in his eschatology,
which emphasizes the distance between the justified sinner's sanctified
life as it is now, and as it will be in heaven.5
Luther intends the two regiments, each under its own proper form of
God's word, to limit and complement one another, and to challenge the
kingdom of the devil (Moltmann, 72). This leads him to stress the sepa-
ration of and difference between church and state, which has the positive
effect of limiting, or, at least, putting in question, the self-legitimating

5
It is clear already that Luther's understanding of the law/gospel dialectic cannot be
separated from his understanding of creation, fall, and redemption. The same is true for
Calvin and Barth. I emphasize law and gospel in this paper because it is central to the
political theologies of all three; but I do not mean to suggest that that rubric alone does all
the work in their political thought.
184 Journal of Religious Ethics

use of religion by the state, and the self-aggrandizing use of the state by
religion. Furthermore, while granting civil government a "sound basis,"
Luther challenges the church's right to bear the sword in the name of
love.
Yet his sharp distinction between law and gospel also has the tendency
to result in a dualism between a worldly state and the Christ-based
church, as well as a split in the lives of individual believers, who live
in both spheres but find it hard to unite them. Since the law, as Luther
usually understands it, contains nothing positive, it does not point the
state towards the fullness of life found in the gospel. The state has to do
with justice and human reason, not a revelation of perfect love.
Luther's approach affords the secular regiment few positive possibil-
ities. Since it is not under the gospel, it can hardly be other than an
order of wrath, an order of force to restrain force. As such, it is a ser-
vant of God, and in a certain way displays the goodness of God (it is
ordered toward the gospel insofar as it preserves the world for God's
work). Here Luther approaches a theme that Barth makes central, but
also definitely divides from him, since Luther understands the secu-
lar regiment as a servant of God, yet not of Christ (Althaus, 46-8, 58).
He does gesture at times toward a more positive role for the secular
regiment; he holds, for instance, that in certain respects marriage—
assuredly not an order of the fall—falls under its jurisdiction. From
this perspective, there is a way in which the secular regiment points
towards the gospel. However, this is a minor theme in Luther; and it
functions as a sort of outlier, difficult to integrate with his main em-
phases on the separation of law and gospel, the corresponding separation
of church and state, and the difference between serving God and serving
Christ.
The quietistic tendencies of his position became apparent in Luther's
own day, in a certain complacency about the rule of the German princes,
and in his criticisms of what he considered the Utopian dreams of the
radical reformation.6

2. Calvin: Two Governments, under Christ's Rule

Calvin agrees that the gospel is not applied to the political sphere,
as the law is, in its second use. He, too, affirms "that Christ's spiri-
tual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct"

6
In giving my estimate of the tendencies of Luther's position, I do not mean to imply
that his view allows no other possibilities. There are ways in which his thought can be
developed in more radical directions, and some of his followers have done so. I do mean to
suggest, however, that the thought of each of the thinkers I engage lends itself to being
taken advantage of in certain ways more than others.
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 185

{Inst. 4.20.1), as "the former resides in the inner mind, while the latter
regulates only outward behavior" (3.19.15).
What, however, is the content of the law used in the civil government?
Luther more or less leaves the state to natural reason (the second table
of the ten commandments)—not surprisingly, since he sees nothing of
the gospel in the law. In his understanding of the relationship between
law and gospel, however, Calvin moves beyond Luther in emphasizing
a positive "third" use of the law in the life of believers. Calvin begins
to see the promise of new life in the law, whereas Luther sees the law
only as threats. Both thinkers agree that there is one God over the two
governments, but since Calvin tends to see Christ as the telos of the law,
where Luther simply sees Christ as the law's limit, Calvin also pictures
Jesus Christ as the lord of the secular kingdom.
Hence, while he sometimes sounds Luther's main note of the state as
an order of wrath (4.20.25), Calvin also develops a more positive view of
the state. Since the church cannot clearly separate its proclamation of
law and gospel, the church calls the state to take on a constructive role
in sustaining human life. Thus Calvin writes that "civil government has
as its appointed end ... to cherish and protect the outward worship of
God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church..."
(4.20.2). It "prevents idolatry, sacrilege against God's name, blasphemies
against his truth, and other public offenses against religion" (4.20.3).
What a different emphasis this is from Luther's statements that "every
man is responsible for his own faith, and he must see to it for himself
that he believes rightly" (Luther 1523, 385), or that "heresy can never be
prevented by force" (Luther 1523, 389)!
For Calvin, preaching the law to the state at least in some ways in-
cludes preaching the gospel, so the church has a positive vision against
which it can evaluate the state—both tables of the law (4.20.9)—and thus
call it into question if it fails in its service to God. It is harder for Luther
put the state into question. For Luther, the state is threatened mostly
by chaos from below. He recognizes that many leaders fail to fulfill their
posts well, but he seems largely reconciled to this possibility. The state
is, after all, an order of wrath. Calvin, on the other hand, stresses that
the state can be threatened from above as well as below, both by its min-
isters, when they fail to serve God, and by the people, when they fail to
obey legitimate authority. This stress opens space for Calvin to speak of
the church as a watchman over the state (4.3.6). The church witnesses
to the divine righteousness that is related to earthly justice, even to the
point of compiling Old Testament texts critical of oppression, to present
to the ministers of the state (see 4.20.9).
Eberhard Busch sums up the differences between the two views well
when he says that "Luther tended toward the idea that the government
is God's servant because and insofar as it is the government — Calvin,
186 Journal of Religious Ethics

on the other hand, tended towards the idea that the government is true
government when and insofar as it is God's servant" (1987,168).
Since human rulers are called to enforce obedience to God (4.20.32),
Calvin's view of the state's relationship to the church can easily end
with a form of "clerical guardianship" of the state (Moltmann 1984, 92).
This impression is only strengthened when we consider actual events in
Calvin's Geneva, such as the state's prosecution of the heretic Servetus.
Calvin emphasized the lordship of Christ in every sphere.
Calvin's tendency to bring church and state together, to see the gospel
as illuminating the law, which becomes the rule of life in both govern-
ments, can also undermine the church's ability to critique the state, by
giving the state control over the church. His belief that the state should
look after the flourishing of its citizens, and that it can do so only if both
tables of the law are observed, has the effect of making the state a watch-
man over the church. The Geneva police enforced the confession of faith
(Busch 1987,179).7
Calvin, then, resists Luther's separation of the two regiments, but,
from the two different sides of clerical and civil guardianship, raises the
possibility of a return to something like Christendom's close relation of
church and state, which Luther so powerfully called into question.

3. Barth: A Methodological Caveat

It is important to say a word at this point about how I approach Barth's
political theology in this essay. I make use of a number of texts, written,
in varied contexts, between 1938 and Barth's death in 1968. While it
cannot be doubted that both the content and emphases of his comments
on the relation between church and state, and the nature of both com-
munities, undergo various shifts during that lengthy span, I will focus
on the significant constant elements (some of which are in tension with
one another) in Barth's thinking on the subject among the writings I will
be considering.8
Let me take up one central issue, to which I return at the end of the
paper, to illustrate Barth's underlying dialectical consistency. Starting,
I believe, with John Howard Yoder, it has been argued that, while in
"Church and State" Barth defends the essential violence of the state,
by the time he treats the state in the Church Dogmatics II/2 he has

7
It is worth noting, however, that Calvin's followers were more responsible for empha-
sizing the rights of resistance than Luther's. This suggests to me a corresponding difference
in the tendencies of their theologies.
8
This is not to suggest any decisions about the continuity, or lack thereof, between the
material I will be looking at, and other writings of Barth's, either during this period, or at
earlier times.
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 187

changed his mind, arguing that the use of force is contrary to the real
calling of the state, which is the work of peace (Yoder 1970, 97-8; see
also Williams, 182). It seems to me that Barth also takes the latter po-
sition in "Church and State." I will not argue about that discrepancy,
however; the more important point is "that there is a central stream in
Barth's thinking about the state... encompassing on the right hand the
possibility of the state's use of force and on the left the abnormality of
it" (O'Donovan 1991, 3). There is a continuing dialectic between these
two sides of Barth's thought about the state, which is not unrelated to
his historical circumstances, but which is also created by long-standing
tensions internal to his thought.
Barth never reached a settled position on the use of force and the state.
Yoder and others claim he was moving toward pacifism as he grew older,
but we will see that this representation is doubtful. Barth does emphasize
the abnormality of the use offeree less in 1938 than he does later on (see
CS 142-3). In the Dogmatics III/4 he moves further towards O'Donovan's
"left," writing that violence is contrary to the state's true calling—but
he still allows for a policing function, capital punishment, and war (see
III/4,456f.; Yoder 1970,98.) In 1958 he calls atomic warfare "indefensible
in Christian terms" (Williams, 172). He may have concluded that the
atomic bomb made just war impossible (Williams, 186; Yoder 1970,117).
And in IV/2 he writes that "in conformity with the New Testament one
cannot be pacifist in principle, only practically. But let everyone give
heed whether, being called to discipleship, it is either possible for him
to avoid, or permissible for him to neglect becoming practically pacifist!"
(IV/2, 530).9 Such is the evidence for a move toward pacifism.
It is hard to know exactly how seriously to take Barth's statement in
IV/2, however. In III/4 (455), he makes a similarly strong statement about
pacifism, only to go on and argue for the possibility of a just war (on 462f).
It looks like this pattern is being repeated when in IV/3/2, Barth writes:10
When as a Christian he finds himself persecuted because of his witness, he
cannot oppose... force to force... Why not? Certainly not because the use
of severity, force, cunning or tactics is in itself and in all circumstances a
possibility which must be rejected the Christian can make a very limited
use of these possibilities even in relation to what he has to attest. But to the
extent that he is concerned with his specific service as a witness—and the
borderline will be difficult to fix and will never be rigid—he cannot make
any use of them at a l l . . . In the measure that he, too lives as a man among
men ...he cannot refrain from making a very cautious, provisional, inci-
dental and temporary use of the doubtful means of protection of a humanity

9
The text incorporates Yoder's revised translation (Yoder 1970, 116-7).
10
This statement has been almost entirely overlooked, so it is worth quoting at length.
See Hood 1985,151, for a brief reference that drew the passage to my attention.
188 Journal of Religious Ethics

not yet aware of its liberation. Nevertheless, he can never do so to protect

himself as a witness of Jesus Christ [628, my emphasis].
Thus, although Barth emphasizes the abnormality of the use of force,
he does allow it a place. He reiterates this position near the end of his life:
"Government is not just the establishment and exercise of right among
men but also, for the sake of this, the establishment of sovereignty and
dominion and the exercise of power and force by man over man" (1979,
219). To my knowledge, Barth never clarified the relationship of these
statements to his stance on nuclear war.
It is appropriate, then, to agree with Rowan Williams's statement that
"we must recognize the shifting and unfinished character of [Barth's]
reflections on the state" (Williams, 173). But, as Williams continues,
"to recognize this is not at all to question the accuracy—and present
pertinence—of his perceptions... the powerful underlying consistency
of his thought can best be seen as the consistency of a lifelong process
of reworking and purifying what was last said, and it is no tribute to
him to exploit only one 'moment' of his exploration" (Williams, 173; see
O'Donovan 1991, 24-5n4).

4. Barth: The Church as the Inner Circle

Given Barth's desire for ethics to be driven by theology, rather than
the other way around, we should not be surprised that the moves cen-
tral to his political theology are actually made in his essay "Gospel and
Law." While agreeing with Luther that we contradict Scripture if we
fail to distinguish between gospel and law, Barth argues that the defin-
ing order of the rubric is shown biblically by the fact that the promise
to Abraham is made 430 years before the law is given (Barth 1935,
71). He maintains, further, that there is only one Word of God, the
saving and gracious word spoken in Jesus Christ. The relationship of
gospel and law is established in Christ, in whom the law is fulfilled
and made clear (Barth 1935, 74-5, 77). "From what God does for us,
we infer what he wants with and from us" (Barth 1935, 78). Barth con-
cludes that "... we can certainly make the general and comprehensive
statement that the law is nothing else than the necessary form of the
gospel, whose content is grace" (Barth 1935, 80). Put another way, "the
gospel alone... is the law in the knowledge of which man finds himself
accused and judged and condemned" (IV/2, 381).
Barth's new understanding of the nature of and relationship between
gospel and law makes it possible for him to develop a new understanding
of the nature of the state (which we can often take to represent the civil
community, though never to constitute the whole of it), and its relation-
ship to the church. As Oliver O'Donovan says, the gospel teaching about
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 189

the Kingdom of God shows us about power and the state what marriage
shows about the erotic—it is, and can be, good (1991, 16). Or, as Barth
puts it, "we have no right to do as Augustine liked to do, and straight­
away identify the civitas terrena with the civitas Cain" (CS 125). Like
the law, the state is not simply the order of God's wrath. In fact, just the
opposite is true, since "when the New Testament speaks of the State, we
are, fundamentally, in the Christological sphere; we are on a lower level
than when it speaks of the Church, y e t . . . we are in the same unique
Christological sphere" (CS 120).
In the Church Dogmatics III/4, Barth gives a history of the develop­
ment of the nation and state that helps to make clear both how this
statement is possible, and what some of its implications are. He does not
simply paint a rosy picture. According to Barth,
the novel elevation on a wide front, if with varying emphases, of the term
"people" to the front rank of theological and ethical concepts and the un­
derlying assertion and teaching that in the national determination of man
we have an order of creation no less than in the relationship of man and
woman and parents and children is one of the most curious and tragic
events in the whole history of Protestant theology [III/4, 305].

Nations are not instituted and affirmed by God in the way that relation­
ships with parents, spouses, and children are. To the contrary, the Genesis
account hardly mentions the nations—focusing instead on a particular
family—until its tenth chapter (III/4, 311). When they are mentioned,
they are presented as an ethical problem. So, to use Luther's term, the
nations are not part of God's perfect will. Thus far Luther and Barth
agree. Some might point to Israel to contest Barth's point, but he argues
that Israel is no proof of God's pleasure with the state or nation—Israel is
not one nation among others, but a new creation, an elect people that has
God, not its national identity or ethnicity, at its center (ΠΙ/4,318).11 That
Israel becomes a kingdom, Barth points out, is not seen in the Scriptures
in an entirely positive light.
The nations have their start at Babel, where God prevents the unity
of peoples from becoming a temptation by confusing their languages.
Barth recognizes that the scattering of peoples is a terrible decree, but
he insists that we must not fail to see the grace of God in this action as
well (III/4,316). That it is no longer possible to conspire together against
God is a blessing, in that it limits the scope of human sin. And God by
no means abandons the nations. In fact, God sets to work in calling a
new people, the Jews, who are the universal horizon of all peoples—in

11
This point raises important questions for O'Donovan's (1996) project of seeing Israel
as the political paradigm for the nations. Israel may have more negative implications, and
fewer positive, than he thinks.
190 Journal of Religious Ethics

Israel the nations are called to be on the way to being the one people of
God (III/4, 319). This work continues in a less veiled form in the church,
starting with Pentecost (III/4, 321; IV/3/2, 730, 898).
While it is clear in Barth that the nations are a post-lapsarian order,
to be eschatologically overcome, matters are somewhat different with re-
gard to the state. The state—which existed before Babel, and is initially,
at least, saved from totalitarianism by God at Babel—is the power or-
dained as such by God for provision of security over chaos (II/2, 721). Its
secret purpose is that it is the form of God's protecting and restraining
patience in the time between the times, where God takes and makes time
for grace. It does not proclaim what is good, but it is the external condi-
tion for that proclamation, made, first, by Israel, and then the church, in
both word and deed (II/2, 722). So, Barth says, the state, like the nation,
is not simply an order of wrath, but, even insofar as it is in the sphere of
the law, under the gospel. In this life, the state is often demonic, when it
is not on its way to the salvation wrought by God in Christ, and no longer
protects, but subjugates the right (CS 109; 1979, 220-1). It is, therefore,
put in question by Christ. However, the state does not simply find its
limit in Christ, as Luther thought. As Calvin had begun to see, by being
put under the law, the state is brought into the service of Christ, who
has redeemed the civil community, also (CS 116-8).
Barth seems to view the state, like the nations, as a post-lapsarian
order. Yet, whether or not the state has a glorious beginning is some-
what irrelevant, for Barth is confident that the fact that Jesus Christ is
Lord means that it will have a glorious end. Thus, while the church is
the beginning of the end of the nations, "the Church sees its future and
hope, not in any heavenly image of its own existence but in the real heav-
enly State" (CS 124-5). Barth is apparently suggesting that the church
is the fulfillment of the nations, and the heavenly state the fulfillment
of the church. In this world, therefore, the church must hold the earthly
state in high esteem, recognizing that it is not divine, but also not think-
ing that it is a devil, and knowing that it has a great future (CS 124-5).
Thus, the state is called not merely to be a dike against sin, but an instru-
ment of divine service (CC 156-7), its ministers acting as God's ministers
(IV/2, 687).
Moreover, Christians may and must serve the God revealed in Christ,
in the state. Barth says that it is because we give to God that we must
also give to Caesar (II/2, 723). In itself, this affirmation is alien to nei-
ther Luther nor Calvin, but Barth develops it in a distinctive manner.
The church lives, not in opposition to the state, but revealing its ultimate
meaning and purpose—which it does best, not by watering down its wit-
ness in an effort to find a point of contact, but by living out its special
fellowship that requites like with unlike (II/2, 719).
So, against Luther, and more strongly than Calvin, Barth insists that
the church and state both exist in the same sphere, under the grace of
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 191

God, which takes the form of gospel and of law. Put in terms of Barth's
well-known metaphor, while the church is the inner circle within the
outer circle of the non-Christian, "the civil community shares both a
common origin and a common centre with the Christian community"
(CC 156, see 124,154-5; IV/2, 725). Thus, "We cannot say that the legal
order of the State 'has nothing to do with the order of Redemption'; that
here we have been moving in the first and not the second article of the
Creed" (CS 114). The state is not merely under God, but under the God
revealed in Christ.
More light is cast on the idea of Christian political service in the
Church Dogmatics II/l, where Barth investigates the perfections that
characterize God's love. While Luther's separation of law and gospel
tends to effect a separation between God's grace and wrath, Barth points
out that the insight that God's righteousness is God's mercy corresponds
to the unity of the gospel and law (II/l, 391). Like the gospel and law,
God's perfections exist in a definite order and harmony: "the mercy of
God must precede His righteousness, just as His grace [must] precede
His holiness" (II/l, 376). In relation to the unworthy and fallen human
beings on whom God's grace is bestowed, God's merciful Yes has the form
of opposition to the creatures' opposition: "By grace sin is attacked and
wiped out at its root" (II/l, 356). This is the holiness of God's grace: "God
is holy because His grace judges and His judgment is gracious" (II/l, 363).
Barth perceives that from the belief in God's merciful righteousness
and gracious holiness there follows a very definite political problem and
task (II/l, 386). Our salvation by the divine justification of the ungodly
shows (as do Jesus' miracles) that God cares for both the material and
spiritual needs of the poor and the oppressed (Barth 1949). If we live
by this faith, we stand under a political responsibility to care for our
fellow human beings. Christians can, therefore, only affirm a state based
on justice—any other attitude rejects the justification we have received
from God in Christ (II/l, 387).
It is in accord with this understanding of the inner relationship be-
tween the belief in justification and the call to justice that Barth contests
Luther and Calvin's civil use of the law, in which, although it is expected
that the service of God takes place in both realms, the gospel is distanced
from, or at least ambiguously related to, politics, rather than founding
it (CS 104-6). Barth suggests, to the contrary, that the Magna Carta
of Christian politics is Christ's saying that "as you did it to one of the
least of these... you did it to me" (Mt 25:31-46; CD III/2, 508). Thus, he
worries that Calvin's understanding of the law/gospel rubric only equiv-
ocally grounds the affirmation of Christ's lordship over all spheres. He
is even more concerned that Luther's affirmation of a dialectic between
law and gospel, and his separation of spiritual and secular regiments,
opened the door to Hitler's regime in Germany, and the horrors that
followed (see Barth 1939). He wrote in one letter that "Lutheranism has
192 Journal of Religious Ethics

to some degree paved the way for German paganism, allotting it a sacral
sphere by its separation of creation and the law from the gospel" (1945,
122).12 The separation of law from gospel is dangerous, because, where
the recognition of the distinctive word of God is weak, we must prepare
for the intrusion of false gods (III/4, 307).
In part because of these worries, Barth begins to move beyond the
Barmen declaration—which mainly protested the intrusions of a total-
izing state—when he searches in "Church and State" for a positive con-
nection between the two governments (CS 102,106).13 As we have seen,
his solution is the affirmation that both communities have one Lord, by
whose authority they both exist (CS 122, CC 154, 168-9, 188-9). They
share the same basis and hope (CS 123). Barth's positive assessment of
the state as a divinely ordained gift having its foundation and telos in
the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is the fundamental insight (or error) on
which his political theology is based. The state is no longer understood
as an emergency measure, or a "strange work" of God. As the outer circle
of the kingdom, it is more distant from God than the church, but this
is a quantitative, not a qualitative, difference. The distinction between
the church and state is not, as it were, metaphysical or ontological, but
functional and epistemological.
By no means does Barth collapse the two communities into one, any
more than his affirmation of "gospel in the law and law in the gospel"
elides law and gospel. Although church and state both employ ministers
of God (CS 135; CC 157; IV/2,687), Barth agrees with Luther and Calvin
that there is a distinction between the two communities.14 Though they

12
Quoted in Helmut Thielicke 1966, 368; see also 1969, 570. For defenses of Luther's
doctrine of the two, see Uwe Siemon-Netto 1995 and Paul Althaus 1979, 43-82. In my
view, Thielicke (1966,359-82; 1969,565-97) gives the most adequate Lutheran response to
Barth's criticism. For extensive reflections on the role of the church in the times preceding,
during, and after the rise of National Socialism, see Victoria Barnett 1992 and Klaus
Scholder 1988 and 1989.
13
1 say this in spite of Barth's claim in CC that he is explicating the 5th thesis of the
Barmen declaration (a thesis he admits was somewhat ignored: CC 152,189). Barth's major
regret about the Barmen declaration was that it said nothing about the Jews. But a state-
ment about the policies of National Socialism concerning the Jews would have changed
its very character. Making a statement about the treatment of the Jews would have ne-
cessitated abandoning the Confessing Church's stance that it was simply asking the state
to stay out of church business (this is not quite true, however—there were some Jewish-
Christian pastors—and the church could have made more of this than it did); it would have
pressed towards the position (which Barth took only after he left Germany) that Christian
convictions should actually inform state policy, and challenge even laws not related to the
church's self-governance.
14
It is worth noting, however, that while Barth expects a separation of church and
state, he speaks of this as a "great, but temporary contrast..." (CS 148). Only in the time
between the times does this contrast between communities hold. In Christ, the division
between communities, like the division between the gospel and the law, is and will be
healed.
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 193

are not to be separated, church and state remain distinct, because they
have different tasks: the church must show "respect for the independent
divine commission revealed and operative especially in the existence of
the state" (IV/2, 721). Barth speaks of the coercion necessary for the
state to restrict chaos and uphold the law, but holds that the church is
gathered through free individual decisions, and lives in love (CS 131-2,
142-3; CC 150,155-8). Barth assumes the state qua state is secular, and
that Christians, knowing that their true citizenship is in the heavenly
city, do not seek to make the two communities into one, but, rather, wait
for God to unify them (CS 122-3, 126). The amelioration of church and
state would result in the weakening of the gospel (CC 158, 166-7). And
Barth associates the "demonic" state as much with the attempt to become
totalizing as with an attempt to be autonomous (CS 118; 1979, 220-1).
As we have seen, for Barth, there is a certain precedence of the gospel
over the law: God's word to creation is always fundamentally Yes, even if
that means saying No to the No of humanity. So, too, there is a precedence
of the church before the state, because it knows the gospel. Again, this is
not to say that the church has a different ontological basis than the state.
Both have the same basis, Jesus Christ. The gospel is the source of all
law, both Christian and civil: the church "understands its own spiritual
center to be the center of the being and constitution of the state as well"
(IV/2, 687; cf. 719; CS 126£). But the state remains largely ignorant of
the truth about its true basis. It is the church's special responsibility to
proclaim the whole gospel to each person—including political man and
woman, since the gospel is always political and prophetic (CC 184-5).
In proclaiming the gospel, by word and deed, the church sets the exam-
ple for the state (CS 102, 106; CC 186; IV/2, 722). Indeed, Barth says,
"... to a certain extent... the New Testament deals with [the order of the
State] as the question of a kind of annex and outpost of the Christian
community..." (CS 133-4).
What is the significance of this claim that the church sets the example
for the state? We may begin to be concerned that Barth has something
like 'clerical guardianship' of the state in mind. Is this his end-point? I
will take up first some themes that might be thought to suggest it is not,
but which, properly understood, only reinforce our question. Barth (echo-
ing Luther and Calvin) says that even when the state takes on demonic
forms, it still serves God (CC 157; CS 111, 118, 131). It is not exactly
clear what this means: would Barth suggest that the state serves God
even in demonic activities such as ethnic cleansing? I think the following
is the best way to read Barth on this matter: Barth means not that every
evil of the state is put to positive use in the service of God, but that every
state upholds order in some way, even those that are mainly evil. The
former reading can seem proper because Barth often says states' author-
ity is backed by Christ, without carefully distinguishing the question of
how states have authority at all, if any, from the question of whether
194 Journal of Religious Ethics

a particular state has authority for its particular actions or individual

existence. As a result, it can sound as though all states are backed at
all times by the authority of Christ, regardless of how they behave (see
CS 140). The upshot would be that resisting the government, even if it is
clearly corrupt, is resisting Christ, and, therefore, that no government or
law should be challenged. This is clearly not Barth's intention. He makes
the distinction I am calling for in The Christian Life, where he speaks of
"lordless powers" that Christians are called to resist. Barth says there
that since no state ever becomes totally demonic—it fulfills its calling to
some degree, even against its will—and since some form of civil govern-
ment is necessary to keep order, the church cannot attack the idea of the
state; but it can and must resist particular states (1979, 213f£).
It may seem strange, then, that Barth stresses that the church must
support the state. He calls the state only to keep open the way for the
church to proclaim the gospel: "... [the church] desires from the State
nothing but freedom" (CS 148; see 119, 129). The church, however, is
called to pray for the state, to respect and even to be subject to the
leaders of the state (II/2, 723; IV/2, 687-9; CS 135-7). Yet, while this
asymmetrical relationship might seem both to call into question Barth's
affirmation of the church as the inner circle, and to lead to conservatism
or quietism, it is really just the result of the church's leading role (and
its imitation of Christ, who is Lord as Servant) that it acknowledges and
serves the state as it does. For Barth, the subordination called for by
Romans 13 is a "revolutionary subordination" (see Yoder 1972), since it
entails taking responsibility for the state (CC 159, 161-3). The church
serves the state in that it is "the preservation and basis of all States"
(CS 140). The state "secretly lives by" this service—"apart from the
Church, nowhere is there any fundamental knowledge of the reasons
which make the State legitimate and necessary" (CS 140). It is only pos-
sible for the church to serve the state by reminding the state of its limits,
and of the church's freedom (CS 136; see IV/3/2, 764).15 Because we can
obey the state rightly only if we obey God rather than men or women,
the church's service to the state even encompasses "the possibility of
revolution, the possibility... that we may have to 'overthrow with God'
those rulers who do not follow the lines laid down by Christ" (CS 145,
see 139; II/2, 723). Barth's political stance is, therefore, far from Luther's
tendency towards quietism, and more revolutionary than Calvin's.
Barth's understanding of how the church influences the state miti-
gates worries that he is moving toward 'clerical guardianship.' The
church's first political responsibility is to itself; it has its impact simply by
being the church (IV/2,721; II/2,719-20; CC 184-6). Thus, secularization

15
As I have noted, Barth reaffirms this position in the lectures on ethics, published as
The Christian Life, where he began to lay out the position he would have followed in CD
IV/4. For a short discussion, see Webster 1998,117-22.
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 195

of the church is a misfortune not only for it, but for the whole world (IV/2,
668). Also, "The Church must not forget that what it is rather than what
it says will be best understood..." (CC 187). Barth makes it clear that
there is to be no creation of a "Christian" political party. This, he thinks,
can only result in the distortion of the gospel (CC 182-3). The church does
influence the state by training Christian individuals who (albeit anony-
mously) engage in politics (CC 187-8), and by making public statements
that challenge public opinion, or that support a political option that "clar-
ifies rather than obscures the Lordship of Jesus Christ" (CC 170, see 185).
The church's shaping of the state, then, is from below, not from above,
and it is indirect, rather than direct (CC 183).
This does not, however, quite solve the question whether something
like Christendom would be the result of taking Barth's political theology
seriously, and being successful at it (see O'Donovan 1996, 212). Barth's
discussion of the church and its law as the model for the state suggests
the answer might well be "yes" (CC 169ff.; III/4, 488; IV/2, 723-4).16
Validated by the church's prayers, and founded on Christ, the state's
hope lies not in ideological neutrality, but in discipleship.
Because of the current situation of the state in the time between the
times, it is not immediately apparent that the earthly state is on its
way to its telos of the Kingdom of God. Thus, as we have seen, Barth
speaks of "the State as such, the neutral, pagan, ignorant State" which
"knows nothing of the Kingdom of God" (CC 167; see CS 110; IV/2,687-9,
720). Barth might sound like a liberal democrat when he says that the
wisdom of the state with regard to religion is tolerance (CC 151, see
CS Ì47). The state is not to demand any particular philosophy of life of its
subjects (CS 143). Yet, since Barth speaks only of an obligation the state
has to the Christian church, and not of any obligation the state might
have to provide similar freedom for proclamation to other worldviews or
religions, how neutral does he really expect the state to be? And consider
the significance of the following question: "whether the objection of the
earthly Christians to the earthly State, and the consciousness of being
'strangers' within this State, does not mean essentially that this State
has been too little (and not too much!) of a State for those who know of
the true State in heaven" (CS 125-6). Christian criticism of the state will
be that the earthly state is too little like the Kingdom of God, where the
gospel of Christ is the law.

16
While the analogies in CC are not especially nuanced, Barth's discussion of church
law as a model for the civil community is much more compelling. It seems to me that—as
long as Christians want to affirm imitatio Dei, and as long as Christians affirm that the
church, as the body of Christ, is somehow further on the way towards the Kingdom of God
than the state—they will have to make analogies like the ones Barth makes to sustain
his emphasis on saving the lost, or his understanding of ruling as service (see CC 173,
177). These analogies are best worked out in the light of a careful analysis of the relation
between what God does for us and what is expected of us (see Outka).
196 Journal of Religious Ethics

As we saw, a major question in Luther's and Calvin's political theolo-

gies was the nature of the law that rules, or should rule, in the political
sphere. Luther restricted this law to the second table, while Calvin, see-
ing more of Christ in the law, included both tables. Given his affirmation
that the law can be rightly understood only once we have heard the
gospel, that the gospel brings the law, it would seem natural for Barth to
affirm that Christ is and should be both subject and object of the political,
both the objective and the subjective basis of law-making. Yet this view
seems to allow the church to be political, without giving up its distinctive
witness, only by a working towards a sort of ideological take-over of the
state.
Since the gospel is "the true and only real source and norm of all
human law, even in this 'present age"' (CS 126, see 130), this might seem
to be the most natural direction for Barth to head. He writes that the
church's
political activity is... a profession of its Christian faith. By its political
activity it calls the State from neutrality, ignorance, and paganism into co-
responsibility before God, thereby remaining faithful to its own particular
mission. It sets in motion the historical process whose aim and content
are the moulding of the State into the likeness of the Kingdom of God and
hence the fulfillment of the State's own righteous purposes [CC 171; see
CS 113,118].

The church should undertake to improve the law of the state, so that
it conforms to the law of Christ, recognition of which is necessary for
right and peace even in the present time (IV/2, 722, 726). The church
should also influence the form of the state, where possible (IV/2, 688).
These claims flow naturally from Barth's important statement—which,
in spite of a long section on the sending of the Christian community in
IV/3/2, is unfortunately never developed—that what the Christian com-
munity owes the civil community is "prophetic mission" (IV/2, 721; see
O'Donovan 1996, 213-14; Hood 1984, 146ff.).17 In turn, the knowledge

17
Given the centrality of the notion, if not the actual word, of mission in Barth's political
theology, I think Barth might have regarded Hans Frei's political theology, as explicated
by M. A. Higton, as too passive. While the church could only do less if it tried to do more
than simply respond to and follow God's activity in the world, the church most definitely
takes a leadership role in relation to the world itself, precisely because it does consciously
follow God (see Higton, 74-9). Therefore, the church does not simply discover Christ in the
world; its vocation is to pattern Christ in and for the world. Barth sees the secularity of the
world (and the church!), but he is hardly at ease with it. Moreover, though I cannot defend
it here, I will suggest that, by volume 4 of the Dogmatics, Barth was perhaps more open
than he had been to seeing "parables" of the gospel in places other than the revelation in
Christ (thus qualifying, and to some extent challenging, what Frei terms Barth's "secular
sensibility" [see Higton, 56]).
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 197

that the Christian community owes the civil community the gospel is
based on the knowledge that there should not be a dualism or juxta-
position "between the divine gift and the divine task, Gospel and Law,
justification and sanctification, the Christian experience of salvation and
Christian service to the glory of God and the benefit of one's neighbor"
(IV/3/2, 565). Christian mission is essential, because no neutrality about
God is possible. We must choose between the true God and idolatry (III/4,
307).

5. The Church like John the Baptist

It is at just this point, when it looks as though Christendom would be
a natural outgrowth of Barth's political theology, that we encounter the
deep tensions in his view. Thus far we have been exploring the signifi-
cance of the unity of gospel and law, and the corresponding positive bond
between church and state; we will now explore the fact that, in the time
between the times, both the gospel and law and the church and state are
on the way, and thus not fully ordered towards one another. To put it as
Luther does, we must take account of the fact that "the devil roams in
both governments." In spite of Barth's affirmation that the civil commu-
nity has Christ as its basis, the fact is that the state has not subjectively
appropriated the divine determination—this brings us back to his state-
ments about the "pagan" state (see Hood 1980,231). The state depends on
a so-called "natural law" that does not take its bearings from the Chris-
tian center (CC 163). That is why Christian witness to the state is needed.
Yet, the very thing that makes it possible and necessary for the church
to criticize the state also makes the church a questionable model for
the state. The church, qua institution or individuals, does not do a par-
ticularly excellent job of appropriating its objective determination in
Christ (IV/3/2, 794,812f.). For Barth, sanctified Christians are disturbed
sinners—no less, but no more (IV/2, 524, 666). In spite of his use of
the metaphor of the church as the inner circle within the outer circle
of the state, which directs the world to look at the church as its ex-
ample, Barth often pictures Christians and non-Christians as standing
alongside one another, in great solidarity, the difference between them
being that Christians (like John the Baptist!) point away from themselves
to Christ (see IV/3/2, 565, 629, 797, 854).18 Barth generally understands
Christian witness as the "erection of a sign" about Christ, not about
Christianity (IV/3/2, 720,844). The Christian life is always lived in hope,
looking away from ourselves, and the fallen reality in which we live, to
God (IV/3/2, 920).
18
David Kelsey has suggested in personal conversation that it would have been most
consistent for Barth to have used a model of this sort in CC.
198 Journal of Religious Ethics

It is a result of this picture, which follows Luther in emphasizing the

distance between our life in Christ as it is and as it will be, that the
notion of "Christendom" is rejected. 19 Christendom can only mean that
the church has ceased waiting on God's Kingdom, and attempted to found
another, with a basis in Christians, rather than Christ. The church fails
just as significantly when it becomes self-glorifying as when it is secular-
ized (IV/2,668-9; III/2,510-11). We have already been confronted by the
Kingdom in the person of Jesus Christ, and we also yearn and pray for its
coming—but not, as Calvin thought, as a work from within the history of
the church, or, as Luther thought, as the work of the Holy Spirit inside
the individual Christian—but by the power of God, who brings the King-
dom in a mighty act from outside all human history (1979, 240-2). The
Kingdom is God himself, and therefore "... a unique entity or factor not
only in relation to the world but also in relation to the Christian world"
(1979, 244).
Thus, Barth rejects Christendom because the real end-point of his po-
litical theology is a Theocracy. Since the church has the true Kingdom in
mind, it approaches its this-worldly efforts with a "penultimate serious-
ness":

it can share neither the enthusiasm of those who regard the old form as
capable of true and radical improvement nor the scepticism [sic] of those
who in view of the impossibility of perfecting the old form think that they
are compelled to doubt the possibility of a new form in relation to the
reality of history already present in Jesus Christ it knows how provisional
and improper is all the construction and destruction of man [IV/3/2,717].20

Living in the time between the times, Christians must not be impa-
tient where God is patient (II/2, 722). They cannot found a kingdom,
precisely because they anticipate God's (III/2, 584). There will be one

19
Barth says that the church has an unfortunate tendency to think of itself as a natural
community, in spite of the clear fact that it is a voluntary community (see III/2, 585). He
connects the practice of infant baptism with this error, as well as the error of an over-
realized eschatology, a "world which is supposed to have come of age in relation to God"
(TV/4, ix-x), in which the necessity of mission (in regard to the church itself) is overlooked
(IV/4, xi).
20
1 was directed to this passage by Hood 1985,152. Consider also the following state-
ment: "[The Christian] a priori is not a cause... It is the righteousness of God in Jesus
Christ and therefore, in correspondence with this, the man who is loved by God... From
one standpoint or another, every idea or life-form will sooner or later prove a threat to man.
Hence Christians, looking always to the only problem that seriously and finally interests
them, must allow themselves the liberty in certain circumstances of saying only a partial
Yes or No where a total one is expected, or a total Yes or No where a partial one is expected,
or of saying Yes today where they said No yesterday... Because Christians are dealing
with people, they can say to all principles only a relative Yes or No, and they must resist
as such all principles that claim to be irrefutable" (1979, 268-9).
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 199

law, under Christ, but this will be God's own law, instituted by God, not
church law. Church law is human law, and, as such, "has no small share
in the limitations and weaknesses of worldly law" (IV/2, 725). As Barth
says in "Gospel and Law," in the hands of sinners, the law and the gospel
are at odds (86-97; see Meilaender 1979). In the time between the times,
the law very often seems simply to condemn us sinners, and the gospel
simply to pardon us sinners. Therefore, in spite of its knowledge of the
unity of gospel and law in Christ, in which it sees its own new life, the
church has to recognize that it does not live out that unity; and this
means that "it cannot refuse to be reminded... and perhaps recalled
[to the Lordship of Jesus Christ], by actual outworkings outwith its own
sphere. In its encounter with the world it may sometimes happen that...
the children of the world prove wiser than the children of light..." (IV/4,
725; see IV/3/2, 817).21
Both because the church is an asylum for sinners, and because the
church is, after all, fully this-worldly (see IV/3/2, 734ff.), it must con-
ceive of its task with modesty—not, to be sure, with pessimism, since
God calls the church to faithful witness—as the task of correcting and
deepening the law which obtains in the world (IV/2, 725-6). It is clear
that Barth thinks the church already does this. While he emphasizes
that the church must "... beware of playing off one political concept—
even the 'democratic' concept—as the Christian concept..." (CC 161;
IV/3/2, 742), he also affirms that a democratic state is "a justifiable ex-
pansion of the thought of the New Testament" (CS 145; see CC 182). He
suggests that the church's intercession for the state has naturally given
rise to a state that is based on the responsible activity of its citizens
(CS 144-5). He asks, "Can we give the State that respect which is its
due without making its business our own, with all the consequences
that this implies?" (CS 145). What further consequences are implied
are suggested by a passage in Eine Schweizer Stimme, where Barth
writes
The Christian concept of the just State... has beyond doubt a specific
limit and a specific direction. In setting its sights on order, it contradicts
and resists all political, social and economic tyranny and anarchy. And in
making common rights and personal responsibility the standard of order,
it has more resemblance to democracy than to an aristocratic or monarchic
dictatorship, to socialism than to the free market... [292; quoted in Hood
1980, 238].
So "... it is clear that Christians must not only endure the earthly
State but that they must will it... " (CS 145). The church takes up

21
However, given the church's epistemic advantages over the 'world/ there is little
chance of this leading to anything like a civil guardianship of the church.
200 Journal of Religious Ethics

this prophetic mission, as we have noted, from below, indirectly rather

than directly. Given this affirmation, Barth's insistence that the church's
first political responsibility is to be the church, and his willingness to
talk of church mission without saying much about what this mission
means with regard to the state, it seems clear that Barth intended the
church's proclamation to the civil community to take primarily the form
of influencing civil society.22 One central aspect of this influence is the
humanizing of work. All human work, Barth says, is right only if it
is done—not for materialistic reasons, but also not simply for its own
sake, because work is not our end—as service to God (HI/4, 520). Barth
sees culture as an essential aspect of that work, one that stands or
falls with the men and women who express themselves in it. He dis-
misses the idea that human culture can have a value independent of
God, claiming that "at few points does it emerge so clearly how much
[humanity] stands in need of the Gospel and what a liberation it means
for him to be called... to come to faith and to be obedient in faith"
(HI/4, 523).
In such ways, then, the church is to follow its God-given missionary
task, with a confident humility. The church does not look for Christen-
dom, nor does it seek a clerical guardianship; it seeks to witness to Christ,
living towards the Kingdom—running toward the coming Kingdom with
all its soul and might—as it lives from Christ's first coming (1979,262-3).
The church must work for human righteousness, an action that will be
kingdom-like (1979, 264, 266).
We may still wonder what would happen if the church were to succeed,
even to a lesser extent, in this task. Such a possibility cannot be dis-
missed; it has been realized in the past. Would it then be proper to man-
date certain religious beliefs or commitments in the civil community—
and to what extent? Barth never answers this question. It is my sense
that his silence was not just a slip; it is indicative of the deep tension in
his view. Since, as we have noted, the gospel and law are not completely
ordered to one another while in the hands of sinners, and since both await
their final fulfillment in the coming Kingdom, Barth finds—in spite of
his complaints about the reformers—that it is really difficult to say how
completely the civil law should or can be understood from the point of
view of, or grounded by, the Christian gospel. In the Church Dogmatics
HI/4 he critiques capitalism, affirms solidarity with the poor, a concern
for the environment, possible vegetarianism, and keeping the Sabbath
day holy. Barth does make a call for "true (democratic) socialism" (with-
out unpacking the concept; see HI/4, 459, 531, 551-2), but otherwise he
never comments on the extent to which these concerns are to be brought

22
This is in continuity with O'Donovan's claim that the church's mission is first to
society, not politics (1996, 243).
 Law and Gospel, or the Law of the Gospel? 201

into politics.23 Nor does he say whether, if they are brought into politics,
they are to be backed up by specifically Christian arguments.24
The tensions caused by the lack of unity between gospel and law in the
time between the times are most clear, I think, in Barth's waffling on
the role offeree in the state. The dialectic Barth upholds, and enacts, on
this matter is a reflection of the more fundamental dialectic of the King-
dom of God (1979, 247), and the related fact that justification presently
takes the form of a pardon that may seem to conflict with, or overturn,
justice. The fact that we live in the time of patience makes it hard to
hold mercy and justice, grace and holiness, together. Thus it is easy for
rather different rules to be upheld in each community—like for like in the
civil community, and like for unlike in the Christian community—and for
Christians to feel a certain tension between the two rules.
Barth's hope is "that we all may be one"; that the nations are begin-
ning to be ordered toward One other than themselves, as they are drawn
into the new politics of this peculiar people that, without erasing particu-
larities, also transcends them. But he also sees that it may be necessary
for the nations to establish themselves by resisting others when their
task of maintaining and fostering life is put in jeopardy. "[T]here may
well be bound up with the independent life of a nation responsibility
for the whole physical, intellectual, and spiritual life of the people com-
prising it, and therefore their relation to God" (III/4, 462). The state is
responsible, at least to some extent, for the flourishing of its people (it
is, after all, under the gospel in the law), which may require a nation to
confront other states that confront it "like 'the Beast out of the abyss' of
Revelation 13" (CS 143). Yet, in war the state is called to serve justice by
acting in a manner that is ultimately at odds with its true calling.

23
It must be emphasized, however, that Barth sees church praxis itself as political
(here we must understand the term 'political' more broadly than I have tended to in this
essay) (Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder, of course, follow Barth on this point).
The diaconate, for instance, has the task of serving those in material need, whether they
are within the Christian community or not (IV/3/2, 889-95). In this and other ways it
models, provisionally, the fellowship of a new society that is not divided by race, culture,
nation, or class (IV/3/2, 794,898f.). It does so because it follows (to be sure, "at a distance")
Christ's example (III/4, 545; IV/2,169). The question left unclarifíed, then, is not whether
the church takes political and social action in the world, even at times against the wishes
of the state, but how and to what extent the church's proclamation to the state involves an
attempt to convert it to Jesus Christ.
24
It is hard to see Barth agreeing that the anonymous Christian politician should
take a correlationist approach, or simply drop Christian foundations at the door of the
parliamentary building, but how else to stay anonymous? It seems more amenable with
Barth's larger views to suggest not that Christian politicians should cut themselves off
from their tradition with the pretense of religious neutrality (Barth insists in IV/4, after
all, that baptism is a public confession, and one that we cannot leave behind when we step
out of the church building), but simply that Christian politicians should not pretend to
speak for the Christian view.
202 Journal of Religious Ethics

In spite of his new understanding of gospel and law, then, Barth

finds himself unable to resolve the tensions at work in both Luther's
and Calvin's theologies. He does not solve the problem their work raised
about how to connect the gospel and the law in the civil community. He
actually makes this problem of relating law and gospel quite pressing,
for he expects a good deal from the state. In spite of an assessment of
the state more positive than either Luther's or Calvin's, Barth cannot
finally make clear exactly what the Christian attitude towards the state
should be. Following God inspires hope for the state, since we know what
it is called to be. This hope leads to discontent—seeing how the state falls
short—and political critique and action—fulfilling our calling to take our
own little steps towards making all new—but also patience, since only
God brings about the true revolution of his kingdom (Barth 1979,173-4;
Hunsinger 1976,187, 225).
It is not, however, purely a failure that Barth continues this dialectic.
Indeed, to simply resolve these tensions would lead us in directions we do
not want to go. By emphasizing, on the one hand, the "already" in the not
yet, Barth is able to see the unity of gospel and law that shows that the
Kingdom of God is the end goal of the civil community. He is therefore,
as he hoped, able to find a stronger theological basis for making political
claims than either of the Reformers. By emphasizing, on the other hand,
the continuing importance of seeking God's Kingdom in the "not yet,"
Barth also makes a compelling theological case for avoiding the quietism
that haunts Luther's work—because the state is still on the way—and
the clerical guardianship that followed Calvin's—because the church,
too, is on the way (see IV/3/2, 743-5). 2 5

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25
1 want to thank Eric Gregory, Nicholas Wolterstorff, an anonymous reader, and the
participants of the 2000 Yale/Harvard/Boston College ethics colloquium for their helpful
comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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