In 1942, Karl Barth was asked to write to Christians in the United States. He didn't know the American context well, so he asked his hosts to send him the questions they were actually wrestling with. James Spencer and Ashish Varma work through the first of them: how can a Christian be a loyal citizen of a national state and a loyal member of a church that transcends national interests?

Barth's answer turns on a distinction between the national state and what he calls the righteous state — the God-instituted order the church prays toward when it prays for God's will on earth. James and Ashish trace what that means in practice: that a state serving only its own interests forfeits any claim to righteousness, that the church is not identical with the kingdom it hopes for, and that protest and resistance are forms of loyalty rather than betrayals of it.

The conversation sets Barth against the German Christian church of his day, the Augustinian figure of the pilgrim, Jeremiah's shock that God would use Babylon, and the question of what any of it means at a ballot box. First of a series on the letter.

Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns — verify against the final cut):

00:00 The backstory: why Barth wrote this letter

02:19 Question one: loyal citizen, loyal to the church universal

03:25 Is the nation state a recent invention?

04:55 The righteous state and the kingdom of God

08:13 The church hopes for the kingdom but isn't identical with it

13:31 Volk, blood, and the purity of the land

19:32 Reading Barth: resist everything incompatible

24:37 Why resistance is loyalty, not betrayal

26:26 The state that serves only itself ceases to be righteous

28:16 Empire, India, and the limits of the good-guy story 34:07 No white hats and black hats

39:26 "Righteous" in scare quotes

41:45 "We shall have our hands full" 

43:57 Jeremiah, Babylon, and God using pagan nations

47:18 Augustine's pilgrim: belonging to a place without being owned by it

51:37 Narrowing, and what the church broadens 54:49 Single-issue voting and playing by the world's rules

Tags/keywords: Karl Barth, Letter to American Christians, Barth 1942, Christian nationalism, church and state, kingdom of God, German Christian church, Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer, Augustine pilgrim, political theology, Christian citizenship, single-issue voting, Christians and politics

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Subscribe to Thinking Christian: https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org 

Website: www.thinkingchristian.org 

In 1942, Karl Barth was asked to write to Christians in the United States. He didn't know the American context well, so he asked his hosts to send him the questions they were actually wrestling with. James Spencer and Ashish Varma work through the first of them: how can a Christian be a loyal citizen of a national state and a loyal member of a church that transcends national interests?
Barth's answer turns on a distinction between the national state and what he calls the righteous state &mdash; the God-instituted order the church prays toward when it prays for God's will on earth. James and Ashish trace what that means in practice: that a state serving only its own interests forfeits any claim to righteousness, that the church is not identical with the kingdom it hopes for, and that protest and resistance are forms of loyalty rather than betrayals of it.
The conversation sets Barth against the German Christian church of his day, the Augustinian figure of the pilgrim, Jeremiah's shock that God would use Babylon, and the question of what any of it means at a ballot box. First of a series on the letter.
Chapters (approximate, from speaker turns &mdash; verify against the final cut):
00:00 The backstory: why Barth wrote this letter
02:19 Question one: loyal citizen, loyal to the church universal
03:25 Is the nation state a recent invention?
04:55 The righteous state and the kingdom of God
08:13 The church hopes for the kingdom but isn't identical with it
13:31 Volk, blood, and the purity of the land
19:32 Reading Barth: resist everything incompatible
24:37 Why resistance is loyalty, not betrayal
26:26 The state that serves only itself ceases to be righteous
28:16 Empire, India, and the limits of the good-guy story 34:07 No white hats and black hats
39:26 "Righteous" in scare quotes
41:45 "We shall have our hands full"&nbsp;
43:57 Jeremiah, Babylon, and God using pagan nations
47:18 Augustine's pilgrim: belonging to a place without being owned by it
51:37 Narrowing, and what the church broadens 54:49 Single-issue voting and playing by the world's rules
Tags/keywords: Karl Barth, Letter to American Christians, Barth 1942, Christian nationalism, church and state, kingdom of God, German Christian church, Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer, Augustine pilgrim, political theology, Christian citizenship, single-issue voting, Christians and politics
Follow and subscribe
Subscribe to Thinking Christian: <a href="https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org">https://episodes.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;
Website: <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org">www.thinkingchristian.org</a>&nbsp;

Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.

Find more from James at https://www.thinkingchristian.org/.

Christians shouldn&rsquo;t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.
Find more from James at <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/</a>.

Christians shouldn’t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.

Thinking Christian: Clear Theology for a Confusing World

Christians shouldn&rsquo;t just think. They should think Christian. Join Dr. James Spencer and guests for calm, thoughtful, theological discussions about a variety of topics Christians face every day. The Thinking Christian Podcast will help you grow spiritually and learn theology as you seek to be faithful in a world that is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny Christ.
Find more from James at <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.org/">https://www.thinkingchristian.org/</a>.