Videos of the week

You will need broadband for these gems. (The links go to web pages, though.)

This stunt is fantastic - I'll never think about the journey from Buchanan St to St Enoch Sq in quite the same way again. (HT: Varwell)

Here is a nice short about a very strange affair in the personal life of Karl Barth. (HT: Ben Myers)

I've read Charlotte Von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology, and I've dipped into Busch's biography of Barth. The thing that I find so astonishing about the story is that people argue over the question of 'Did they, or didn't they?' My answer: it doesn't matter!

We know enough to say that Barth's marriage was perhaps not a sham, but it was certainly open. Not open in the conventional sense - but Barth served his own interests rather than his obligations to his wife and family. Emotional adultery. His dedication to theology and Lotte led to inordinate suffering in his family, and it appears that Lotte herself felt some pain throughout her dedication to Barth. I don't think she ever married.

So, is Barth a lesson to us, perhaps? We can do all the theological thinking and writing we want. But dedication to a cause, nevermind another individual, can never make amends for the failure to love our closest family members. We will be judged by our actions as much as our (theological) words.