This paper extends the scope of earlier studies of Karl Barth's relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum by exploring his marriage to Nelly Barth and the deterioration in their relationship in the 1920s. It traces the development and character of Barth's relationship with Kirschbaum, and the Notgemeinschaft (emergency community) they formed with Nelly. The paper makes use of Nelly Barth's unpublished letters to her family in which she accounts for her reluctance to divorce her husband in the early 1930s. The second half of the paper explores the impact of Barth's relationship with Kirschbaum on others and goes on to suggest ways in which this had consequences for his theology, particularly in his thinking in Church Dogmatics III/4 about the relation between man and woman.

In De Trinitate 6.4, Augustine compares the inseparability of virtues within the human soul to the divine attributes within the simple divine substance of the Trinity. In this paper, I will suggest that this is more than a convenient analogy. Rather, I contend, the soul's virtues become inseparable as the soul itself conforms to the image of God through the primary virtue of love. My argument includes an analysis of the history of inseparable virtue in Graeco-Roman philosophy and a comparison of Augustine's use of the concept in Trin. 6.4 with his more extended treatment in Epistle 167. In the face of a seeming conflict in these two texts, I argue for a ‘soft’ or ‘imperfect’ version of inseparability in Augustine's view of the virtues. Finally, I suggest that the cultivation of the virtues within the unity of love may be understood as the way we come to image the Trinity.

Theologians have long recognised the significance of the imago Dei in Christian theological anthropology, yet the question of how to construe the imago is not straightforward. This essay offers a fresh reading of Gregory Nazianzen's vision of the imago Dei. Hitherto, historical theologians have attributed to Gregory an essentialist interpretation of the imago, in which it is identified only with the rational soul. I argue that Gregory depicts the imago Dei quite literally as a visible icon of God by weaving together christology, pneumatology and beliefs about images and idols. If interpreted properly, Gregory's vision contributes significantly to contemporary interpretations of the imago Dei, which aim to account for christology, pneumatology and the inclusion of each human person in the imago.

Glossolalia is a phenomenon that has perplexed biblical scholars for generations. This paper challenges the majority view that glossolalia in the New Testament refers to ecstatic utterances and argues that the only independent New Testament testimony of the phenomenon is found in 1 Corinthians.

This paper argues that Western theology has lost a certain intellectual unity by becoming divided between dogmatic theology (or doctrine) and moral theology (or ethics). The history of theological reflection on Mary illustrates this, because it has become confined to dogmatic theology and has hardly ever been discussed in the context of morals. However, mariology can help us to understand the doctrinal foundations that must support any adequate moral theology. By helping us to see how morals depend on dogma, mariology can help us to recover the unity of theology.

This paper addresses the identity crisis of Christian churches under the conditions of late modernity. With Jürgen Moltmann, I describe the dilemma of the contemporary church and of its theology as a crisis both of relevance and identity. I suggest that churches have responded to the loss of their stronghold in the Western world in three ways: liberal Protestants embrace modernity, evangelicals oppose it and a third group, whom I identify as church theologians, try to ignore it. I argue that none of the three approaches successfully solves the church's crisis in late modernity and especially in a consumer culture with its commodification of religion. I trace these struggles of the contemporary church to its loss of alterity, both of God and of the human other, and suggest that we can regain a sense of God's otherness by rediscovering God's holiness.