We have before us the fiendishness of business competition and the world war, passion and wrongdoing, antagonism between classes and moral depravity within them, economic tyranny above and the slave spirit below.
Karl BarthRead
Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of viewing current events through a moral and ethical lens provided by one's faith.
Karl Barth's quote encourages individuals to engage with both spiritual teachings and contemporary news. It suggests that while it is important to stay informed about the world, one should allow their faith—symbolized by the Bible—to guide their understanding and interpretation of what they encounter in the news, thereby promoting a nuanced perspective that aligns with one's values.
Themes
FaithInterpretationNewsBibleMorality
In practice
Example use cases
During a sermon on ethics, a pastor might use this quote to encourage congregants to consider how their beliefs influence their views on current events.
More from Karl Barth
All quotes →When we speak of our virtues we are competitors, when we confess our sins we become brothers.
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Conscience is the perfect interpreter of life.
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That the zeal for God's honor is also a dangerous passion, that the Christian must bring with him the courage to swim against the tide instead of with it... accept a good deal of loneliness, will perhaps be nowhere so clear and palpable as in the church, where he would so much like things to be different. Yet he cannot and he will not refuse to take this risk and pay this price... he belongs where the reformation of the church is underway or will again be underway.
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In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
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Christian worship is the most momentous, most urgent, most glorious action that can take place in human life.
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