A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

Liberalism and Neo-Orthodoxy
Word of God, including its miracles. This response
became known as Fundamentalism, which we will discuss
in chapter 7. There was also a more moderate reaction
in the scholarly world, called Neo-Orthodoxy, which
we discuss next.
Karl Barth and Neo-Orthodoxy
Neo-Orthodoxy developed in the 1920s through
1940s as a response to Liberalism. It defended historic
Christian doctrines against Liberalism, yet it did not
return completely to earlier beliefs such as the infallibility
of Scripture in all things. Thus, it adopted an intermediate
stance between Liberalism and traditional
Protestant orthodoxy, with various theologians being
closer to one side or the other. In the eyes of more conservative
Christians, this movement did not completely
return to the “orthodox” Protestant theology of the sixteenth-century
Reformers, yet they welcomed its critique
of Liberal theology and its defense of many biblical concepts.
Neo-Orthodox theologians realized that the Liberal
agenda was bankrupt, yet they still tried to take into
account the rationalism of modern society. They sought to
blend biblical supernaturalism and modern rationalism so
as to affirm the essential doctrines of Scripture in a modern
context. Ancient doctrines were rephrased and reinterpreted.
We can mark the beginning of the Neo-Orthodox
movement with the publication of Karl Barth’s Commentary
on Romans in 1919. Barth (1886-1968) was a
Reformed pastor in Switzerland and the foremost theologian
in the first half of the twentieth century. His major
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