“As Barth”: Entry #5

The fifth entry in the “As Barth” contest comes from Jon Mackenzie, a third-year theology student at St Andrews University who admires the work of Karl Barth and his pupil, Eberhard Jüngel. Check out the nascent website created by Jon that is devoted to Jüngel’s theology.

An Ode to Clarity
Make of me no Barthian
With crazy jargon overlaid
But make me more like Eberhard
Who likes to call a spade a spade.

Help me to not use vocab like
e.g. Urs und Grundentsheidung
Instead, stay simple, don’t go mad
Use words that do not twist the tongue

And also words like “that-ness”, “what-ness”
Don’t make sense - they drive me witless.
Try to make me understand;
Inventing words is underhand.

So make of me no Barthian
or even aesthetician
But make the words I write to be
Wonderous in their clarity


The contest will end on July 4, at which point we will have a poll to decide who is the winner. If you wish to enter the contest, email me here. See the original post for more information.