Living through an apocalyptic time, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth influenced Christianity in the twentieth century profoundly. He publicly rejected Hitler's Nazism, advocated on behalf of workers and laborers, and ministered to prisoners. Barth was named by Pope Pius XII as "the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas" and in 1962 even appeared on the cover of Time magazine. In Fully Alive, one of America's best and most provocative theologians, Stanley Hauerwas, demonstrates that Barth's radical theological perspective is particularly relevant and applicable to the challenges of our own time.
Hauerwas argues that Barth's engagements with the social and political struggles of his day can help us see what it means to be fully human in the twenty-first century. The ecclesiastical and the political were inseparable for Barth; similarly, Hauerwas shows why it is crucial for theological claims to produce insights that make it possible for our lives to be well lived. Including chapters on race, disability, and the church in Asia, Hauerwas shows how Barth's political theology can be read as a training manual that can help us maintain our humanity in a world in crisis.
Industry Reviews
"As he reaches the culmination of his illustrious career, Stanley Hauerwas is in a mood for retrospect, summation, clarification, and reiteration. In his core chapters he takes Karl Barth's radical Christ-based "humanism" as his theme. Beyond his moving chapters with Barth, he voices guarded affirmation for Reinhold Niebuhr, much appreciation for Alasdair MacIntyre, and careful attention to Michael Ignatieff. A welcome addition to his expansive corpus, this rich offering exhibits how widely Hauerwas has probed, how deeply he sees the main issues, and how resolved he is for the claims of gospel faith. Hauerwas remains undiminished in the vigor, energy, and courage that that have regularly characterized his work." - Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, author of Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks "In this timely volume, Stanley Hauerwas draws with great creativity on Karl Barth to illumine some pressing issues of the day. Race, friendship, disability, pastoral care, and much more receive fresh consideration. Barth is also positioned favorably, though not uncritically, in relation to some weighty figures like Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Throughout the book the power of Barth's unique appeal to "the humanism of God" is greeted with rare and winsome appreciation. Pastors and theology students alike will profit richly from this work. For Barth as for Irenaeus, the glory of God is a human being fully alive." - George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary, author of Reading Barth with Charity: A Hermeneutical Proposal "Reading Hauerwas is always pleasurable and instructive in equal measure. Fully Alive is an exercise in 'faith-seeking understanding,' urging both church and the world to think differently about the potential impact of what we say and how we say it, and how we then live." - Trevor Hart, author of Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology "This year Stanley Hauerwas turns 82 years old. To mark the occasion, he has published a book on Karl Barth, who died at the same age in 1968. The timing as well as the pairing is fitting. Barth is the greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century, and probably the most widely read of any theologian over the last 100 years. As for Hauerwas, since the passing of Reinhold Niebuhr in 1971, he has been the most prolific, influential, and recognizable Christian theological thinker in American public life.... [G]iven Hauerwas's age and stature, Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism of Karl Barth has the inevitable feel of a valediction." - LA Review of Books "It is gratifying to see how one of the most influential and provocative theological voices of the last forty years is able to work in the spirit of a giant of twentieth-century Protestant thought, to not only illuminate that figure, but to offer an arguably more nuanced, christologically explicit account of Christian engagement with the world." - Scottish Journal of Theology
