302 - Contemporary Political Orders and Christ: Karl Barth's Christology and Political Praxis

Contemporary Political Orders and Christ: Karl Barth's Christology and Political Praxis

By Robert E. Hood

Allison Park, Pa., Pickwick, 1985. 269 Pp. $19.90.

Originally written as a dissertation at Oxford, this book "examines the development of Karl Barth's political theology as it emerges from his christology." The topic is complex and controversial. In certain periods of Barth's life (most notably, when he was engaged in socialist causes as a pastor in Safenwil and when he led the Confessing Church in Germany in its opposition to Nazism), his theological work was directly related to concrete social and political struggles. At other times, the connection was far less evident, and some critics charged that his theology was politically irrelevant. The more carefully Barth's writings are studied, however, the clearer it becomes that even when removed from direct political praxis, Barth's theology always had definite political implications. While he repeatedly warned against the identification of any social movements or ideologies with the Kingdom of God, his interpretation of the gospel invariably issued in a political orientation to the left; that is, prophetic criticism of the

303 - Contemporary Political Orders and Christ: Karl Barth's Christology and Political Praxis

complacency of the bourgeois West in face of social injustices, and advocacy of the cause of the poor. Hood's study focuses on the doctrine of reconciliation in the Church Dogmatics (Vol. IV) to show that Barth's theology was unmistakably political in character at its christological center and not only in a few famous episodes of political struggle. Hood speaks of Barth's theology as containing a system of "correlations" (more accurately, "correspondences" or "analogies") between the reconciling activity of God in Jesus Christ and the decisions and actions of Christians in the social and political spheres. According to Hood, some of the societal implications Barth derives from his understanding of God's work of reconciliation are: liberation from the spirit of possessiveness and privatization; solidarity with others, and especially with the poor; advocacy of human rights and dignified human work; and relativization of all national, racial, and class differences. Influenced by the work of Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt, Eberhard Busch, and Helmut Gollwitzer, Hood describes Barth's political theology as consistently aiming at the humanization of political practices and programs while standing in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed. Hood's criticisms of Barth are that his view of democracy was "abstract," his understanding of labor somewhat "romanticized," and his call for Christian participation in the struggle for justice and peace insufficiently informed by contextual analysis.

Daniel L. Migliore, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.