It is unclear at the beginning of the twenty-first century whether Barth’s theology is still a secret in Presbyterian congregations. There are certainly voices and organizations similar to those that resisted C’67 alive and well in the church today. Fortunately, there are also indications that Barth’s theology has made a significant impact on many congregations. If Barth’s theology is less a secret now among Presbyterians (and other Christians) than it was nearly forty years ago, that is largely due to the influence of one book—the publication in 1968 of Shirley C. Guthrie’s Christian Doctrine.
Arguably Christian Doctrine has had a greater influence on the life and theology of Presbyterians in the last half of the twentieth century than any other theological book. Guthrie’s remarkable accomplishment was to make the basic themes of Barth’s theology accessible and intelligible to people with little or no formal theological education. Guthrie wrote with a clarity and directness that is, sadly, uncommon among professional theologians, and enabled them to hear the Gospel in new and fresh ways.
It would be a disservice to Christian Doctrine, however, to suggest that it is simply an interpretation of Barth for the laity. Other major figures, such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, are reflected in its pages. And it is not simply Barth or Niebuhr or Bonhoeffer the reader discovers in these pages, but the persistent theme of the sovereignty of God’s inclusive and indefatigable grace in Jesus Christ. One of the earliest books on Barth’s theology was entitled The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. So too Christian Doctrine is above all else about the triumph of God’s grace and the joyful good news of the Gospel.
Guthrie published a revised edition of Christian Doctrine twenty-six years later, in 1994. The theme of God’s grace is no less prominent, but he incorporated recent developments in theology, including material from various forms of liberation theology (Latin American, black, and feminist), to further describe how God’s grace overturns structures and institutions that are obstacles to the Kingdom of God.
For the last forty-seven years Guthrie taught the two-semester course in theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, and for the last twenty years I had the privilege of watching him do so. As a lecturer in the seminary classroom (and as a speaker in congregations) Guthrie taught with remarkable honesty, humility, conviction, and much good and occasionally ribald humor. Over the years I learned to look forward especially to two of his lectures—one in the fall semester on predestination and the other in the spring on justification by grace through faith. Almost without fail the same thing would happen in both lectures. Students would soon put down their pencils and pens (or more recently turn off their laptops) and simply listen in rapt attention for ninety minutes as Guthrie talked about the wonder of God’s free and transforming grace for sinners–listen as though they were hearing something they had not heard before and never wanted to forget.
One of the many expressions of gratitude sent to Guthrie while he was dying came from a female social worker in her fifties who wrote that for many years she had struggled with Christian faith because of the harsh reality of the cross. At some point someone gave her a copy of Christian Doctrine, and she read the chapter on the atonement. It enabled her, she wrote, to believe in God. She xeroxed the chapter and carries it to this day in her briefcase. No matter how many books a theologian may write, there is simply no greater accomplishment than that.
Thanks be to God for the life of Shirley Guthrie.
GEORGE STROUP is Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary.
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