Abstract
Conversational Theology comprises a selection of twelve essays by George Hunsinger, the Princeton theologian and career-long scholar of Karl Barth. Most of the essays have been published elsewhere in the last fifteen years, one is soon to be published elsewhere, and there are two new essays. All make reference to Karl Barth, some more directly than others. Barth himself has been aptly described as a conversational theologian. Hunsinger’s first chapter, based on transcripts of interviews with Barth, vividly captures some of his lively conversational wit. The conversations Hunsinger hosts in this volume, like Barth’s, are based on patient listening to diverse voices, careful attention to detail and particularities of thought, a willingness to be shaped and changed by dialogue, and a willingness to disagree – the recipe for informed and high-quality debate.
The conversations are arranged into three broad areas that draw together the various strands of Hunsinger’s constructive theology that have been developing elsewhere over a number of decades: ecumenical theology, postliberal theology and political theology – and to each Hunsinger’s contributions are helpful and worth hearing. His dialogue partners across these areas include Barth, of course, Hans Frei (his doctoral supervisor), Vatican II, the Barmen Declaration, T. F. Torrance, two 1998 catechisms of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Lindbeck, von Balthasar, Tutu, Calvin, Luther, André Trocmé, H. Richard Niebuhr, the hymns of William Bright, and others.
One of the strengths of this volume is its insistence that theology is political. Like Barth, Hunsinger leaps off the page as a political animal. He cites more than once Barth’s tag that ethics without doctrine is nothing; but doctrine without ethics is worse than nothing. Although there is a named section on ‘political themes’, Hunsinger’s political blood pumps throughout: the Eucharist is analysed for its ‘social ethics’ (in ch. 4 – freshly written for this collection); his constructive analysis of Barth’s views of Jews and Judaism (in ch. 5) is rich with political implications; and the concluding chapter on the story of the French community of Le Chambon (again, previously unpublished) is a remarkable meditation on an ethic of watchfulness, non-compliance and witness. In the transcript of his lecture to mark the occasion of receiving the coveted Karl Barth Prize of 2010 (which forms ch. 9), Hunsinger writes: ‘What good does it do to spend your life reading Karl Barth, if you are not ready to act when the time comes.’ And speak out Hunsinger does: he has founded the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), reflected on in Chapter 9, and, more recently (too recently for inclusion in this collection of essays), has been involved in action against the use of military drones.
This book, I hope, will help to stimulate new debates on still unresolved issues in Barth studies (not least his theology of the Lord’s Supper) and also generate new discussion on areas of ecumenical, postliberal, and political theology. But more than this, it models what a theologically informed account of political action can look like.