Karl Barth Among the Postliberals

Description

Many Christians, and Evangelicals in particular, are deeply skeptical of postliberalism because of the vagueness with which it addresses the matter of the relationship between Christianity’s “text” or “narrative” and historical and ontological reality. Even if one accepts that theologies founded upon Enlightenment premises are unable to do justice to the Christian message, and that postliberal attempts to move theology away from such premises are in themselves appropriate, many are still suspicious that, in this attempt, postliberalism sacrifices claims to the objective and universal truthfulness of that message. Whether or not it has done so, the present work argues that it need not; it can be faithful to the most important and salutary aspects of its own method, without making such a sacrifice. The book argues that postliberal theology, which has learned much from Karl Barth, can remain a promising movement within contemporary theology if it allows itself to be corrected by Barth at some points where it has departed from him.