nlt@romeo.cs.duke.edu (N. L. Tinkham) (12/17/89)
In my reading this week, I came across the following paragraph describing
the history of neo-orthodox theology:
As a theological movement, neo-orthodoxy emerged between World Wars
as an attempted reversal of liberalizing trends in theology dominant
in the period. Under the leadership of such theologians as Karl Barth
and Emil Brunner, neo-orthodoxy became a formidable challenge to
secular theological currents, attempting to establish itself as a new
Reformation. Soon after World War II, however, the movement lost its
impetus. Both its size and influence dwindled steadily. Though an
infrastructure for neo-orthodoxy still exists today, overall this
movement performed little better than most theological movements
of this century, being an ephemeral fashion.
[ James Davison Hunter,
_Evangelicalism:_The_Coming_Generation_,
U. Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 25-6. ]
The development of neo-orthodoxy is familiar enough to me, but I was not aware
that it was now considered a mere "ephemeral fashion". I'm a bit dismayed at
the news that neo-orthodoxy went out of style before I ever got around to
reading _Church_Dogmatics_. :-) More seriously, I find it distressing to hear
of the speed with which theological movements apparently come into and go out
of "fashion", as though they were a collection of Parisian gowns.
My questions, for those readers better acquainted than I with the
developments of the past few decades, are: 1) Is Hunter correct in his
description of the "decline and fall" of neo-orthodoxy? 2) If so, what
were the reasons for the decline? Obviously, the death of those who began
the movement would be a factor, but what kept others from continuing the
school of thought? 3) To what extent does neo-orthodoxy continue to be
influential in universities and seminaries? 4) The question that neo-orthodoxy
posed for itself -- How do we take seriously both scholarship and revelation?
-- is, in my view, an important one. Does the apparent current unpopularity of
neo-orthodoxy mean that the question is now considered less important or merely
that a particular set of answers was rejected?
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"That's right," shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand Nancy Tinkham
rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" nlt@cs.duke.edu
rutgers!mcnc!duke!nlt
[My feeling is that neo-orthodoxy as a special movement has probably
vanished, but that its ideas have now been melded into the mainstream
of theology. I think this is probably about the best one can hope
for. --clh]