| Author Quoted | Karl Barth |
| Title Quoted | Dogmatics in Outline |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1963/10/29 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1949I |
| Quotation | Again. Barth's bestiary. This time the Church is not a snail. "The Church runs like a herald to deliver the message. It's not a snail with a little house on its back and is so well off in it, that only now and then it sticks out its feelers and then thinks that ‘the claim of publicity' has been satisfied"¦" Dogmatics in Outline, p. 147. Of the dog. Pilate is a dog. "How does Pilate come into the creed?"¦Like a dog into a nice room!" but the meanness is not toward Pilate but toward politics-the dog in the room is politics in the Church! Sometimes the Christian in the Church is like a bird in a cage, beating against the bars (trying to make the whole Gospel reduce itself to our own rite or our own preachments). "If you do not know this oppression, you have certainly not seen the real dynamic in this matter!!" (p. 147). But this invitation is to be patiently endured. We wait for the Kingdom "recognizing each other in longing and humility in the light of the divine humor" (148). |
| Journal | Dancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 29 |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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