Rudolf Bultmann as Theologian of Radical Trust in the Gospel

Abstract

Rudolf Bultmann preached the Gospel to an age he believed could no longer accept the mythical worldview of the Bible. He stripped away the mythical wrappings surrounding the Christ event in the New Testament, in order to proclaim the kernel of the Gospel message existentially. Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation of the Gospel kerygma centers on trusting God rather than the false stumbling block of biblical literalism and has important implications for Christian faith today. This essay interprets Bultmann’s hermeneutic in relation to Martin Luther’s theology of the cross to argue that the Marburg professor’s work continues to be an asset to the Lutheran tradition.