Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001)
Article: What Has Vienna To Do With Jerusalem? Barth, Brahms, And Bernstein’s Unanswered Question
Author: Kevin J. Vanhoozer

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WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001) p. 123

What Has Vienna To Do With Jerusalem?
Barth, Brahms, And Bernstein’s Unanswered Question

Kevin Vanhoozera

I. Theology and the Arts: Some Unanswered Questions

What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem, reason with faith, philosophy with theology? This question, first posed by Tertullian, the father of Latin theology, at the end of the second century, was meant to be rhetorical: intellectual speculation in his view has nothing to do with revelation—the knowledge of God that comes from God. Tertullian’s question, if not his answer, has proved to be a fruitful one across the centuries, provoking stimulating discussions and, not least, inspiring the title of the Festschrift for Cornelius Van Til.

1. Vienna as metaphor of music

My concern in this article, however, is different. It has to do with the relation of faith and the arts, in particular, with classical music. What does Vienna—a city with three centuries of ties to composers, from Mozart to Mahler—have to do with Jerusalem? What do the three B’s—Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms—have do to with their theological counterparts: Barth, Bultmann, and Brunner? Vienna is an apt metaphor not only for classical music but for Western culture and aesthetics in general; for the various styles of music in Vienna constitute aural illustrations of the intellectual and spiritual history of Europe.

Vienna continues to be associated with classical music, particularly the waltz, and the concerts of Johann Strauss, Jr., that, thanks to PBS, traditionally ring in the New Year. Waltzes such as “Vienna Life” perfectly convey the culture of nineteenth-century Viennese bourgeois society: all sweetness and light, giddiness and froth, the lightness of being bubbling up from the bottom of a glass of champagne. Strauss’s music expresses and reinforces the Zeitgeist of his day. He wrote music for dancing one’s cares away, music that expresses the shallow joy of the leisured class. Strauss’s music is enjoyable, to be sure, but it lacks prophetic power. His music is entertaining, but of no great consequence.1 Some culture critics would go further. Karl Marx, one of the so-called masters of suspicion, might

WTJ 63:1 (Spring 2001) p. 124

well have applied what he said about religion to music too: it is the opiate of the people.

In 1908, another Viennese composer, Arnold Schoenberg, abandoned his attempt to preserve tonality (e.g., writing in a particular tonal “key”) in music.2 His Op. 11 (“Three Piano Pieces”), written only nine years after J...

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