The personal is the (academic) political: Why care about the love lives of theologians?

Abstract

AbstractWhat might be learned, for theology, from recent interest in the complex love triangle of Nelly Barth, Charlotte von Kirschbaum and Karl Barth? I explore some aspects of how the story has been told, in and since Christiane Tietz's 2016 presentation and article, and argue that they expose deep-seated issues in and for the discipline of systematic theology. In particular, I draw attention to the focus on preserving the authority of the individual (male/masculine) author as the exemplar of theological practice; and to the reluctance to recognise the social, political and economic dimensions of sexuality and ‘domestic’ life. I argue that a properly ‘systematic theological’ approach to the Barth-von Kirschbaum story would involve critical and constructive theological reflection on theology's conditions of production: using historical contexts to help us recognise and respond to contemporary issues, without reducing such reflection to stories about individual authors.