The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth presents an array of perspectives on Barth's theology and its past and present significance, which are as diverse and creative as the field itself. This is what the editors had in mind, reflecting the “admirably uncategorizable thinker” in the expansiveness of their volume (1). The book splendidly captures the current vibrancy of the field, with forty-two chapters, including contributions from most of the top scholars in Barth studies.
The work is divided into three sections: “Contextualizing Barth,” “Dogmatic Loci,” and “Thinking after Barth.” The first section provides an impressive three-part intellectual and personal biography by three different contributors. These essays offer detailed and carefully documented windows into Barth's theological and political engagement. Scholars would not expect that any new light could be shed on Barth's break with liberal Protestantism at the outbreak of the Great War or on his involvement in the German church struggle two decades later, given the sheer number of times these histories have been recounted. Yet, chapters by Frank Jehle, Eberhard Busch, and Hans-Anton Drewes—which draw heavily upon writings from Barth's collected works and personal correspondence not yet available in English—prove that there are still new insights to be gleaned from a deeper engagement with Barth's historical context.
These biographical essays are followed by a series of chapters situating Barth's theology in relation to broader theological movements. The chapters vary in approach, with some virtually confined to Barth's own perspective on a given stream of the theological tradition and others taking pains to interrogate Barth's outlook on a given stream, exposing both its importance and its limitations. The latter category includes a chapter by Adam Eitel on the limits of Barth's reading of medieval theology, a chapter by Randall Zachman on what Barth drew from the Reformers and what he rejected, and a chapter by Christophe Chalamet on both the discontinuities and the continuities between Barth and Liberal Protestantism. The value of these essays goes beyond an encyclopedic introduction to Barth's thought on X. Each would be beneficial for use in the classroom because they provoke reflection on the value of Barth's theological judgments not only in his time, but in ours.
The second section of the volume is devoted to explorations of Barth's thought on major theological doctrines. It offers rich analyses from top Barth scholars, such as George Hunsinger, Bruce McCormack, and Kate Sonderegger, each with their distinctive powers of theological analysis on full display. The opening essay by Christoph Schwöbel, “The Tasks of Theology,” is a particular highlight. It not only synthesizes the development of Barth's account of theology as a discipline but provides an invaluable reading guide through relevant texts across the breadth of his career.
The third and final section turns toward new vistas for engagement with Barth's thought in ways that move beyond the scope of his work. A chapter by Willie James Jennings offers the beginnings of a much-needed racial analysis of Barth's theology, exploring the ways Barth was formed intellectually by a “world of whiteness” (499). In her chapter, “Barth and Gender,” Faye Bodley-Dangelo subverts Barth's ordering of the genders by leveraging his Christocentric account of human agency. Joshua Ralston critically appropriates Barth's theology for interreligious dialogue by decentering the category of “religion” in favor of the question of divine revelation. The essays in this section would be particularly useful in graduate-level theology courses that aim to foster responsible constructive repurposing of strands of the theological tradition, of which Barth is one voice among many.
The editors of this volume have succeeded admirably in their aim to present the array of interpretations and uses of Barth's theology, without either “impos[ing]” a false unity on Barth studies or “licens[ing] interpretive chaos” (5). One of the gifts to those who undertake a reading of the whole is the discovery of constructive overlap among the perspectives contained within. One finds illuminating convergences between the accounts of Barth's intellectual development found in chapters by Busch and Schwöbel, different avenues to approaching Barth's complexity on issues such as race and gender in chapters by Jennings and Bodley-Dangelo, and varied perspectives on the importance and value of Barth's account of the Christian life in chapters by Joseph Mangina, Cynthia Rigby, and Gerald McKenny. The result is a volume that will assist a new generation of students to find their way into Barth's oeuvre and into the creative trajectories of his thought for our day.
