Angela Dienhart Hancock's focused study of Karl Barth's ‘Exercises in sermon preparation’ (Übungen in der Predigtvorbereitung), which he held at Bonn during the 1932–3 academic year, and thus on the cusp of the Third Reich, is a fascinating work of theological scholarship. It is particularly valuable for the manner in which the author interweaves scrupulous analysis of the sermon exercises with detailed summary of the broader political and cultural context. Hancock argues that Barth's ‘preaching classroom became a place of resistance in Germany in the firestorm of 1932–33’ (p. xiv). Crucial to this argument is Barth's reason for holding the exercises in the first place. An older, more established colleague at Bonn, Emil Pfennigsdorf, was responsible for teaching courses in practical theology, including homiletics. Though he wrote to Pfennigsdorf in advance to notify him of his intentions, Barth nevertheless broke with academic protocol by holding the exercises at all. Hancock argues convincingly that one powerful reason that Barth did so was his desire to offer to his students, as a counterpoint to Pfennigsdorf's conservative, nationalist and völkisch views, a more critical approach to culture and politics (pp. 89–90), one grounded in theological humility, repentance and dependence on the Word of God (pp. 73–4).

Hancock demonstrates that Barth rejected the strains of political theology and ‘orders of creation’ teaching propounded most notably by Paul Althaus and shared by most German Protestants in the waning years of the Weimar Republic. She also shows that Barth's stress on the ‘Godness of God’ and the centrality of the Word of God did not necessitate an apolitical stance and a rejection of ‘civil courage’. In fact, Barth encouraged the latter. He also challenged the ‘underlying dynamics’ at work in German society at the time, including ‘idolatrous nationalism and its corresponding inhumanity’ as well as ‘the legitimation of violence’ (pp. 61–2). Yet the author's contention, repeated several times in the book, that Barth's approach to preaching in the exercises constituted ‘resistance’ (or encouraged the same in his students) is somewhat problematic. In the historical literature on resistance during the Third Reich, most definitions of resistance include rhetoric or activity aimed at overthrowing the Nazi regime. Barth's personal disdain for National Socialism and his call for ‘civil courage’ at this crucial juncture might better be described as opposition or dissent rather than resistance. Yet – here in 1932 and 1933 – he also resolutely refused to replace the Nazi ‘revolution’ with some other kind of political revolution. Barth's subsequent rhetoric, including his qualified support in 1938 for Czech resistance to Nazi incursion on their soil, together with his support for various Swiss refugee and German resistance groups as well as the war against Nazi Germany, no doubt constituted resistance. But it is difficult to categorise as resistance his challenges in 1933 to destructive undercurrents in German culture and politics, laudable as they were. Despite this caveat, this excellent work significantly deepens our knowledge of Barth's contributions to practical theology. It is a welcome and unique addition to the literature on Barth.