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God in Action: Theological Addresses

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Karl Barth's God in Action is a beautiful piece of work which introduces readers to the tension-filled environment of 1934 Germany under the Nazi Reich and to a theology strong enough to resist it. This neglected little volume deserves to be set alongside and distributed with Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship--as faithful 20th century Christian responses to the subtle evils of political rhetoric masked in Christian guise.

The slim volume contains five addresses Barth gave between April 10 and September 12, 1934. The pressure of the Nazi government on the churches in Germany during this period was fierce. The Barmen Declaration--written mostly by Barth--was adopted during May of 1934. Repeatedly in God in Action Barth refers to the "remarkable apostasy of the Church to nationalism." Each of the five lectures attempt to pry off Nazi fingers from the Church: (1) Revelation, (2) the Church, (3) Theology, (4) the Ministry and (5) Witness are only rightly conceived as primarily what God has done and does. Barth urges the Church to take its orders from God rather than human authorities. The title of the work comes from his statement, "What is done to us, God in action for us, is a divine miracle."

This is a stirring book which urges the church to be the church, to be attentive to the Scriptures, and to hold to them courageously. Barth ends the book with these words, "it is necessary that a sanctuary be built in the midst of our world. And this sanctuary must not be a hybrid of Church and world, it must be truly Church, a Church which will remind men of the eternal kingdom of God."

I read this book for Willie Jennings's course Theology of Karl Barth at Duke Divinity School.