How to get started? Darren Sumner and W. Travis McCracken have written helpful posts about how to start reading Barth, and David Guretzki has written a primer (.pdf). Sumner and McCracken disagree about the value of starting with Barth’s 1962 Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. McCracken finds the book works well with undergraduates. This is interesting discussion –all I can say is that it did not work for me in 1975 –I had an experience similar to Sumner, “it turned me off Barth for years.”
Barth is difficult to read, in my view, until the reader is ready for him, can connect in some way (I wrote about my experience elsewhere). This is all highly personal, caveat lector.
The Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary (located in Princeton Theological Seminary Library) provides an excellent introduction, especially:
- Karl Barth’s Biography
- Introductory Resources
- Multimedia resources (short videos)
The bibliography of Barth studies is vast, and I make no claim to be familiar or current with it. Several books have helped me learn to read and understand some of Barth’s writings. This is a strictly personal and incidental list:
Busch, Eberhard, Darrell L. Guder, Judith J. Guder, and G. W. Bromiley. The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology, 2014. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/974495331.
Hunsinger, George. Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2004. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/909272358.
———. How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology, 1993. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/28328279.
Selinger, Suzanne. Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/492049140.
Sonderegger, Katharine. “Suzanne Selinger, Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth: A Study in Biography and the History of Theology, A Review Essay.” Princeton Seminary Bulletin 21, no. 2 (2000): 220–25. Permalink to full text.
Webster, John. The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2009. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/827828090.