In my reading of Barth, I have skimmed or skipped many of the lengthy footnotes, which is sometimes a mistake, because his footnotes are sometimes the most interesting portion of his text. Far from being an academic in an ivory tower, Barth always has an eye on church practice, especially preaching, and he buries his cultural observations about the church in the footnotes. Like this one about American churches:

The American sermon is seldom Biblical and expository. Its reference o the Scripture is in the majority of cases casual or superficial. It deals generally with “religious” topics …. But perhaps even in America there is at least a dim recollection that the preaching of the Church might stand in some sort of special connexion with the bible. And even there it will surely happen some day that “religious” topics will become so stupid and stale that the dim recollection might become once again a clear recollection. (CD I/1 254)

Perhaps our preaching has gotten better in the 70 odd years since this was written, perhaps preaching, on the whole, is more exegetical. Certainly America’s evangelical seminaries have worked hard to emphasize the importance of exegetical preaching. But, perusing the bestseller’s list at CBD suggests that this exegetical urge hasn’t leavened the whole lump. Here are some titles:  

“So Long, Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us” ”What on Earth Am I Here For?” “Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear”

Each of these books are written by authors you would recognize as mainstays of the Christian book industry. Just from these titles it looks like Spirituality is pretty much the same as self-help, except with a little God thrown in. About my well being, about my feelings of security or my boundaries, about making my leadership skills or my business run like Jesus the CEO of the universe would run it - or is he the co-CEO? So much of our spirituality is about me and about what happens inside of me. The core of the spiritual life happens to be located about the same place as the seat of my desires. This point is hammered home by another title, or set of titles, on CBD’s bestseller list: “The Me I Want to Be,” available with four different color covers, to suit anyone’s taste.

This is a theme of Barth’s: that the church engage scripture, but not so that we can get something from it, not in such a way that our reading of the word becomes mostly about us. But most of the time, it seems, we are looking to get something from Scripture:  We want to make our marriages better, have a closer relationship with God, feel at peace, Be better at Praying, or worse, looking for the biblical way to lose weight. We bring these needs to the Bible expecting answers and solutions.  In his essay, “The Word of God and the Word of Man” he writes of the strange new world of the Bible:

The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves to him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham’s spiritual children and which he has sealed once and for all in Jesus Christ.  It is this which is written in the Bible.  The word of God is within the Bible.

That is, we approach the Bible expecting to be confronted by the word of God, a word that is not controllable and that may want to address other things than our questions. We approach the Bible as a supplicant, waiting and expecting to hear God address us.