Christian Existentialism – What Does This Mean?

Very few Christian Existentialists argued for the Bible to be understood as factual history. Thanks to what came before in the time of the Enlightenment, they believed that Biblical history is uncertain and unimportant, yet it stands “as a model or type or myth to be made present and lived is of supreme importance.” (James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 139). Christian existentialism lost interest in the facticity of the Bible, and religious implications became the only conclusion that mattered.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event recorded in the Bible, but many question whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead at all. Barth believes the resurrection of Jesus took place in space and time. Rudolph Bultmann did not, saying the resurrection was “utterly inconceivable.” (Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, 39) However, this is not a problem for the radical existentialist. Preaching the religious implications of the text is not concerned with the historical facticity of any particular event. Speaking of Jesus and the Christian faith Bultmann writes:

“But Christian faith did not exist until there was a Christian kerygma; i.e., a kerygma proclaiming Jesus Christ—specifically Jesus Christ the Crucified and Risen One—to be God’s eschatological act of salvation. He was first so proclaimed in the kerygma of the earliest Church, not in the message of the historical Jesus, even though that Church frequently introduced into its account of Jesus’ messages, motifs of its own proclamation. Thus, theological thinking –the theology of the New Testament—begins with the kerygma of the earliest Church and not before.” (Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 3)

He taught that it is not that the resurrection itself that is important, but how the preaching of it transforms the lives of the hearers. Ultimately, Biblical events are nothing more than symbols that help convey some meaning, and should not be taken literally. This is the form of allegory that should be avoided at all costs because the matter of a foundation of faith is at risk. When the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus is detached from its history, the preaching of the apostles and early church is also abandoned and all the treasures they extended to the church are lost.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO