Karl Barth and Liberation Theology (T&T Clark Explorations in Reformed Theology)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
This volume puts Barth and liberation theologies in critical and constructive conversation. With incisive essays from a range of noted scholars, it forges new connections between Barth’s expansive corpus and the multifaceted world of Christian liberation theology. It shows how Barth and liberation theologians can help us to make sense of – and perhaps even to respond to – some of the most pressing issues of our day: race and racism in the United States; changing understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality; the ongoing degradation of the ecosphere; the relationship between faith, theological reflection, and the arts; the challenge of decolonizing Christian thought; and ecclesial and political life in the Global South.
- Includes incisive essays from a range of noted scholars
- Puts Barth and liberation theologies in critical and constructive conversation
- Analyzes the challenge of decolonizing Christian thought
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Karl Barth—Orthodox, Modern, and Liberative?
- Chapter 1: Karl Barth and the Origins of Liberation Theology
- Chapter 2: Of Gods and Men, and Wolves—the “Other Question”: Between Projection, Colonial Imagination, and Liberation
- Chapter 3: The Generative Female Body and the Analogy of Faith in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics
- Chapter 4: The Disabled God and Covenant Ontology
- Chapter 5: Karl Barth and Korean Theology, Past and Present
- Chapter 6: Karl Barth’s Theology of Political Participation: An Egyptian Appropriation
- Chapter 7: Karl Barth and Liberation Theologies in South Africa: The Difficulties of Comparison, Conversation, and Constructive Reflection
- Chapter 8: Liberation Theology in a South African Context: Does Karl Barth Have Anything to Offer Here?
- Chapter 9: Using Barth “to Justify Doing Nothing”: James Cone’s Unanswered Challenge to the Whiteness of Barth Studies
- Chapter 10: Clothed in Flesh: The Artist, Liberation, and the Future of Barthian Theology
- Chapter 11: Thelonious Monk, Icon of the Eschaton: Karl Barth, James Cone, and the “Impossible-possibility” of a Theology of Freedom
- Chapter 12: Turning Barth Right-side-up: James Cone and the Risk of a Contextual Theology of Revelation
- Chapter 13: Liberation Theology and Karl Barth in the Shadow of the Alt-Right: White Supremacism, Political Protest, and Ecclesiology after Charlottesville
- Bibliography
- Contributors
- Index
The greatest contribution of Karl Barth and Liberation Theology is the way it challenges scholars to consider the liberative nature of the gospel ... [W]ill surely give progressive scholars hope to carry on.
—Reading Religion
The essays collected in this volume help us to catch sight of the importance and fruitfulness of the many and diverse engagements afoot between contemporary liberation theologies and the theology of Karl Barth. Readers will come away with a renewed appreciation of both the present liveliness of Barth’s dogmatic legacy as well as the ongoing and manifold refraction of the freedom of the gospel in the midst of the concrete struggles of social-political existence today. There is much here to think with and act upon.
―Philip G. Ziegler, University of Aberdeen, UK
Karl Barth wrote that ‘Freedom is God’s great gift.’ While political liberation is not the whole of the Gospel, Barth–like the liberation theologians of the Global South–affirmed God’s judgment on the side of the poor and powerless over against tyrannical abuse. This book bears witness to the viability of reading Barth in new and different contexts in order to incarnate God’s righteousness in human structures, however imperfectly.
―Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Saint Louis University, USA