A 20th-century Protestant theological movement that sought to recover traditional Christian teachings while accepting modern biblical criticism. Led by figures like Karl Barth, it emphasized God's transcendence and the authority of scripture without requiring literal interpretation.
Coined from Greek 'neos' (new) and 'orthodoxos' (right belief), the term emerged in the 1930s to describe a 'third way' between fundamentalism and liberalism. The movement developed as a response to both the perceived failures of liberal theology and the rise of secular ideologies.
Neo-orthodoxy was born from the trenches of World War I when young theologian Karl Barth witnessed the horrors of modern warfare and declared that liberal optimism about human progress was utterly bankrupt! This 'crisis theology' revolutionized 20th-century Christianity by insisting that God was 'wholly other' and could only be known through divine revelation, not human reason.
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