The Essential Karl Barth: A Reader and Commentary

Nice book and exactly what I was looking for. I don’t have the money to buy Christian dogmatics, so this is the next best thing!!

If you’re interested in the work of Karl Barth this is a great start. Dr Johnson is a skilled teacher of theology, which he shows clearly in his commentary. Though the text itself is challenging, Johnson’s footnotes are clear and helpful.

Excellent abridgement of key works with informative summaries.

This is the best one volume anthology of Barth's writings in English. Johnson has selected texts well and provides helpful introductions to each selection. There are also LOTS of editorial footnotes where Johnson thinks Barth needs a helping hand to explain what he means. The footnotes are a mixed bag, but since Barth is allowed to speak for himself, the reader can decide which are helpful and which are not.

Johnson has produced a masterful one-volume anthology of Karl Barth's theology. Until now there has been only the Helmut Gollwitzer anthology, but Johnson's anthology has unequivocally exceeded Gollwitzer's. Johnson's "The Essential Karl Barth" is now the definitive anthology.What's more, he skillfully makes the vast corpus of Barth's Church Dogmatics (including generous and essential materials from Barth's earlier works) accessible to any layperson or graduate student who desires to have an accurate and intelligent feel for the trajectory and inner logic of Barth's theology. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.On a final note: this book is also a fantastic introduction to Barth's theology because of Johnson's careful and learned commentary on each section. He provides clarity without being overbearing. In other words, he guides you without doing all the work of thinking through Barth's theology for you. For any person who wants to read something of Karl Barth but does not know where to start, I recommend without reserve "The Essential Karl Barth: A Reader and Commentary" by Keith L. Johnson.

Engagement with Karl Barth’s theology is, fittingly, paradoxical. On the one hand, you have a thinker whose influence is unmatched in the modern era (and thus, must be dealt with). On the other, Barth’s context is foreign and his matieral is exhaustive. There is a daunting and impenetrable quality to his work.Johnson solves the problem. This volume includes all the major writings with detailed explanations of the foreign concepts in Barth’s thought for introductory students (of which I am one) and lay persons . Johnson is a well-respected Barthian scholar with a teacher’s clarity and a pastoral heart. Boldly, I’ll suggest there is no better volume to introduce someone to Barth’s titanic works.

I’m not quite sure how to rate this book. As a detailed introduction to Karl Barth’s theology, it is superb. However, I find parts of Karl Barth’s theology itself problematic (e.g. the Bible becomes a means of God personally revealing himself to us but is not itself revelation, his vague answers on the origin/nature of evil and possibility of universalism, his taking as a starting point God as “wholly other” who cannot be known through any “creaturely” means, etc.). I have neither the desire nor skill to engage in a detailed critique of Barth’s theology, but suffice it to say that an overall positive rating on this book is by no means an endorsement of his theology.That said, I think that you can learn more about someone’s views on life, the universe, and everything by reading their writings rather than by reading someone else’s criticism of their writings. The format of this book allows you to dip into significant excerpts from Barth’s massive body of writings and see how his theology grew and changed over time (as well as how it led him to interact with German politics up to and during World War II). Copious endnotes provide a running commentary on the text. I would strongly recommend the electronic version of this over the print version as it is much more convenient for toggling back and forth between text and explanatory notes.In summary: if you are interested in Karl Barth and his “Neo-Orthodox” theology this works beautifully as an introduction. I would also recommend reading critical responses to his theology, but start with the man himself if you want to know what he actually believed and taught.