The posting is HERE.
In Karl Barth and the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth’s Critique of Pietism and Its Response (2004), Eberhard Busch suggests that for Barth there are at least two “prerequisites for being able to talk to each other in the church of Christ, and these two are inextricably linked. First, such a dialogue between Christians, even if it has the form of an argument with each other, occurs in the brackets of the assumption that both are in the church of Christ. This gives the discussion its true seriousness but also marks the clear boundaries of the argument. Barth once said that the person we should drop completely could ‘only be an arch-heretic who is totally lost to the invisible church as well.’ But he adds, ‘We do not have this ability even in the case of Christians who are perhaps under strong suspicion.’…. This approach has some immediate specific consequences. As a Christian I can criticize other Christians only if I am in solidarity with them. Furthermore, when I criticize others I can distance myself from them not on a tone of harsh indignation but only in a tone of sad dismay at a threat that had somehow turned into a temptation for me as well. And finally, believing that Israel’s shepherd does not slumber or sleep even in the church, I have to keep myslef open to the possibility not only that the ‘favorite voices’ I like to hear testify to the truth of God in the church, but ‘that we need … totally unexpected voices even though these voices may at first be quite unwelcome.’
“The other prerequisite for talking to each other and having an argument with each other is this: Even when I boldly stand up for my understanding of the truth, I can do so only by paying attention to the boundary that is drawn by the fact that God’s truth and my understanding of it are always two completely different things. At the very moment I forget this border, it will shift, and the border between my understanding of God’s truth and other Christians’ understanding of it will become absolute. At that very moment the other person and I no longer stand before our common judge, rather I become the judge of the other.”
Kim Fabricius
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