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Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth and the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth's Critique of Pietism and Its Response, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. xv + 330. $27.00.

This translation of Eberhard Busch’s original Karl Barth und die Pietisten (first published in 1978 by Christian Kaiser Verlag) offers English-speaking audiences access to his fine analysis of the ‘dialogue’ between the early Barth and an important, early twentieth-century Pietist movement known as the Gemeinshaftsbewegung (‘community people’). The Gemeinshaftsbewegung arose from within the established Protestant church in Switzerland and Germany. In common with other Pietist movements, they emphasised an experiential ‘inner life’ of faith activated and accompanied by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The experience of dynamic fellowship with God, lived out in Christian community with other ‘born again’, ‘spiritually alive’ believers, was at the heart of their understanding of the New Testament. Hence they saw themselves as a vital witness to living biblical tradition and personal Christian faith in the midst of ‘dead orthodoxy’ and liberalism. In their self-understanding as faithful interpreters and defenders of biblical truth, they generally ignored dismissals or attacks from their theological ‘foes’. Hence they were wholly unprepared for the kind of critique they found in the second edition of the Romerbrief. Pietism was being challenged from an authoritatively biblical perspective. They were suddenly dislocated by Barth from an exclusive position as those who ‘speak for God’ and, in terms of direct experience of God, were instead relocated alongside their greatest theological adversary, liberal theology! As certain members felt goaded into responding, a kind of confrontational ‘dialogue’ began. Busch’s study is limited to Barth’s writings up to 1930 and the literature of the Gemeinshaften through the 1920s. He begins by asking (1) which Pietists was Barth referring to in his critique, and thus was it accurate, and (2) how did the Pietists respond to Barth’s critique, and did they properly understand his method or concerns? The first question requires taking into account at least three historically interrelated phenomena: the Pietism of the eighteenth century, the spiritual awakening of the nineteenth century and the Gemeinshaftsbewegung (community movement) of the twentieth century. Because