‘Een grote in het rijk der geesten en der theologie’. De kijk op Karl Barth in hervormd-gereformeerde en christelijk-gereformeerde kring tijdens de jaren zestig

Abstract

This article is the fourth and last of the series on the reception of Karl Barth’s theology
within both the Reformed League in the former Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse
Hervormde Kerk) and the Christian Reformed Church (CGK). It explores the situation
in the 1960s when Barth’s influence was overwhelmed by a new modernism which made
Barth’s theology look conservative. Barth remained suspicious to the mainstream in the
Reformed League and the CGK. Within the Reformed League some younger ministers
were accused of ‘Barthianism’ when they only expressed sympathy. Due to the breakdown
in cultural isolation and faced with new modernism, the mainstream moderated
its critical attitude. When Barth died in December 1968, several sympathetic obituaries
dedicated to his memory are notable for their distortions of the earlier harsh opposition.