Hancock (homiletics and worship, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) presents a study of Karl Barth's "Exercises in Sermon Preparation" from the early 1930s, when he was teaching homiletics at the University of Bonn. He contextualizes Barth's call to ministry with a "thick description" of the cultural, political, and ecclesiastical dimensions of end of the Weimar Republic. He examines Barth's commitment to theology as a mode of existence, his political consciousness, and especially the charge that Barth was too universal and not attentive enough to the needs of those who would hear him. Barth's reputation among some as too theological and impractical is argued to be demonstrably false in light of how his work was responding to the national socialist urge of the early 1930s. The first half of the book provides these contexts, while the latter half consists of a recapitulation of and commentary on most of the sessions he taught between 1932 and 1933. Annotation 2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
