Cross Theology

What is the theologia crucis--the theology of the cross--and what are its radical claims? Which theologians stood within this subversive tradition, and is Karl Barth amongst them?

In this volume New Zealand theologian Rosalene Bradbury throws light on these--surprisingly contentious--questions. She argues convincingly that tethered to the tradition that gave rise to it, the term theologia crucis references a theological system centered around notions of false and true glory, and an ancient conviction that from the cross of Jesus Christ comes a revelatory and a saving Word. The apostle Paul, Athanasius, a school of medieval mystics, and the Reformer Martin Luther, are all shown to be significant classical representatives of these ideas. Bradbury then argues that seminal twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth exhibits many of the classical crucicentric system's defining characteristics, so that he himself might fairly be deemed a modern theologian of the cross. Until now Barth's pivotal role in this long, thin, crucicentric tradition has been unsung. This book thus sheds important new light on Barth's theology.


""Bradbury offers a sharp delineation of the contours of a theologia crucis in classical perspective, and a clear account of the ways in which Barth's theological project involves a creative expansion of recurring epistemological and soteriological emphases in that tradition. Healthy in its instincts and perceptive in its judgments, this book explores dogmatic themes which lie at the heart of the Christian gospel.""
--Ivor J. Davidson
Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology
University of St Andrews

""A genuinely important book, sharp and clear, rich in detail, and rigorously argued, but also movingly devotional, often (as C. S. Lewis put it) causing the heart to 'sing unbidden.' A major work of Barth scholarship, it is far more than that: a clarion call to the Church to avoid the temptations of false glory (power, authority, influence) and reclaim its central 'thin tradition' of the suffering Christ.""
--Stephen C. A. May
Former lecturer at St. John's College
Honorary Lecturer at the University of Auckland


Rosalene Bradbury received a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Auckland in 2009.