Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Juli/August/2020 |
Spalte: | 682–684 |
Kategorie: | Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Jones, Paul Dafydd, and Paul T. Nimmo [Eds.] |
Titel/Untertitel: | The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth. |
Verlag: | Oxford u. a.: Oxford University Press 2020. XXIV, 710 S. = Oxford Handbooks. Geb. US$ 145,00. ISBN 978-0-19-968978-1. |
Rezensent: | R. David Nelson |
The modern period has witnessed the emergence of a vast library of research works published for scholars and students engaged in the academic study of theology and its various sub-disciplines. Since the rise of the modern research university in the early nineteenth century, a host of new genres of scholarly literature – encyclope-dias, handbooks, subject dictionaries, enchiridions, compendia, and surveys, to name but a few – have flourished, as publishers have sought to supply the research guilds with tools useful for investigation, reference and coursework. It is well known that theology has endured an uneasy journey through the modern period, as it has labored, sometimes awkwardly, to establish itself as a legiti-mate field of scientific study that can hold its own in the institu-tion of the university. Indeed, it is due to this very impulse that the reference literature of Christian theology has proliferated.
For the past few decades, some of the most important and help-ful volumes appearing in the reference wing of the library of Chris-tian theology have come from Oxford University Press and are found in the multidisciplinary Oxford Handbooks series. The Oxford Handbooks exhibit one of the abiding values of academic work in modernity; namely, the coordination of expertise. By anthologizing innovative contributions by leading experts in the sub-fields of whatever subject(s) happens to be at hand, the vol-umes of the series offer scholars and students »authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research«, as the series abstract puts it. The Handbooks are not designed to be used as encyclopedias, that is, as comprehensive and exhaustive treatments of the given topics. They serve, rather, to introduce readers to how these topics are investigated currently and as objects of scientific inquiry.
The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth (OHKB) is a welcome addi-tion to the series, and makes a distinct contribution to the academic study of theology. Research on Barth’s thought is enjoying a heyday at the moment, especially in the Anglophone world, where recent years have witnessed the publication of a host of academic monographs, primers, anthologized conference proceedings, journal articles and new translations of primary sources. In fact, the OHKB is one of two major reference works on Barth to appear in print at the present turn of the decade (the other: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth, 2 vols., eds. George Hunsinger and Keith L. Johnson [Hoboken, NJ, and Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020]).
The volume contains scarcely a misstep. The editors, both of whom are working at the vanguard of contemporary scholarship on Barth, have managed to muster an outstanding roster of contributors, with well-established experts and rising scholars offering state-of-the-art analyses of a range of key topics in Barth studies. It would be impossible to cover everything here, even given the massive size of the volume. The editors, however, have done a marvel-ous job of assembling a comprehensive table of contents encompassing Barth’s life, career, theological contribution and legacy.
The first unit, on »Contextualizing Barth«, begins with an intellectual biography of the Swiss theologian unfolding in three phases. The tripartite survey focuses on the origins and development of Barth’s theological work, in particular the two editions of the Römerbrief and the Church Dogmatics. There also emerge some fascinating details about his relationships with his parents, siblings and teachers, and, later on, with treasured colleagues. The remain-ing chapters of the unit continue the task of describing Barth’s theological and intellectual formation, showing how his engagements with the church fathers, medieval scholastics, and reformers, and theologians of Protestant orthodoxy, liberal Protestantism, and the Roman Catholic Church shaped his vocation as Chris-tian theologian. The unit ends with contributions considering the impact on Barth’s theology of the intellectual history of modernity and the political crises marking his own lifetime.
The chapters in the second unit on »Dogmatic Loci« proceed thematically and highlight Barth’s thought across a spectrum of theological topics. While much research has been done on Barth’s work in each of these areas, without exception the chapters here successfully narrow down entire fields of study by offering readers con-cise, state-of-the-question summaries. The essays on God (Katherine Sonderegger), Israel (Mark Lindsay), creation (David L. Clough), justification, sanctification, vocation (Cynthia L. Rigby), church (Paul T. Nimmo) and eschatology (John C. McDowell) especially stand out, shedding light on how Barth continues to contribute to themes at the center of ongoing and sometimes acrimonious dispute.
Some of the most stimulating chapters in the OHKB appear in the third unit on »Thinking after Barth«. Here, contributors offer comments on how Barth’s thought might inspire contemporaneous work at the cutting edge of Christian theology. In the volume’s introduction, the editors acknowledge that the »selection of conversation partners is somewhat idiosyncratic, and therefore open to critique« (7). However, while it would have been interesting to see some additional entries here (e. g. Barth and contemporary ecu- menical theology, Barth and Pentecostal theology, Barth and Latin/x and Mujerista theology, Barth and theology in the major-ity world, Barth and queer theology, and so on), the unit succeeds in pointing readers to a range of possibilities for ongoing engagement with Barth. Worthy of special mention in this review are the outstanding chapters on the racial imaginary (Willie James Jennings), gender (Faye Bodley-Dangelo), preaching (Angela Dienhart Hancock), Judaism (Randi Rashkover), and religion and the religions (Joshua Ralston). Such essays not only provide readers with expert overviews of the topics at hand, but themselves make significant contributions to contemporary theological reflection.
It will be interesting to see how Barth’s thought continues to be received as today’s theological situation unfolds. The editors ac-knowledge the volatility of our present milieu, remarking in the introduction that »we are in the midst of a radical democratization of Christian theological inquiry«. They move on from this description to argue that students of Barth’s can, in fact, capitalize on what might otherwise appear to be a »loss of theological focus« today, for »Barth’s insistence that a ›quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought‹ amounts to a prescient endorsement of the unsettled, diverse, and sometimes bewildering state of Christian theology in the present« (3). While it is doubtful that all readers of the OHKB will be as sanguine about the state of theology in this new millennium, indicators suggest that interest in Barth is indeed in its ascendency. This fine Oxford Handbook, then, is timely, relevant to various contemporary theological discussions, and likely to remain a standard resource on Barth’s theology for years to come.