编者絮语:“返本开新”的思想典范——在汉语处境中再思巴特神学

A Model of “Creating by Returning to the Original”: Rethinking Karl Barth’s Theology in a Chinese Context

本期"返本开新:巴特与中国"专刊是为纪念瑞士基督教神学家卡尔·巴特(Karl Barth,1886-1968)《罗马书释义》第一版(Der R?merbrief,1919年初)(1)出版和其后的塔姆巴赫演讲《社会中的基督徒》(Der Christ in der Gesellschaft,1919年9月)(2)发表一百周年。《罗马书释义》第一版是巴特的第一部大部头作品。其时,巴特还是一位没有博士头衔、在乡村服务十年的无名牧师,但两年后(1921年)被聘为德国哥廷根大学的改革宗神学教授。

This special issue,“Mit dem Anfang anfangen(creating by returning to the original),”celebrates the 100th anniversary of two publications by the Swiss Christian theologian Karl Barth(1886-1968).The first is the first edition of The Epistle to the Romans(Der Romerbrief,1919).①The second is Barth’s speech given in September 1919,“The Christian in Society”(Der Christ in der Gesellschaft)②.At the time of writing his first monograph,The Epistle to the Romans,Barth was still an unknown young pastor,who had not yet obtained his Th.D.degree and who had been serving in the countryside for ten years.The speech“The Christian in Society,”delivered by Barth at the Religious Socialist Conference in the Tambach town of Thuringen,Germany,when he was then an alternate deputy of the Swiss Religious Socialist Movement,brought attention to Barth’s Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans(1919)and propelled Barth to the status of a leading theologian and thinker in Germany and beyond.Two years later(1921),Barth was invited to become Chair Professor of Reformed Theology in Georg-August-Universitat in Gottingen,Germany.