We need to be reminded that neo-orthodoxy shares with theological liberalism the bias of unbelief which is manifested by their embrace of higher criticism.  Higher criticism treats the Bible as a fallible product of man, not as the God-breathed infallible book it claims to be.  

For example: Jesus credits Moses with the writing of the first five books of the Old Testament, but higher criticism assigns their authorship to four different authors designated as J, E, D & P.   The Lord endorses Genesis chapter three as historical and literal, but it is regarded by higher criticism as mythological.  

Higher criticism presupposes that no one can miraculously forecast what is to come (not even God), so they alter well established dates in order to have the fulfillment of prophesies occur after the forecast and not before.   Although it takes greater faith to believe this, the universal flood (which covered the mountains), is passed off as a local flood.   In these ways higher criticism explains away the supernatural and miraculous. 

Charles Ryrie, in his book on neo-orthodoxy, uses the term “destructive criticism” to describe what is referred to here as higher criticism.  Destructive criticism does exactly that.  It trys to destroy the credibility of Scripture.

Neo-orthodoxy fully embraces the destructive practices of higher criticism while attempting to construct a theology that has no credibility without the Scripture.  This is the Barthian’s great bias against the truth of the Bible and yet they fully insist that they are the true advocates of Christianity.  

If the accounts of Scripture and the words of Jesus Christ are not credible facts, what is left to build on?  The absurdity of neo-orthodoxy is that they have an answer, but by their own admission they have nothing credible to base it on.  

The three main voices of neo-orthodoxy are the Protestant theologians Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s name can hardly be mentioned without including the name of Karl Barth who influenced Bonhoeffer more than any other theologian.  Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazis for his part in an assassination plot against Hitler.  He was brutally hanged shortly before the Allies liberated his place of imprisonment.

Many hail Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a Christian martyr.  Bonhoeffer was martyred for a cause no doubt,  but if he was indeed neo-orthodox, that cause was not Bible believing Christianity.

•  Can one deny the words of Christ and still retain enough of His integrity to call Him the Saviour of the world or the Son of God?  

Jesus said, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and these are they which testify of me.  And ye will not come to me that ye might have life.”  John 5:39 & 40

Speaking again in John 6:63, Jesus says; “………the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

• Can one deny or ignore the literal, historical, and miraculous event of the resurrection of Christ and still have enough objective evidence to retain the integrity of Christianity?

Paul challenged this position by asking, “………how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” 

“Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.” 

“And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.”  

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” I Corinthians 15:12b-19

Note:

• If Christian theology is not based on objective historical accounts as recorded in the Bible, then Christianity has no credibility and any man’s religious imagination becomes as good as the next man’s.
• If you are an unbeliever, you cannot just blow this off, agree with neo-orthodoxy, and call it good.  There is too much at stake to just ignore the claims of the Scriptures, as well as its track record for accuracy and the changed lives of believers world wide throughout history, without a thorough investigation.  If you do blow it off and it is true, then you lose………for eternity.  There is no coming back.  
• Don’t  take my word for it.  Do your own investigation concerning the truth of the Bible and be honest about it.