The Preface is a short piece, but packed. Barth had to explain why he had given up his earlier theological agenda, a Christian Dogmatics in Outline, to begin how his Church Dogmatics. Barth was concerned that readers could receive his earlier work "to find for theology a foundation, support, or justification in philosophical existentialism" (p. xiii). As Barth rightfully emphasizes, there is no support or justification outside of God's own revelation in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, for the task of the church. God is not justified by human works; humans may only be justified by God as a gift, the gift that is God's own Self in Jesus Christ.

Barth seeks to keep Jesus Christ, the Word of God, central already in this preface. In so doing, Barth found himself rightfully pushed towards towards the life of the church, the church catholic. In the preface Barth discovers that faith in Jesus Christ thought rigorously must be evangelical, catholic, and orthodox.

The Preface contains the well-known statement of Barth against the "analogy of being" "as the invention of Antichrist and I believe that because of it, it is impossible ever to become a Roman Catholic" (p. xiii). Emphasis on this, however, misses a deeper theme that runs throughout the Preface -- Barth's commitment to the catholicity of the faith. He argues that "from the very outset dogmatics is not a free science. It is bound to the sphere of the Church, where alone it is possible and meaningful" (p. xiii). He speaks of discovering that "Church history no longer begins for me in 1517. I can quote Anselm and Thomas with no sign of horror. I obviously regard the doctrine of the early Church as in some sense normative" (p. xiii). Even as the Ressourcement thought of the Nouvelle Theologie was building in Roman Catholic circles, Barth himself identifies himself with these same currents. He recognizes that as a result persons will accuse him as engaging in a "crypto-Catholicism" (p. xiii). Indeed, it is only his concerns (a misunderstood concern?) about the analogy of being that prevents him from becoming Roman Catholic, "all other reasons for not doing so being to my mind short-sighted and trivial" (p. xiii).

The significance of this evangelical, catholic, and orthodox commitment comes in chilling words in Barth's sharp, biting polemic against those who would dismiss him as a "crypto-Catholic":

"Shall I rather bemoan the constantly increasing confusion, tedium and irrelevance of modern Protestantism, which, probably along with the Trinity and the Virgin Birth, has lost an entire third dimension -- the dimension of what for once . . . we may describe as mystery--with the result that it has been punished with all kinds of worthless substitutes, that it has fallen the more readily victim to such uneasy cliques and sects as High Church, German Church, Christian Community and religious Socialism, and that many of its preachers and adherents have finally learned to discover deep religious significance in the intoxication of Nordic blood and their political Fuehrer? . . . I can only ignore the objection and rumour that I am catholicising, and in face of the enemy repeat the more emphatically and expressly whatever has been deplored in my book in this respect. It is precisely to this disputed aspect that I am of particularly good courage and sure of my cause" (emphasis mine, p. xiv).

It is thus Barth the catholic who seeks to write his dogmatics free of any moral or political ideology of the age that he might discover in order to make the gospel relevant. Barth had no need to write a "Barthian" theology at all: "The community in and for which I have written it is that of the Church and not a community of theological endeavour. Of course, there is within the Church an Evangelical theology which is to be affirmed and a heretical non-theology which is to be resolutely denied. But I rejoice in concreto I neither know nor have to know who stands where, so that I can serve a cause and not a party, and mark off myself from a cause and not a party, not working either for or against persons. Thus I can be free in relation to both ostensible and true neighbours, and responsible on earth only to the Church" (p.15).

Barth recognized the importance of his commitment to the evangelical, catholic, and orthodox church, even in the face of opposition from "the present-day authorities of the Church" (p. xv) amidst political and moral pressures building within the European culture. Barth's words again sound profoundly relevant for us today: "I am firmly convinced that, especially in the broad field of politics, we cannot reach the clarifications which are necessary to-day, and on which theology might have a word to say, as indeed it ought to have, without first reaching the comprehensive clarifications in and about theology which are our present concern. I believe that it is expected of the Church and its theology . . . that it should keep precisely to the rhythm of its own relevant concerns, and thus consider well what are the real needs of the day by which its own programme should be directed. I have found by experience that in the last resort the man in the street who is so highly respected by many eccleisastics and theologians will really take notice of us when we do not worry about what he expects of us but do what we are charged to do. I believe in fact that . . . a better Church dogmatics might well be finally a more significant and solid contribution than most of the well-meant stuff which even so many theologians think in dilettante fashion that they can and should supply in relation to these questions and tasks" (p. xvi).

Barth concludes with a personal world, seemingly trying to convince himself in face of secular, ecclesial, and personal antagonism to his task, that the endeavor on which he was embarking was worth the effort: "For these reasons I hold myself forbidden to be discouraged" (p. xvi).

"For these reasons I hold myself forbidden to be discouraged." I often say such words to myself. Barth's words in his Preface remind me of Gabriel's words to Mary in the Gospel of Luke: "The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:30-33). Mary's response is the response of the church, all the faithful when confronted with our true life's task whether it be in technically thinking the faith given to the saints in a Church Dogmatics, proclaiming the gospel to a congregation or an unbelieving world, or participating in the life of a congregation and/or parish in receiving the Word, participating in the Sacraments, and engaging in the Works of Mercy amidst the patterns of our daily life: "Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your Word" (Luke 1:38).