Karl Barth Biography

Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformed theologian, is often regarded as the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century. Beginning with his experience as a pastor, he rejected the predominant liberal theology typical of 19th-century European Protestantism. He became a leader in the Confessing Church in Germany, which actively opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. In particular, he and other members of the movement vigorously attempted to prevent the Nazis from taking over the existing church and establishing a state church controlled by the regime. He authored the Barmen Declaration, which fiercely criticized Christians who supported the Nazis. An extremely voluminous writer, his most famous works are: ‘The Epistle to the Romans’, which marked a clear break from his earlier thinking; and his massive thirteen-volume work ‘Church Dogmatics’, one of the largest works of systematic theology ever written. His major contribution was a radical change in the direction of theology from a 19th-century orientation toward progress to an orthodoxy that had to cope with the grim realities of the 20th century especially in the post WW II period. Theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer — who like Barth became a leader in the Confessing Church —Thomas Torrance, Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, Jürgen Moltmann, and novelists such as John Updike and Miklós Szentkuthy were greatly influenced by him.