Nein! Karl Barth, Nationalist Idolatry, and the Politics of God

“In a world full of Nazis, one can be forgiven for being a Barthian.” — Peter L. Berger[1]

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Two years and five months into the Trump presidency, the erosion of liberal-democratic-republican institutions and norms in the United States has, if anything, accelerated. Witness, among other things: endless attacks on a free press and the demonizing of the political opposition as inherently disloyal. The conspicuous winking at white-nationalists. The targeting of transgender military personnel, and the removal of civil rights protections for transmen and transwomen in housing and healthcare, out of little more than spite. Warehousing refugees at the southern border in cages. Punishing hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico for little more than being populated by brown people who are somehow, contrary to fact, deemed not quite American. Slamming European allies while licking the boots of despots from Putin to Kim to Duterte. His incoherent stances on tariff and trade policies, on deficits, and on deregulation, have rattled economists left, right, and center, raised eyebrows in the business community by disrupting supply-chains, and directly damaged the livelihoods of farmers who depend on foreign markets. His attack on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare, before that dubbed Romney-care) threatens the medical coverage of up…