Our God Loves Justice: An Introduction to Helmut Gollwitzer

Helmut Gollwitzer was a direct heir of the theological legacy of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Yet Gollwitzers work is perhaps least appreciated and studied especially in English of all of Barths immediate descendants. A Protestant theologian and member of the Confessing Church movement in World War II-era Germany Gollwitzer studied under Karl Barth at the Universities of Bonn and Basle and was professor of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin. Deeply influenced by his mentor Gollwitzer appropriated the methodological principles of Barths theology and developed in new and particularly contextual directions one of Barths most penetrating constructive insights in the doctrine of God. At the same time Gollwitzer more than any of Barths other interpreters embraced and extended the sociopolitical impulses and implications within Barths theology. In this Gollwitzer embodies a salient alternative for theological and political discourse one especially needed in the American context of increasingly intertwined theological and political discourses. This volume the first book-length study of Gollwitzer available in English provides a helpful introduction to the life theology and political thought of this crucial theologian and public intellectual and makes clear Gollwitzers importance to the North American context.