Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic, 1932–1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich
Overview
What does a theologian say to young preachers in the early 1930s, at the dawn of the Third Reich? What Karl Barth did say, how he said it, and why he said it at that time and place are the subject of Angela Dienhart Hancock’s book. This is the story of how a preaching classroom became a place of resistance in Germany in 1932–1933—a story that has not been told in its fullness. In that emergency situation, Barth took his students back to the fundamental questions about what preaching is and what it is for, returning again and again to the affirmation of the Godness of God, the only ground of resistance to ideological captivity. Hancock’s engaging text uniquely interprets Barth’s “Exercises in Sermon Preparation” in relation to their theological, political, ecclesiastical, academic, and rhetorical context.
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- Presents Karl Barth’s thoughts about the Third Reich in the 1930’s
- Explores fundamental questions about preaching
- Interprets Barth’s “Exercises in Sermon Preparation”
- Karl Barth’s Theological Existence
- Theological Existence in the Weimar Years: Three Lenses
- Theological Existence and the Rhetoric of Weimar
- Theological Existence and Protestant Proclamation in Weimar
- Karl Barth’s Predigtvorbereitung in Context: Winter Semester 1932-1933
- Karl Barth’s Predigtvorbereitung in Context: Summer Semester 1933
Top Highlights
“At the heart of Barth’s theological and political critique of National Socialism and its Christian sympathizers were the very factors that disillusioned him with liberal theology and ideological socialism in the first place. Idolatrous nationalism and its corresponding inhumanity, the legitimation of violence, confidence in the human ability to discern God or destiny in historical events or natural ‘orders’—these dynamics could only lead to political and every other kind of disaster. The only way to counter National Socialism, Barth thought, was to challenge these underlying dynamics, especially as they took root and spread in the church and the academy.” (Pages 61–62)
“For Barth, the Bible is not the Word of God any more than preaching is in and of itself. It is by God’s grace alone that Scripture and proclamation are made faithful witnesses.” (Page 12)
“The idea that history had meaning—that history told a coherent story—was itself called into question.” (Page 5)
“Revelation means the Word of God spoken, constituted, and heard by God in such a way that a human being is taken up in the conversation, is addressed personally and, by the power of the Spirit, responds. The facticity of this event is God’s decision toward us, the enemies of God.15 The Word of God is at once promise, judgment, reconciliation, claim, blessing, grace. It tells us something we could not tell ourselves. ‘In it, it is decided who we are.’16 Though it is a personal encounter it cannot be reduced to a mystical pre- or post-cognitive silence—revelation has a content, something is communicated, something is said.17 It is rational even as it remains inconceivable.” (Page 10)
The question haunts us. How would I have responded to the rise of Nazism? Angela Dienhart Hancock, with careful scholarship and thorough research, examines the thinking of the dominant theologian of the twentieth century as National Socialism emerged around him. . . . Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic is an ambitious, timely, and very important project.
—John Buchanan, editor, The Christian Century
On the basis of her careful and detailed research, Angela Hancock sets Barth’s ‘emergency homiletic’ in the ominous political context of Germany in the early 1930s. The result is a moving account of Barth’s efforts in his homiletics classes to liberate preaching from religious platitude and political propaganda and to present it instead as service of the living Word of God rooted in the biblical text and marked by expectancy, humility, and courage.
—Daniel L. Migliore, emeritus professor of theology, Princeton Theological Seminary
A splendid investigation of Karl Barth’s homiletic seminar in 1932–33. . . . Angela Dienhart Hancock encourages us by her precise presentation to take the duty of preaching seriously.
—Eberhard Busch, professor emeritus of systematic theology, University of Göttingen, Germany
Hancock’s learned, perceptive, and compelling work adds significantly to our understanding of an important chapter of modern theology involving the twentieth century’s most important theologian.
—Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York
- Title: Karl Barth’s Emergency Homiletic, 1932–1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich
- Author: Angela Dienhart Hancock
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 2013
- Pages: 372
- Christian Group: Reformed
- Resource Type: Systematic Theologies
- Topic: Theology of Preaching