Ebook
We live in a world facing many crises, pandemics, climate and environmental challenges, human rights abuses, and threats of totalitarian regimes. Romano Guardini (1885-1968), a major influencer of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, worked through one of the most difficult periods of German history--the first half of the twentieth century. What does he have to say to these challenges, and how is his notion of providence relevant today? Jane Lee-Barker shows how Guardini's insight and deep thought on God's providence weave their way through his work, enabling the reader to fully appreciate "God's world." In relationship with God, the human person is invited to participate in responsible care for the world while responding to their own vocational call from the God who sustains him or her.
“Lee-Barker’s book brings us a superbly rendered account of Guardini’s religious philosophy of divine providence that speaks to our lives amid our twenty-first-century challenges. Informed by his personal and contextual settings, we are taken on a journey through his reflections, perceptively interpreted by the author, whose deep understandings open doors that enlighten our own existence today. Faith, trust, love, and grace are integrated in God’s will and wisdom for us as individuals and community.”
—Lee Parker, distinguished professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, and Glasgow University
“In God's World, No String Puppets, Jane Lee-Barker tells the story of the development of the doctrine of providence in the work of Romano Guardini. She presents this against the background of the emergence of Nazism, whose racial determinism Guardini resisted by establishing the vocation of the Christian over against the subtle contradictions of nature and creation, destiny and providence. I thoroughly recommend this important and highly accessible scholarly work, which remains relevant in today’s challenging times.”
—Cathy Thomson, principal at St. Barnabas College, Adelaide
Jane Lee-Barker is an Anglican parish priest in South Australia, an adjunct lecturer in theology at St. Barnabas College and Charles Sturt University and a postdoctoral research associate at the Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity. She is a graduate of Griffith University and the University of Divinity, Australia, and the Pontifical Gregorian University Rome, Italy. She serves on a number of national ecumenical commissions. This book is an adaptation of her doctoral thesis.