Karl Barth : a life in conflict / Christiane Tietz ; translated By Victoria J. Barnett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tietz, Christiane, 1967- author.

Contributor:

Barnett, Victoria, 1950- translator.

Standardized Title:

Karl Barth. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Barth, Karl, 1886-1968.

Barth, Karl.

Theologians--Switzerland--Biography.

Theologians.

Theologians--Germany--Biography.

Germany.

Switzerland.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvii, 448 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2021.

Summary:

"From the beginning of his career, Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) 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 documents0offer 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." -- Publisher, back cover of dust jacket.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. "I Belong to Basel": Ancestors and Childhood, 1886-1904

A Guildmaster, Pastors, and Scholars: Barth's Ancestors

A Strict Love for Truth and Christian Discipline: His Parents

"A Great Great Joy": Childhood and Youth

2. "This Obscure Desire toward a Better Understanding": Studies, 1904-9

The Decision to Study Theology

Student in Bern

Wearing the Colors and Noncombative: In the Zofingia Association

"Very Diligent and Quite Capable": Student in Berlin

Once More in Bern and then Tubingen

In Marburg at last

His Work for Die Christliche Welt

3. "Stumbling up the Steps to Calvin's Pulpit": Geneva, 1909-11

Vicar in Geneva

Quite Demanding: The First Confirmation Instruction

Theologian in the Congregation

"In Such a Dreadfully Pious Environment"

A Daughter from a Good Home: The Engagement to Nelly Hoffmann

Farewell to Geneva

4. "The Red Pastor": Safenwil, 1911-21

"This System of Employment Must Fall": Workers and Socialists

A Theological Friendship: Eduard Thurneysen

"The World without Gods": The First World War

"An Open House": Family Life

5. "A Book for Those Who Were Also Concerned": The First Epistle to the Romans, 1919

Human Religion and the Divine Word

"Like a Bomb on the Playground of the Theologians"

"Without Windows to the Kingdom of Heaven": The Tambach Lecture

6. "To Always Work Somewhat Faster": Gottingen, 1921-5

From Swiss Pastor to German Professor

"Unavoidable Nonsense of the Academic Business"

"Almost Like a Buddy": Barth with His Students

"Lively Combat": Emanuel Hirsch and Other Colleagues

"Stranger from a Neutral Place": Karl Barth and the Germans

7. "Not a Stone Left Standing": The Second Epistle to the Romans, 1922

A Critical Turn

The New Version of the Epistle to the Romans

Critics and Admirers

What is Dialectical Theology?

Dialectical Traveling Companions: Brunner, Bultmann, Gogarten

Fifteen Questions and Sixteen Answers: The Controversy with Harnack

8. "The Need for Thinking Further": Munster, 1925-30

A Call and a Momentous Encounter

Received with Joy, Departing in Discord

In the Tunnel of the Semester

Return to Bern?

"The Church, the Church, the Church": Encounters with Catholicism

Riding, House Music, and Travel

9. A Troubled "Menage a Trois": Charlotte von Kirschbaum

A Long-Guarded Secret

"I Never Knew That There Could Be Something Like This"

"A Certain Double Life"

Three under One Roof

10. "A Swissman in the Middle of Germany": Bonn, 1930-5

Working on Theology

The Humanity of God

First Conflicts with German Nationalists: The Case of Gunther Dehn

Now's the Time for the Social Democrat Party: 1933

Warnings to the Church and a Letter to Hider

1933 as a Year of Crisis in the Barth Household

The Theological Dimension of Barth's Relationship to Charlotte von Kirschbaum

Attacks on the Swissman

Against the "German Greeting"

The Break with his Dialectical Traveling Companions

The Barmen Theological Declaration

Suspension, Ban on Public Speaking, Dismissal

11. "We Who Can Still Speak": Basel, 1935-45

Life Goes On: Professor in Basel

International Honors and Lack of Appreciation

Battle for the Confessing Church

Anti-Appeasement: The Call to the Czechs to Resist

The Political Responsibility of a Christian

Church Struggle and Refugee Aid

Ecumenical Silence at the Onset of the War

Family Intrigues and Grief

A Call for Military Resistance, and Swiss Censorship

A Friend of the Germans, Nonetheless

12. "In Political Respects a Dubious Will-o'-the-Wisp": Basel, 1945-62

War's End and the Declaration of Guilt

Back to Bonn and, Once Again, State and Church Issues

"God's Beloved Eastern Zone": Against Anti-Communism

A Pacifist after All? Protest against Rearmament and Nuclear Weapons

Yes to Ecumenism, but without the Catholics

The Master with the Crumpled Tie

The Discovery of Optimism in Prison

Courage, Tempo, Purity, Peace: Confession to Mozart

Children, Grandchildren, and the Rejection of His Desired Successor

13. "The White Whale": Church Dogmatics

"A Conceptual Helix": Barth's Monumental Work

The Threefold Form of the Word of God

God's Three Modes of Being

"God Is" Means "God Loves"

Whom God Elects

What God Commands

Why God Wants the Creation

Nothingness and the Shadow Sides of Creation

The Threefold Office of Christ and the Three Forms of Sin

The Light Shines Where It Wishes

The Baptism of Water and of the Spirit

14. "All Things Considered, a Litde Tired": The Final Years, Basel, 1962-8

"Fantastic": A Calvinist in the United States

"Rules for Older People in Relation to Younger"

"As If Deeply Veiled": Charlotte von Kirschbaum Must Move Out

"Separated Brothers": In Conversation with Rome

A Late Friendship with Carl Zuckmayer

The Uncompleted Mammoth Work

At the End of His Life Journey.

Notes:

Translation of Karl Barth : ein Leben im Widerspruch. München : C.H. Beck, 2018, ©2019.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [417]-431) and index.

ISBN:

9780198852469

0198852460

OCLC:

1233299440