From the beginning of his career, Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1969) was often in conflict with the spirit of his times. While during the First World War German poets and philosophers became intoxicated by the experience of community and transcendence, Barth fought against all attempts to locate the divine in culture or individual sentiment. This freed him for a deep worldly engagement: he was known as "the red pastor," was the primary author of the founding document of the Confessing Church, the Barmen Theological Declaration, and after 1945 protested the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany. Christiane Tietz compellingly explores the interactions between Barth's personal and political biography and his theology. Numerous newly-available documents offer insight into the lesser-known sides of Barth such as his long-term three-way relationship with his wife Nelly and his colleague Charlotte von Kirschbaum. This is an evocative portrait of a theologian who described himself as '"God's cheerful partisan"' who was honored as a prophet and a genial spirit, was feared as a critic, and shaped the theology of an entire century as no other thinker.

Barth stands before us as the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, yet the massive corpus of work which he left behind, the multi volume Church Dogmatics, can seem daunting and formidable to readers today. Fortunately his Dogmatics in Outline first published in English in 1949, contains in brilliantly concentrated form even in shorthand, the essential tenets of his thinking. Built around the assertions made in the Apostles Creed the book consists of a series of reflections on the foundation stones of Christian doctrine. Because Dogmatics in Outline derives from very particular circumstances namely the lectures Barth gave in war-shattered Germany in 1946, it has an urgency and a compassion which lend the text a powerful simplicity. Despite its brevity the book makes a tremendous impact, which in this new edition will now be felt by a fresh generation of readers.

The thought of Karl Barth (1886-1968) has undergone a remarkable renewal of interest in the past twenty years. Joseph Mangina's Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness offers a concise, accessible guide to this important Christian thinker. Unique among introductions to Barth, it also highlights his significance for Christian ecumenism. The first chapter describes Barth's extraordinary life, from his youthful break with liberalism during the First World War to his mature theology in the Church Dogmatics. Subsequent chapters offer a detailed reading of this magisterial work and place Barth in dialogue with five contemporary thinkers: George Lindbeck on Revelation. Michael Wyschogrod on Election, Stanley Hauerwas on Creation, Robert Jenson on Reconciliation, and Henri de Lubac on the Church. These ecumenical conversations not only set Barth's thinking in greater relief but serve to demonstrate its continuing theological fruitfulness. The book concludes by examining Barth's wider significance for the church in our time.

A brand new edition of Karl Barth's seminal essays, first published in 1924. Courses in Systematic Theology, Historical Theology, 20th Century Theology, Karl Barth, Reformed Theology, Protestant Theology

These three essays show how Karl Barth's later work moved beyond his revolt against the theology dominant in the first decades of this century.

This book takes us behind prison bars--to hear powerful, simple, direct sermons by the man widely known as the twentieth century's most influential theologian. Originally delivered to inmates of the prison in Basel, Switzerland, these sermons shine with Karl Barth's thought and exaltation of the living Christ. Including sermons on the great feasts of the Christian year such as Christmas and Easter, Deliverance to the Captives offers new hope powerfully phrased, and a wide entry into the thought of a supreme theologian.