In Challenging the Stereotype, Glenn A. Chestnutt suggests that Karl Barth's engagement with non-Christian religions has been misclassified as displaying a form of exclusivism. With the concrete example of Islam in the European context as his background, Chestnutt innovatively aims to establish Barth's theology as a framework for inter-religious collaboration.
The book can be divided into three main parts. In the first part (chapters 1–2), Chestnutt sets up his argument against the common understanding of Barth as an exclusivist, i.e. expressing a thoroughly negative attitude to everything outside the Christian religion. For this purpose he examines the development of the concept of religion in general in Barth's writings (chapter 1), and moves subsequently more concretely to Barth's understanding of Islam (chapter 2).
The second part (chapters 3 and 4) focuses on a detailed exposition of truth which can be discovered extra muros ecclesiae §69 of Barth's Church Dogmatics, examining two of the central concepts of this paragraph, i.e. secular parables of the kingdom (chapter 3), and the little lights of creation (chapter 4). Chestnutt discusses the criteria under which the Christian church can receive words from other religions as well as the secular sphere as witness to the revelation of God in chapter 3. Chapter 4, by contrast, examines the lights of creation which only relate indirectly to the light of Jesus Christ, stressing that the just state can be considered as one of these lights.
The third and final part (chapters 5 and 6) turns to the concrete example of Islam by examining the historical development of Islam in the European context and how Barth's theology can speak to the growing influence of Islam (chapter 5). In chapter 6, Chestnutt establishes a conversation between the works of Barth and the contemporary Muslim thinker Tariq Ramadan, arguing that the Christian church can gain valuable insights by engaging with the thought of people such as Ramadan on a whole variety of levels.
Overall, Challenging the Stereotype offers the beginning of much needed revision of the perception of Barth's work as being indifferent, even intolerant towards non-Christian religions. While this starting point is expounded well within the early parts of the book, I have nonetheless a few reservations: first, there are a number of ‘loose ends’ throughout the work which are not followed through. These include, for example, Chestnutt's argument for a broader analysis of Barth's theology as resource of inter-religious dialogue. While this point is made repeatedly (cf. e.g. pp. 10, 35, 113, 176), Chestnutt nonetheless only offers an analysis of Barth's concept of religion, as well as an argument for Barth's doctrine of revelation to be reinterpreted. However, while other areas of Barth's theology (for example, his theological anthropology or his doctrine of election) are mentioned, they are bypassed. Another example is the argument for Barth's plan for the development of a pneumatological theology of religions (cf. p. 174), yet it remains unclear what role Chestnutt assigns to the Holy Spirit in his own argument for a revision of Barth's theology. Second, and more briefly, one might criticise Chestnutt for an occasional over-reliance on secondary material. At times, this causes Chestnutt to lose independence in his argument and diminishes to a degree the value of his own line of reasoning.
Nonetheless, Challenging the Stereotype is a valuable argument against the common misconception which tries to disqualify Barth's theology as unfit for an interreligious context, especially in contemporary twenty-first-century society characterised by coexistence of different religions. This is also due to the innovative character of establishing a dialogue between Barth and Ramadan and including the suggestion that the church can make common cause with Ramadan on the war against terrorism. Though it might have been desirable to see Chestnutt push some of the points of his argument further, he offers with this book an important opening for a new perspective on Barth's work which deserves the attention of Barth scholars and scholars in the field of theology of religions.
