About Karl Barth

The distinctive features of Karl Barth’s theology remain the subject of considerable debate and ongoing investigation. But some widely agreed upon features can be acknowledged.

Before it was anything else, Barth’s theology was a theology of the Word of God. The Word of God is, he maintained in the early years of his work on Christian dogmatics (in the 1920s and on into the 1930s), an address; a speaking of divine Person with human persons. But this theology of the Word is also “dialectical theology” – because the Word itself is never more than indirectly available to its human addressees. The Word of God comes to human beings in three “forms”: the humanity of Christ, the words of the prophets and the apostles (i.e. the canonical Scriptures) and the words of preachers. But the “forms” of revelation – even the humanity of Christ – are not “divinized” through God’s use of them in revealing God’s Self. And for that reason, revelation must never be directly identified with the “forms” through which it is divinely mediated. Put another way, revelation is never an “object” which is directly perceptible to human sensory activity (whether sight or hearing), even though God gives God’s Self to be known through “objects” of God’s own choosing. Revelation takes place in a “hiddenness” which is a function of the modality of God’s Self-revelation. To describe revelation in this way is to understand it as “dis-possessive.” The revelation of the Christian God cannot be taken under the control and management of human beings and made to serve the purposes established by human persons. Barth would continue to emphasize the hiddenness of revelation and its “dis-possessive” character throughout his life because he never ceased to be concerned with attending to the freedom of God.

In the early phases of its development, Barth’s theology was “Reformed” theology. That is to say, it stood self-consciously in that stream of the Reformation whose originating impulses were given by Huldrych Zwingli in Zürich and John Calvin in Geneva. Barth understood himself as accountable to this Reformed tradition in his efforts to further develop and think beyond it. A turning-point of sorts came with his massive revision of the classical Reformed doctrine of “double predestination” in Church Dogmatics II/2 (completed in the winter semester of 1941/1942 while teaching at the University of Basel). Barth’s revision consisted, above all, in the thesis that God elected God’s Self for “reprobation” (i.e. for the experience of the definitive destruction of sin and death in union with Jesus Christ) and salvation and blessing for all others. In taking this step, Barth had turned “double predestination” into good news, a message of hope for all humanity. Barth had also ceased to be only or merely “Reformed” and had become a “doctor of the church” for all the churches with his new and revolutionary understanding of the doctrine of election.

Barth’s mature theology is characterized by the belief that the reconciling activity of God is already effective in being performed. That is to say, what Jesus Christ accomplishes is not merely the possibility of human salvation – a possibility which is turned into actuality only at the point at which the Holy Spirit awakens an individual to faith and obedience (one individual at a time) – but its reality. Put another way, the justification, sanctification, and vocation of the Christian to discipleship are already effective for all “in Christ.” To be awakened to faith and obedience is to be awakened to our true identity in Him.

Also characteristic of Barth’s mature theology is the belief that the Church is gathered and built up in faith only in order to be sent into the world, to be a blessing to the nations by witnessing to God’s reconciling of the world to Godself in Jesus Christ. Not surprisingly, the Christian rites of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are treated under the heading of the “ethics of reconciliation” (rather than as sacraments) because they belong to the missional activity of the church. The Christian rites are performed at the point of transition from the upbuilding to the sending of the community of believers. The result is a conception of the Church that exists not for its own sake but in the world and for the world; not turned in on itself but constantly reaching out and forward.

—Written by Bruce McCormack and Kaitlyn Dugan

The following is a new English translation of Martin Schwartz’s Karl Barth in der Strafanstalt detailing Barth’s ministry preaching in the Basel prison from 1954-1964. This excerpt provides a glimpse into the profound pastoral care that Barth had for the individuals in the Basel prison and his unwavering commitment to preach the gospel of God’s Yes to humanity.

In 1954–1964 Karl Barth held 27 preaching services in the Basel Penitentiary. Of these services, he held 5 during Advent and Christmas, 5 on New Year’s Eve, 2 on Good Friday, 4 on Easter, 1 on Ascension Day, 1 on Pentecost, and 9 on Sundays. In 16 services, he conducted the Lord’s Supper with the prisoners. The sermons were based on 13 OT and 14 NT texts. 24 sermon texts were limited to one Bible verse each, and 3 to two Bible verses each.

The 27 sermons and accompanying prayers are available in two volumes, both typeset and printed in the printery of the Basel Penitentiary by the prisoners who were employed in this business, and published by the Evangelischer Verlag Zurich [TN: if you want to give this an approximate English translation rather than leave it, you would say “Protestant Publishing House Zurich”]. The first of these sermon volumes, “Den Gefangenen Befreiung” (“Liberation for the Prisoners/Captives”), was published in 1959 and contains the 15 sermons from the years 1954–1959; the second volume, “Rufe mich an” (“Call on Me”), was published in 1965 and contains the 12 other sermons. One of the 27 sermons is recorded on a gramophone record, which was also released by the Evangelischer Verlag Zurich. The record conveys, along with the sermon, the whole service held by Karl Barth.

Another preaching service, held by Karl Barth on Christmas Eve 1963, was broadcast by Süddeutscher Rundfunk [TN: Southern German Broadcast Radio] and Schweizerischer Rundspruch [TN: Swiss Radio] and could be heard, directly transmitted from the penitentiary, over the radio stations of Stuttgart and Beromünster. Long before the first volume of his prison sermons appeared in bookstores during Christmas 1959, it had already become widely known that Karl Barth occasionally held services and preached to the prisoners in the Basel Penitentiary. After his first sermons there in 1954, the news had spread by word of mouth and in writing. It was known inside and outside the churches in the West and East of Europe, but also in the North and South of Africa and America, in India and Japan, Indonesia and Australia. Everyone who heard about it, Christian or non-Christian, was astonished and amazed or joyfully surprised. There certainly were people who remained perplexed or found it questionable that the old Karl Barth had chosen such a place and such a congregation for his sermons and, as it was said, loved it. There were also people who more or less mischievously and seriously wondered and asked how they could become delinquents in the cantonal territory of Basel in order to be able to hear Karl Barth preach. Of course, most of those who heard about it understood immediately why Karl Barth was preaching precisely at this place and to this congregation.

Karl Barth always preached during his academic teaching career. His readiness to do so was always characteristic of him and his theology. There have been attempts to interpret and explain this by saying that Karl Barth wanted to test his theology in the sermon in front of the congregation for its proof and validity. But what is characteristic about his sermons and his willingness to do so must be seen in the fact that his theology drove and compelled him to preach to the concrete congregation. Since in his theology he knew himself called and compelled by the Gospel to preach and proclaim, he never stopped preaching. This is also the angle from which we must understand the equally characteristic fact for Karl Barth and his theology that from 1954 to 1964, i.e. for ten years, he preached almost exclusively in the services of a congregation in a prison or correctional facility. Even his reaction to the request addressed to him for the first of his prison sermons was characteristic of him. The request was submitted to Karl Barth with the brief remark and the brief justification that he would be able to say to the people in prison, who were critical but extremely alert and attentive listeners to sermons, just what they needed and could understand. I reminded him of his own words, which he had given me in a letter (11 Aug 1950) at the beginning of my work “as a pastor of those who have been judicially declared suspect or guilty and subject to punishment, who are probably not even the worst among the rest of us, and it is a good thing in any case to know that we stand in solidarity with them.” In response to the request for a sermon in the penitentiary, Karl Barth evidently reacted at that time with reservation, by no means excitedly and readily. Without making a commitment, he left the answer open. And yet the request must have struck him and never let go. In any case, a few hours later he asked whether he could participate in the Sunday service in the penitentiary the next day. In the early morning of that Sunday he came and sat behind the prisoners during the service. He could be heard singing the songs loudly and audibly, but he could also be heard breathing strongly and deeply occasionally during the sermon, just as he used to do when listening to a conversation or a lecture, if he did not agree with what was said and had to air his discomfort. So it was hardly the sermon he heard, but much more the direct fellowship with the small preaching congregation that caused him after the service to spontaneously and joyfully agree to a first sermon on the following Sunday. After the first preaching service that Karl Barth held for the prisoners, it was and remained characteristic that he never had to be asked again, but himself asked each time if and when he could come again and preach to the prisoners. What drove him again and again to come and preach to this congregation? Did he come only because he knew that none of those who came outside to hear the famous Karl Barth would come to the service? He was glad to know this, but it was not the decisive reason for his coming and preaching. It was rather because it was precisely in this place of preaching that he became conscious of and clear about the solidarity of the Gospel with what it is to be human.

What did Karl Barth have to say in his sermons to people who had been convicted of crimes, who had been sentenced to prison and penitentiary, who were alienated from the church? Each time he prepared himself meticulously for what he had to say to them in his sermons. And yet each time he came to the service worried whether his sermon would share the Gospel in such a way that the good news could be heard and understood. He never confronted his listeners with their unchurchedness or unbelief, but always and only with the statement and promise of the Gospel, that is, with what God has done through Jesus Christ for the world, human beings, even for them, the convicted and condemned, and which applies for each and every one of them. In his sermons, Karl Barth proclaimed the Gospel in such a realistic, pastoral, encouraging, and liberating way that each one, in his personal situation and in his human circumstances, was confronted with the promise and the offer of the Gospel and was drawn in by it. How Karl Barth’s sermons were received by and resonated among the prisoners was evident not only in the listening during the service, but just as clearly afterwards: in the conversation of the prisoners among themselves during their walk or at the weekly group discussion evenings with the prison pastor or even in conversation with relatives during the visiting hours or in letters that the prisoners wrote home or even to Karl Barth himself, or, as it also happened, in the fact that long-time prisoners visited Karl Barth at home or in the hospital on their vacation day or after their release. It has already been mentioned that those who listen to sermons in a prison congregation are critical and at the same time awake and alert. Critical, because in such a place one rejects everything that is unreal, untrue, half-true, or cheaply comforting. And awake and alert, so that one is able to distinguish between real and fake, between naked truth and euphemistic lies, between real consolation and empty reassurance. For the real and true, even if it may be hard, one is open and receptive, one says yes to it, acknowledges it, accepts it. This was the case with Karl Barth’s sermons. They were accepted because people realized: here nothing is being glossed over or excused, there are no reproaches, no cheap admonitions, here one is not being preached at, but rather one is confronted with the truth of the gospel, with the forgiveness of guilt, with humanity and fellow human beings, and here one is allowed to become human and a fellow human being. So it was with the sermons of Karl Barth. But so too it was with his praying before and after each of his sermons. When it came to the prayers, one was not simply prayed at, rather one was taken into them and could pray along with them. Of these prayers before and after the sermons, Karl Barth himself says in his preface to the first volume of sermons that the prayers were at least as important to him in preparing and conducting the services as the sermons themselves.

Karl Barth did not come to the penitentiary only to preach. He also came to group discussion evenings, where he answered questions the prisoners addressed to him in writing and orally. In the process, he would reach behind the individual questions, so to speak, and place the questioners with their question in front of the question posed to them by the Gospel itself. As with the sermon, so it was with Karl Barth’s answering the questions: each one knew that he had been directly addressed and encountered, but also understood and encouraged. There were years in which Karl Barth went to the penitentiary during the vacation season to visit certain long-time prisoners in their cell. He did this quite spontaneously in each case. Just as spontaneously, he then reported in letters about his visits and the conversations he heard and had during them, and the impressions and experiences he had. From these letters the following is quoted here:

1 Aug 1955. “I really like to go there, feel somehow in solidarity with these men, am moved as I listen to them [TN, or: enthusiastically listen to them] and if I can say something to one or the other that is helpful to him, that is also fine for me. So yesterday, Sunday morning I went straight to P. Perhaps I also met him at a particularly good hour: in any case, he greeted me with obviously sincere joy, then immediately began, not without demonstrating his knowledge of the Bible, to talk about the Lord’s Supper, and then went into an extensive report, sustained by strong emotions, about the story of his life up to that shooting, and beyond that, about his experiences with x, but at the end he became really cheerful again, so that I actually did not recognize the man who acted so despairingly on Easter morning, although he explicitly came back to that incident. Maybe I actually have become something like an optimist or even a walking representation of the false doctrine of the apokatastasis panton, so that I have not yet been able to leave any of these men simply shaking my head and saddened, but rather I have thought that I have seen something in each of them that has encouraged and gladdened me? Am I listening to too much Mozart? But Mozart was not an optimist. Oh well, these are probably useless reflections!”

19 July 1957. “In the meantime, I have been on Infirmary Street [original name: Spitalstraße] as your vicar: a whole morning long. K. and P. were the most somber encounters, K. from the beginning, P. after a short brightness at the beginning, as soon as he came to talk about his problem. But K.’s is also a sad case: a real victim of his origin, and quite helpless on top of that. Here everything seems so imposed that one feels really powerless. On the other hand, I had a good impression of J. and a quite positive one of R. and T., if only because both seem to know how to deal meaningfully with their punishment. For my part, I mainly listened to what all 6 wanted to say and tell me, tossed in a few comments and further questions in between, and finally gave each of them a fat cigar; to P. for a new start in his smoking career, after he had recently destroyed all his smoking equipment (pipe included) out of anger against X.”

1 Aug 1958. “I wanted to report to you that I spent Tuesday and Wednesday morning as your admittedly very dilettantish vicar on Infirmary Street [Spitalstraße]: directed from below by the very willing guards through the various floors and corridors from one cell to another. I was also able to ascertain that the sermon from July 20 made a special impression on this curious [TN: in the sense “odd”] congregation. Otherwise, they all seemed to be really pleased that someone visited them, and they spoke and talked diligently and willingly. I found B., who is so ecumenically active, especially illuminating on a human level, as I did the two, T. the penitent and S. the unrepentant bank robber; very remarkable was Kr. with his newly discovered talent for painting (image of Christ) and melancholy contemplation, and not disagreeable was Sch., who showed me the 108 letters, at least the outside of them, that he has received up until now from his wife. Incidentally, they are all able to speak extraordinarily descriptively, a precious gift of God, despite all the evident abuse, for which one could envy them. I would have liked to make tape recordings of all of them, especially when, as happened without exception, they talked about the sermons. Especially impressive to me this time was our friend P. He apparently had a relatively better hour, received me with the invitation to a cup of tea, which I accepted with pleasure, lectured me in detail about the reason for the daily new complete balding of his head (symbol of his freedom nevertheless!), viewed and discussed himself not without a certain humor (request at a Protestant requests concert: the aria of the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute “der Hölle Rache kommt in meinem Busen” [“hell’s vengeance comes in my bosom”]) and met me like an old acquaintance through and through.”

3 Aug 1962. “I read with great interest about the last successful jailbreak on Infirmary Street [Spitalstraße]. But this Italian obviously heard neither your nor my sermons. Yes, and then G. S.! Wasn’t he a sexton with you for a while? In any case, I remember visiting him once in his cell in Basel. You really have an extremely lively congregation!”

So much for Karl Barth’s own statements about his visits to the penitentiary. I think it is obvious from his words how sharply and critically observant, how earnestly and at the same time cheerfully and full of humor, and above all how very intimately and supportively he encountered the prisoners in the service and when visiting them in their cells.

But what was the response of the prisoners to their encounter with Karl Barth, to all that he brought and gave them with his sermons and his cell visits? The answer was sincere joyful gratitude. In those years when Karl Barth came to the prison, there were many who said in their own way: now they had experienced and learned what it means to give thanks. The gratitude was for Karl Barth, but at the same time it was for what he preached.

— Martin Schwartz. Basel.

This English translation is made available by Dr. Joseph Longarino. Do not distribute this translation without prior express permission from the translator.

Karl Barth was an extremely productive writer who, during his lifetime, published more than 600 works. Most of them held importance to his body of work and contributed to his status as one of the most important thinkers within Christian history. The following are the publications that gained most international attention and are considered as cornerstones of his legacy:

The Epistle to the Romans

In 1919, while working as a pastor in Safenwil, Karl Barth published his first commentary on St. Paul called The Epistle to the Romans (Der Römerbrief), which he began in 1916. In 1922, he published a completely rewritten second edition. These commentaries were unusual for their biblical and dialectical theology and their open attacks on humanism. Barth contradicted liberal theologians who considered scripture little more than an account of human religious experience, and who were concerned only with the historic personality of Jesus.

In the Epistle to the Romans, Barth argued that God challenges and overthrows any attempt to ally God with human cultures, achievements, or possessions. Barth wrote that in scripture we find “divine thoughts about men, not human thoughts about God.”

Karl Barth’s commentary gained international attention and won zealous supporters as well as inexorable enemies. The “great blow against the theologians” had been struck, and theologians in Germany and Switzerland began to single themselves out as as friends or foes, to applaud or to retaliate. As a consequence of the attention aroused by his commentary, Barth was appointed a professor at the University of Göttingen, Germany, in 1921, despite his lack of a doctorate degree.

Read more about the Origins of the Römerbrief (in German) on the website of the Karl Barth-Archiv.

Karl Barth speaks about writing the Epistle to the Romans in this video.

Barmen Declaration

In 1934, as the Protestant Church attempted to come to terms with the Third Reich, Karl Barth was largely responsible for the writing of a set of theses called “The Theological Declaration of Barmen.” This declaration was adopted at a meeting of the General Synod of the Confessing Church in Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany, on May 31, 1934, which was attended by representatives from Lutheran, Reformed and United churches.

The synod recognized the idolatry of the “German Christians” in giving an ultimate commitment to the state rather than God as error. Instead, participants confessed that Jesus Christ, as attested to in Scripture, was proclaimed as the one Word of God and Lord of all life.

The Barmen Declaration was a call to resistance against the theological claims of the Nazi state and defined the Christian opposition to any interpretation of Christianity based on nationalistic theories. It also guided the Confessing Church in Germany in its struggle with the National Socialist regime, though Karl Barth felt the church neglected the political and ecumenical aspect of the declaration. The declaration numbers until today among the confessional documents of many churches worldwide. Barth mailed the Barmen Declaration to Adolf Hitler personally, but did not get any response.

In this video, Karl Barth discusses the Confessing Church.

Church Dogmatics

During his professorship in Bonn, Karl Barth began his work on the Church Dogmatics, his major work, which he left unfinished despite its more than 9,300 pages and thirteen volumes. The volumes were published in stages between 1932 and 1967. The Church Dogmatics attempts to provide a comprehensive account of the efforts to interpret the Christian Gospel during the past twenty centuries. Barth made it his task “to take all that has been said before and to think it through once more and freshly to articulate it anew as a theology of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.” The Church Dogmatics addresses four major doctrines: Revelation, God, Creation, and Atonement or Reconciliation. Initially, Barth had also intended to address the doctrine of Redemption, an idea he abandoned later in his life. The Church Dogmatics has widely been regarded as one of the most important theological works of the twentieth century.

Karl Barth was not only an important theologian, but also a gifted wordsmith. The following quotes are extracts from Insights, (original: Augenblicke) a collection of 94 short texts from Karl Barth, selected by Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth’s longtime assistant.

Insights provides a great introduction into Karl Barth’s work and his faith. Each of its texts is related to a verse of Scripture and shows Barth’s sense of wonder and amazement.

On Amazement

At the beginning of all theological perception, research, and thought – and also of every theological statement – stands a quite specific amazement. Its lack in even the best theologian will threaten the heart of the entire enterprise, while even bad theologians are not a lost cause in their service and their duty, as long as they are still capable of amazement.

On Humor

Having a sense of humor means not being stiff but flexible. Humor arises when we have insight into the contradiction between our existence as children of God and as children of this age, and we become conscious of our actions in a lively way. Humor means a great bucketing of the serious side of the present.

On Fearless

What should we do, then so that the nations will really want peace? First of all, we should not have so much fear – namely about the evil intentions of others.

Joy in God

Joy is the rarest and most infrequent thing in the world. We already have enough fanatical seriousness, enthusiasm, and humorless zeal in the world. But joy? This shows us that the perception of the living God is rare. When we have found God our Saviour – or when he has found us – we will rejoice in him.

Freedom

It is true that free people will also strive for independence, as far as that makes sense. But free people are not compelled to want independence by every external compulsion. They can also find all kinds of undesired discipline to be acceptable and pleasing.

On Against the Stream

Nothing has happened to change the fact that Christians – even in the middle of their supposedly and perhaps even very consciously Christian environment – will always be strange and threatened creatures. In any case, they will not be going with the flow. For them the great truths of conventional wisdom will never have absolute validity. Nor, certainly, will their absolute negation, and thus they will also hardly be able to count on the applause of current revolutionaries. And they will cultivate their freedom not only in free thoughts in private, but also in free and open deeds and modes of behaviour that will never find public approval.

On Easter

What happened on that day (of Easter) became, was and remained the centre around which everything else moves. For everything lasts its time, but the love of God – which was at work and was expressed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – lasts forever. Because this event took place, there is no reason to despair, and even when we read the newspaper with all its confusing and frightening news, there is every reason to hope.

—

On Being a Pastor Today:

In 1962, Karl Barth visited Princeton Theological Seminary. During a Q&A session following one of his Warfield Lectures, a student asked him the following question:

Student: “What one thing, sir, would you tell a young pastor today, if you were asked, is necessary in this day and age to pastor a Church?”

Barth: “Ah, so big a question! That is the whole question of theology, you see! I should say, I hope that during your studies you have visited yourself earnestly with the message of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. And not only of this message but also of the Object and the Subject of this message. And I would ask you, are you trained to visit not only yourself now, but a congregation with what you have learned out of the Bible and of church history and dogmatics and so on? Having to say something, having to say that thing. And then the other question: are you willing now to deal with humanity as it is? Humanity in this twentieth century with all its passions, sufferings, errors, and so on? Do you like them, these people? Not only the good Christians, but do you like people as they are? People in their weaknesses? Do you like them, do you love them? And are you willing to tell them the message that God is not against them, but for them? That’s the one real thing in pastoral service and that is the question for you. If you go into ministry to do that work, pray earnestly. You’ll do difficult work but beautiful work.

But if I had to begin again anew for myself as a young pastor, I would tell myself every morning, well, here I am: a very poor creature, but by God’s grace I have heard something. I will need forgiveness of my sins everyday. And I will pray, God, that you will give me the light, this light shining in the Bible and this light shining into the world in which humanity is living today. And then do my duty.”

The Center for Barth Studies has compiled a list of introductory resources for those new to the theology and life of Karl Barth. If you’d like to learn more about Karl Barth, start with the primary and secondary literature listed first. If you want to learn more about specific topics within Barth’s theology, the list continues with primary and secondary resources for certain loci and topics. We have also listed the library call numbers (based upon the Library of Congress Classification) next to each book for your convenience.
(* denotes works particularly recommended)

General Introductory Resources:

Primary:

• *Dogmatics in Outline. London: SCM Press, 2001.
  • An early writing of Barth’s that serves as a commentary on the Creed.
  • Call Number: BT77. B3713
• * Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Grover Foley, trans. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963.
  • This highly readable volume is based on the lectures that Barth delivered during his 1962 visit to the United States.
  • Call Number: BT65. B282 1963
• The Goettingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion. Edited by Hannelotte Reiffen and translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.
  • Call Number: BT 75.2 B3413 1991
• The Humanity of God. Translated by John Newton Thomas and Thomas Wieser. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1960.
  • Call Number: BT28. B3 1960

Secondary:

• Balthasar, Hans Urs von. The Theology of Karl Barth, Edward T. Oakes, trans. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 B2616 1992
• * Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. John Bowden, trans. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2005.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 B86313
• _________________. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 B87413
• Mangina, Joseph. Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 M29
• Morgan, D. Densil. The SPCK Introduction to Karl Barth. London: The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B2 .M67
• * Webster, John. Barth. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2004.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 W43 2004
• _______________, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Barth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 C35

Specialized Resources:

Doctrine of God

Primary:

• The Word of God and Theology. Translated by Amy Marga. New York: T&T Clark International, 2011.
  • Call Number: BR 121.3 .B37813
  • “The Righteousness of God, 1916,” 1-14.
• The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. (77-114; 424-450)
  • Call Number: BS 2665 .B284
• The Humanity of God. Translated by John Newton Thomas. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1960.
  • Call Number: BT 28 .B3
  • “The Humanity of God,” 37-68.
• Church Dogmatics. Edited and Translated by G.W. Bromiley, T.F. Torrance et al.13 vols. Edinburgh, GB: T&T Clark, 1956-1975.
  • Call Number: BT 75.3 .B28
  • I/1: “Ch. II. The Revelation of God,” 295-490.
  • II/1: “§28. The Being of God as the One Who Loves in Freedom,” 257-321.
  • II/2: “Ch. VIII. The Command of God,” 509-782.

Secondary:

• Flett, John. Witness of God: The Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth, and the Nature of the Christian Community. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010.
  • Call Number: BV 2063 .F58
• Hunsinger, George. Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.
  • Call Number: BX 4827 .B3 H86
  • “Mysterium Trinitatis: Karl Barth’s Conception of Eternity,” 186-209.
• Keating, James F. and White, Thomas Joseph. Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009.
  • Call Number: BT 153.S8 D58
  • Bruce McCormack, “Divine Impassibility or Simply Divine Constancy?: Implications of Karl Barth’s Later Christology for Debates over Divine Impassibility,” 150-187.
• McCormack, Bruce, ed. Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008.
  • Call Number: BT 98 .E54
  • Bruce McCormack, “The Actuality of God: Karl Barth in Conversation with Open Theism,” 185-244.

Politics

Primary:

• The Word of God and Theology. Translated by Amy Marga. New York: T&T Clark International, 2011.
  • Call Number: BR 121.3 .B37813
  • “The Christian in Society, 1919,” 31-69.
• The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. (475-502)
  • Call Number: BS 2665 .B284
• Theological Existence To-day! A Plea for Theological Freedom. Translated by Richard B. Hoyle. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933.
  • Call Number: BR 856 .B2813
• Community, State, and Church: Three Essays. With a new introduction by David Haddorff. Translated by A.M. Hall, G. Ronald Howe, E.M. Delacour, Stanley Godman. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004.
  • Call Number: BX 9410 .B377
  • “Gospel and Law” (1935), 71-100.
  • “Church and State” (1938), 101-148.
  • “The Christian Community and the Civil Community” (1946), 149-189.
• Church Dogmatics. Edited and Translated by G.W. Bromiley, T.F. Torrance et al.13 vols. Edinburgh, GB: T&T Clark, 1956-1975.
  • Call Number: BT 75.3 .B28
  • III/4: “§55. Freedom for Life,” 427-470.
  • IV/3.2: “§72. The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community,” 890-901
• The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV, 4 Lecture Fragments. Translated by G.W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1981.
  • Call Number: BJ 1253 .B3413
  • “§ 78: The Struggle for Human Righteousness,” 205-271.

Secondary:

• Hancock, Angela Deinhart. Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic 1932-33: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2013.
  • Call Number: BV 4211.3 .H365
• Hunsinger, George. Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.
  • Call Number: BX4827 .B3 H86
  • “The Politics of the Nonviolent God: Reflections on René Girard and Karl Barth,” 21-41.
• Hunsinger, George, ed. Karl Barth and Radical Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976.
  • Call Number: BX 4827 .B3 K34
  • Dieter Schellong, “On Reading Karl Barth from the Left,” 139-157.
  • George Hunsinger, “Toward a Radical Barth,” 181-233.
• Jehle, Frank. Ever against the Stream: The Politics of Karl Barth, 1906-1968.Translated by Richard and Martha Burnett. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002.
  • Call Number: BX 4827 .B3 J3813
• McCormack, Bruce. Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909-1936. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995. (78-203)
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 M321
• Singgih, Emmanuel Gerrit. “Toward a Postcolonial Interpretation of Romans 13:1-7: Karl Barth, Robert Jewett, and the Context of Reformation in Present Day Indonesia.” Asia Theological Journal, 23, no.1 (2009): 111-122
• Ziegler, Philip. “Christian Theology and Democratic Politics in Conversation with Jeffrey Stout.” Theology Today 63, no.4 (2006): 227-234

Racism and Nationalism

Primary

• “Critical Response to the Rengsdorf Theses,” Karl Barth Society Newsletter 6 (1992): 4-5
  • Online: http://scdc.library.ptsem.edu/mets/mets.aspx?src=kbsn&div=6&img=4
• Church Dogmatics. Edited and Translated by G.W. Bromiley, T.F. Torrance et al.13 vols. Edinburgh, GB: T&T Clark, 1956-1975.
  • Call Number: BT75.3 .B28
  • III/4: “§54. Freedom in Fellowship,” 285-323.

Secondary:

• Moseley, Carys. Nations and Nationalism in the Theology of Karl Barth. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 M68
• Carter, J. Kameron. “An Unlikely Convergence: W.E.B. Du Bois, Karl Barth, and the Problem of the Imperial God-Man.” New Centennial Review, 11, no.3 (2012): 167-224.
• Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation: Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010.
  • Call Number: BT 82.7 .C666
• ____________. Black Theology and Black Power. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1969.
  • Call Number: BT 734.2 .C6 1997
• Villa-Vicencio, Charles. On Reading Karl Barth in South Africa. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988.
  • Call Number: BX 4827 .B3 O52
  • John W. DeGruchy, “Racism, Reconciliation and Resistance,” 139-155.—Alan Brews, “Theology and Violence,” 75-89.
• Lindsay, Mark R. Covenantal Solidarity: The Theological Basis of Karl Barth’s Opposition to Theological Antisemetism and the Holocaust. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2001.
  • Call Number: BT 93 .L53

Christology

Primary:

• Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. 4 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956-1975.
  • Call Number: BT 75.3 .B28
  • §57 – The Work of God the Reconciler
  • §59 – The Obedience of the Son of God
  • §64 – The Exaltation of the Son of Man

Secondary:

• Jones, Paul Dafydd. “Barth and Anselm: God, Christ and the Atonement,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, No. 3 (July 2010): 257-282.
• ________________. “Karl Barth on Gethsemane,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 9, No. 2 (April 2007): 148-171.
• ________________. The Humanity of Christ in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. London: T&T Clark, 2008.
  • Call Number: BT 203. J66
• Jüngel, Eberhard. “God’s Being is in Becoming” in God’s Being is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. A Paraphrase. John Webster, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 75-123.
  • Call Number: BT 101. B2718 J813
• Hunsinger, George. “Karl Barth’s Christology: Its Basic Chalcedonian character” in Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
  • Call Number: BX 4827.B3 H86
• McCormack, Bruce. “The Doctrine of the Trinity After Barth: An Attempt to Reconstruct Barth’s Doctrine in Light of His Later Christology” in Trinitarian Theology After Barth, Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday, eds. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2011.
  • Call Number: BT 11.3 .T72

Gender

Primary:

• Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. 4 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956-1975.§ 45 – Man in His Determination as the Covenant-Partner of God
  • Call Number: BT75.3 .B28
  • § 54 – Freedom in Fellowship

Secondary:

• Fiddes, Paul. “The Status of Women in the Thought of Karl Barth” in After Eve. Janet Martin Soskice, ed. (London : Marshall Pickering, 1990), 138-155.
  • Call Number: BV639.W7 A47
• Frykberg, Elizabeth Anne. Spiritual Transformation and the Creation of Humankind in the Image of God, Male and Female: a Study of Karl Barth’s Understanding of the “Analogial Relationis” Correlated with Psychosexual and Psychosocial Development Theory. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1989.
  • Call Number: BF692.2 .F79
• Köbler, Renate. In the Shadow of Karl Barth. Charlotte von Kirschbaum. Louisville: Westminster Press, 1989.
  • Call Number: BX4827 .K55 K6313
• Selinger, Suzanne. Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1998.
  • Call Number: BX 4827. K55 S45
• Sonderegger, Katherine. “Barth and Feminism” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. John Webster, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 258-273.
  • Call Number: BX4827. B3 C35
• ___________________. “Suzanne Selinger, Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology, A Review Essay.” Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 2000, 220-225.
  • Available at: http://journals.ptsem.edu/id/PSB2000212/dmd010

The Karl Barth-Archiv, which is supported by the Karl Barth Foundation and the Legacy Commission, is the research and editorial center for the administration and publication of the Collected Works of Karl Barth.

The Archive is located in the former residence of Karl Barth at Bruderholzallee 26 in Basel, Switzerland, where he lived from 1955 until his death in 1968. The Archive accommodates not only Barth’s literary estate but also his extensive library, which has recently been cataloged thanks to funds specifically contributed for this initiative. Visitors from all over the world, especially from the United States and East Asia, find the working rooms of Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum, which have been maintained in their original condition, a particular source of interest.

The main task of the Archive, is the editorial work of preparing scholarly editions of Karl Barth’s works for publication both in the Karl Barth Collected Edition and elsewhere. Apart from the ongoing process of ordering and cataloguing the archives themselves (numbering approximately 100,000 documents), the Archive also frequently assists with the publication of newspaper articles and other publications by supplying photographs.

The Director of the Karl Barth-Archiv is Dr. Peter Zocher. He serves as the editor of the Collected Edition of Karl Barth under the auspices of the Karl Barth Foundation. The director also supports national and international researchers with their scholarly projects by assembling documents relevant to their research and, if necessary, by transcribing manuscripts and providing other forms of assistance. He is constantly called upon to research questions about Barth’s life and work—for example, to clarify his relations to contemporaries in the academic, literary, or political world. Predecessors of Dr. Zocher were Dr. Hans-Anton Drewes (from 1998 until 2012) and Dr. Hinrich Stoevesandt (1971-1997).

Visit the Website of the Karl Barth Archiv. (in German)

[All photos below are copyright of the Karl Barth-Archiv. Do not display, use, copy, or redistribute without permission.]

In his will of 1968, Karl Barth directed that his entire literary estate (manuscripts, memoranda, correspondence, books, articles, etc.) not be sold off, but be placed in the care of a Legacy Commission, whose composition he set out in his will and whose membership has been renewed through elections ever since. The Legacy Commission collaborates closely with the Karl Barth Foundation as the publisher of the Collected Edition and as the entity responsible for the maintenance of the Karl Barth-Archiv.

The Karl Barth Legacy Commission is composed of Barth’s descendants and scholars of Barth’s work.

Current Members:

Dr. Daniel Barth, Basel
Frau Shabnam Barth, Basel
Pfr. Dr. Niklaus Peter, Zürich
Pfr. Dr. Georg Vischer, Basel
Pfr. Dieter Zellweger, Oberwil

The Reverends Dr. Peter and Mr. Zellweger are also members of the steering committee of the Karl Barth Foundation; they ensure the coordination of both associations.

​Karl Barth was an influential professor for over forty years. He began his teaching career at the University of Göttingen (1921-1925), went on to hold positions at the University of Münster (1925-1930) and the University of Bonn (1930-1935), before he eventually spent most of his career at the University of Basel with a special chair in theology until his retirement in 1962. Barth had numerous students who traveled from all over the world to study with him during his lifetime, some of whom are still living today. This page serves as an archive of testimonies from Barth’s former students. We hope that students, pastors, and scholars will benefit from discovering what it was like to learn from Barth and the impact he had upon his student’s lives.

If you were a student of Karl Barth and would like your story to be included on this page, email us at barth.center@ptsem.edu

Karl Barth was an influential professor for over forty years. He began his teaching career at the University of Göttingen (1921-1925), went on to hold positions at the University of Münster (1925-1930) and the University of Bonn (1930-1935), before he eventually spent most of his career at the University of Basel with a special chair in theology until his retirement in 1962. Barth had numerous students who traveled from all over the world to study with him during his lifetime, some of whom are still living today. This page serves as an archive of testimonies from Barth’s former students. We hope that students, pastors, and scholars will benefit from discovering what it was like to learn from Barth and the impact he had upon his student’s lives.

If you were a student of Karl Barth and would like your story to be included on this page, email us at barth.center@ptsem.edu
Rev. Dr. Cedric Jaggard studied with Karl Barth at the University of Basel through a one-year fellowship in 1938-39. Following his one-year abroad, Cedric returned to the United States just 9 days before Hitler invaded Poland, which marked the beginning of World War II. Cedric studied at various institutions including Dartmouth, Haverford, and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He eventually went on to receive his ThD from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1950 under the tutelage of Josef Hromadka, John Mackay, and Otto Piper. During his time at Union Theological Seminary, Cedric had the opportunity to study with Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. After completing his education, Cedric served at a number of Presbyterian churches in New Jersey and New York and also taught courses at Carroll College and Lafayette College. He ran social ministries, served as an Army reserve chaplain, and continued mission work even after retirement from the ministry at age 65. Finally, Cedric is the author of Claiming Different Forms of the Good News: Road to a Larger, More Relational, More God-centered Gospel; Overlooked Bible Foundations for Growing in the Faith (forthcoming), which brings together almost eighty years of his theological studies and ministry experience in the church.

Kait Dugan held the following interviews with Cedric Jaggard on December 7^th and 21^st, 2015. The transcription has been edited where necessary in order to present the material relevant to Karl Barth.

Kait: How did you get to Basel, Switzerland?

Cedric: It was by the grace of God and not by any sort of planning on my part to get to Basel. I was the only American at that time who had the opportunity to go there and do an original theological piece on Barth. It was an act of God. Barth had been teaching in Germany at the time, but known for his criticism of the Nazi style of things.

Kait: Did you take classes with Barth at the University of Basel? What was your first meeting with him like?

Cedric: The faculty take turns guiding students in courses they should take, and it so happened that it was Barth’s responsibility this year. So, I called Barth and requested an appointment. Barth’s English was not outstanding and (his) German was not quite the best at the time. Barth asked me, “Do you have Greek yet?” I replied, “Yes, I majored in it in college.” Barth asked, “Do you have Hebrew?” To which I replied, “No,” and he immediately came back with, “You must start Hebrew right away, right away!” When I rebutted about the course, Barth’s only reply was “You’ll get along.” I was not the top scholar in the class, but it turned out alright. … I never fully thought of myself as a Barthian, but certainly influenced by Barth. He brought me back to the faith of my childhood. At least, that is how I interpreted it at the time. Reading Barth’s Commentary on the Apostle’s Creed, it restarted the faith of my childhood that was more traditional. … Barth, at that time, was really doing the work and then trying it out on his students that he was putting in the Church Dogmatics. He was dealing with the characteristics of God when I was there. So, I remember him speaking on the liebe Gottes (love of God)and
the Barmherzigkeit Gottes (mercy of God) very movingly. He was a spirit of considerable diversity. Sometimes he would seem very extreme in his fierce opposition to Emil Brunner who was over here at Princeton during the year I am talking about. It did seem a disruption of what could have been a quite close partnership. We don’t have to believe everything that everyone else believes in order to feel harmony with them as Christians and to relate to them creatively.

Kait: Was there anything surprising or interesting when you met Barth? Or any other interesting times with him?

Cedric: The most interesting was his open house every other week, which alternated between discussion of theology and the political situation. I admire him so much for his stand in the Barmen Declaration. That was the only formal statement by people in the name of Christ and the church, which took issue with Hitler. Even the Pope didn’t speak out about it, but just about communism. The open houses would be crowded with students from all over the German-speaking world that were there.

Kait: What would it look like to talk about the politics of the day with Professor Barth?

Cedric: Mostly questions from the students who had been there previously. Particularly in Germany, where Lutheranism was so strong, they thought that as long as the state does not infringe upon the church, you must obey the powers that be. What Barth took Romans 13 to mean was that the state, like Hitler’s, was not a legitimate state in God’s sight. It was a good answer to the outright answer of Lutheranism. I can’t remember the details of the theology spoken of. Barth would pose questions to the students about the characteristics of God he was lecturing on at the time.

Kait: You mentioned Barth being influential in renewing your faith. Was there a part of his theology that was so meaningful to you? Or just how he talked about things or were there any specific emphases that he made?

Cedric: When I came in touch with Barth, he kind of brought me back to the faith of my more conservative Presbyterian heritage that I had at home with my church family. It was kind of refreshing to learn about and from him. He just came back to the basics of Scripture with a modern emphasis of his own. He is often called a dialectical theologian going back to Kierkegaard, etc. I see that certain issues where the dialectic was very helpful, especially with Ephesians 2:8-9, in that it pictures faith as a human response to the gospel, as both a provision of God that is for apprehending and appropriating the Christian faith, and the gift of God while it also brings about the responsibility of the individual as a response that is genuine. I found that it (the dialectic) carries through in dealing with theological issues between God and humankind. Certain aspects of God’s truth, humanity, and particularly human response, whether ethical or in some other way, indeed are dialectical. But, I hesitated to apply it to everything under the sun. It was more on these issues I mentioned.

Kait: Can you tell me more about your new book?

Cedric: Through my experience in the church and social ministry, it brought out to me that there are things about the gospel, particularly when we get a little larger concept of a view of the gospel, that should be included, that I felt from the human side of a picture of the human predicament is given by few Christian writers of the past. I drew upon writers from different traditions, such as C.H. Dodd, Gustaf Aulen, and more recently, George Eldon Ladd. I found that there was a broader view of the gospel and a need for the gospel and looking at the human predicament, but more importantly because the heart of the gospel is not our humanity but is the redemptive acts of Christ and finding in those that there were redemptive acts. I found that redemption was not to be identified just in terms of the cross, but that there were these tyrants (Aulen) though he did not have a view of the plurality of the gospel forms, but Aulen did see a plurality of a nice motif in the act of redemption. As I looked at the scriptures, both of the synoptics and the gospel of the kingdom, it did seem that Christ did perform acts that were not just alike but were all extremely costly to him for the redemption of his hearers and those who were in trouble with the problems of the body. The picture of sin, which is so superbly dealt with by Paul, as to the universality of human sin, and yet more realistically entails not just a God/humankind/sin, but the Genesis story where we have additional actors (satanic powers and the world which gets changed), so sometimes we have the ravages of the world to deal with. With personhood attributed to evil powers, when humankind’s life was crippled by sin, that which had been put in human custody, namely the care of the earth, a large part of that also (the ravages of the world, illnesses, demonic possession, etc.) a whole part of human life broadened my view of what the human predicament is. I found that scripture does give us, for each of these, although a different way in each case, the remedy which God provided through Christ’s redemptive acts which were all performed at a very high cost and very hard to compare with one another. Who can think of anything costlier than his death? Maybe his spiritual pain was greater when he cried the cry of dereliction. So, all along the line I try to trace these motifs through regarding the issues of sin which we have in the apostolic gospel and which is in no way lessened as we look at these other things and by his resurrection, which he redeems the new creation of the body of Christ and what is to be the first fruits of our resurrection, he has to come, and that has to be a part of the gospel but not as accomplished yet, but as promised. As we claim by Christian hope and we claim the others by Christian faith.

Kait: Do you have any advice for someone who is a new student in the field of theology as someone who has studied theology for the last 70 plus years?

Cedric: Listen to other traditions besides your own to give the Spirit some space to work in. Starting with other Christians, we do need to be friendly to them and I would hope we could sit down at a large table even though we have different opinions and constantly “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” Be open and listen to Jesus, because he has much more to say than he told his disciples, and ask the Spirit to give grace to those who differ from you and be open to what they say. We need to be especially appreciative of our Catholic friends and hope that as we do that, we encourage them to do the same. In the parable of the pearl of surpassing value, it does seem to me that where Christ offers us this parable, he is referring to the gospel, and he has what must be a gospel that is adequate in scripture, fuller, and more realistic than we already found it to be. I hope that other traditions might find it and contribute to it, too.

The Center for Barth Studies is in the process of compiling a list of current reading groups on the theology of Karl Barth. If you are currently leading or participating in a Karl Barth reading group and would like to be added to this page, please send us your group meeting location and contact information to barth.center@ptsem.edu.

Wichita, Kansas

We meet the third Thursday of every month, 12:00-1:30 PM, at the LaGalette Restaurant. Contact Chris Kettler at kettler@friends.edu for more information.

Rootstown, Ohio

We are a very small informal reading group that reads and discusses Dr. Barth regularly and with great joy! Currently in the commentary to the Romans. Contact Vince Maltempi at vamaltempi1@malone.edu for more information.

Anderson, South Carolina

The Karl Barth reading club meets every Tuesday from 2-3pm in Food for Thought, which is located underneath the Anderson University Library. This is our second year meeting. This semester we begin CD IV.I. Please email Ethan Taylor for more information – ethanwilliamtaylor@gmail.com

Vancouver, British Columbia

We meet the second Wednesday of every month except July and August. We start at 7:00 PM and meet at Vancouver School of Theology. Meeting times are subject to occasionally change. Please contact Blair Bertrand at blair@calvinpresbyterian.ca for more information regarding the latest date meeting time and readings.

Burnaby, British Columbia

Open reading group of Barth’s Evangelical Theology on Wednesday evenings from 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM over a bag supper. Conversations will focus on a chapter a week. For more information, send an email to jazzthinkbrian@gmail.com and include “Barth Reading” in the subject line of the email.

Caronport, Saskatchewan (Briercrest College & Seminary).

A reading group comprised of students, staff, pastors, and friends of Briercrest College & Seminary. We meet weekly on Friday mornings at 7:00 to 8:15 am in the Seminary wing. We work through approximately 10 pages of the Church Dogmatics each week from September through May. We have been meeting since 2005. Group lead and contact: Dr. David Guretzki (dguretzki@briercrest.ca).

Calgary, Alberta

A reading group that meets once a month at Ambrose University, typically on Thursdays from 8:30-10:00 AM. The group is currently reading Evangelical Theology, discussing 2-4 chapters per session. Contact the group leader, Kelly Carter, at kelly@calgarycofc.com

United Kingdom

An online Zoom reading group that meets every Monday at 8:30-9:30 PM UK time. The assignment will be 20 pages of Church Dogmatics I.1 per week, and the group will meet to discuss and end with prayer. For more details, and to join, email Duncan: dcmi@hotmail.co.uk

Karl Barth was an incredibly productive writer for more than 50 years. During his lifetime he published more than 600 writings, including a 13-volume, 9,300-pages, yet unfinished work on Christian doctrine entitled the Church Dogmatics. Additionally, he wrote numerous unpublished papers such as sermons, lectures, manuscripts, letters, and other items. After Barth’s death in 1968, it became clear that it was necessary to undertake a Collected Edition (“Gesamtausgabe”) of his works.

The objective of the Collected Edition is to provide historical introductions and clarify the manifold theological, philosophical, historical, political, autobiographical, and literary allusions of Barth’s writing. It also explains – not least of all – distinctive Swiss German words and phrases for readers outside Switzerland. The editorial process includes the following:

• collect and order texts, some of which had been long out of print or were first published in hard-to-find volumes, according to their literary genres
• add the unpublished texts from Barth’s literary estate
• make Barth’s writings, given their particular historical context and their complexity of expression, accessible to contemporary readers.

The publication of the Collected Edition is managed by the director of the Karl Barth-Archiv (currently Peter Zocher), who also serves as editor-in-chief. Numerous well-known theologians, including Eberhard Busch, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Eberhard Juengel and Gerhard Sauter, have supported the editorial work.

The editors of the Collected Edition aim to provide the information necessary to make Barth’s language as accessible as it would have been to contemporaries hearing his talks and lectures in person. Frequently, the first step in preparing the edition is the painstaking process of deciphering Barth’s difficult handwriting, itself an indispensable contribution to Barth scholarship, which takes place in the Karl Barth-Archiv.

Since its inception in 1971, fifty-four volumes have been published in six series. The volumes represent either newly reissued critical editions of texts published by Barth (for example, the Epistle to the Romans of 1919 and the Christian Dogmatics of 1927) or previously unpublished texts with particular significance for the interpretation of Barth’s intellectual development made available for the first time (as with the Göttingen Lectures on Dogmatics of 1923-1925). They are organized as follows:

• I: Sermons
• II: Academic Works
• III: Lectures and Shorter Articles
• IV: Conversations
• V: Letters
• VI: From Karl Barth’s Life

Significant goals guide the future of the Collected Edition; above all, the publication of the lectures and shorter articles from the 1930s and 1940s, which document among other matters Barth‘s struggle against the influence of National Socialism on the Protestant Church and his subsequent concern for Christian responsibility during the Second World War. Another goal is the publication of the previously unpublished lectures from the 1920s and 1930s, which still raise fruitful questions for the Church and theology and point the way toward new answers.

For a full outline of all volumes published to date in the Collected Works along with English translation information, click here to download a pdf outline.

Dr. Hinrich Stoevesandt, founding Director of the Karl Barth-Archiv in Basel Switzerland and first General Editor of the Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe, quietly passed away on Pentecost Sunday in his home on the Dittingerstraße in that city. He is survived by his beloved wife, Elisabeth, daughters Dorothee and Magdalene and by Christoph Bucher, Dorothee’s partner.

Hinrich Stoevesandt was a careful researcher who bore the responsibility for seeing the first 31 volumes of the Gesamtausgabe into print. Several individual volumes including the 37th volume in the series, the concluding volume of the Göttingen lectures on dogmatics, were directly edited by him. His knowledge of Barth’s theology and his biography (acquired through exhaustive acquaintance with Barth’s letters) made him a rich resource for those scholars fortunate enough to make their way to the door of Bruderholzallee 26 in Basel. Many there were whose reputations were established with the help of this humble man, working quietly behind the scenes. A visit to the Stoevesandt home was always a gift to savor. That a man so given to detailed, historical research could have had such a highly refined sense of humor and a simply lovely gift for story-telling made him all the more endearing.

Dr. Stoevesandt was also the author of a number of writings of his own on topics ranging from Bonaventura’s eschatology to historical theology to Barth’s sermons, practical theology and homiletics. He served as a Visiting Professor of Homiletics at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität (Tübingen) in the Winter Semester of 1984/85. He preached regularly in the Basel Münster – where he was also a faithful member. A great many of his sermons have been published. He was the recipient of two honorary doctorates – from the University of Bern and from the University of Budapest. And he was a speaker and reader of the Dutch language who helped to mediate Dutch theology to German readers through translations of significant Dutch works. He published a critical edition of the 76 letters exchanged by Karl Barth and K. Heiko Miskotte in 1991 as well as a translation of Miskotte’s Wenn die Götter Schweigen – a book which had a profound impact in the 1960s. Of course, he was also in a position to mediate Barth’s theology to the Dutch. For a number of years, he travelled to Holland each year to expound Barth’s theology to a gathering of Dutch theologians.

But who was this man? He was the son of one of Karl Barth’s closest friends dating back to the 1920s, Karl Stoevesandt, a medical doctor from Bremen. Karl Stoevesandt became a stalwart of the confessing church movement in the 1930s and suffered imprisonment on more than one occasion for his activities in opposition to the German Reich

Given the close relationship between the two families, it was natural that Hinrich should have lived with the Barth family in the large house on Pilgerstrasse (within walking distance of the new lecture building on the Petersplatz) when he came to Basel in the 1950s for doctoral studies. He repaid this kindness by providing technical support for Barth in publishing Church Dogmatics IV/2, to which he also contributed a striking phrase adopted by the great man directly into his text: “Gemessen an seinem Großen Licht erweisen sich die kleinen Lichter, in deren Schein wir jetzt leben, als nötige und in ihrer Weise brauchbare, aber schließlich doch kümmerliche Treppenbeleuchtung” (KD IV/2, 950 – i.e. so many wretched lights illuminating a flight of stairs). After Barth’s death, he edited the well-known letter exchange between Karl Barth and Carl Zuckmayer, Späte Freundschaft in Briefen (1977).

Mention should also be made of Dr. Stoevesandt’s musical talents. He loved to sing; he helped create the Neue Basler Kammerchor – which he also served for a number of years as President.

Dr. Stoevesandt was much loved by all who knew him. To his family, to his dear friends (e.g. Michael Trowitzsch, Michael Beintker and Karlfried Fröhlich), and to his co-laborers in Basel in the field of Barth-Studies and in ministry (e.g. the Christ families, Anton and Mirjam Drewes), the Center of Barth Studies wishes to say to each and all: we share in your sorrow at the passing of such a wonderful man. And we trust with you in the God who will raise the dead on the Last Day.

—Dr. Bruce L. McCormack, Director, Center for Barth Studies

Click here to read the correspondence of Dr. Hinrich Stoevesandt