Playful, Glad, and Free

Karl Barth and a Theology of Popular Culture

This book offers a critical analysis and reinterpretation of Karl Barth’s theology of culture—the least studied aspect of his work—revealing his significance for contemporary work in theology of culture by applying his approach to the study of popular culture and entertainment. Grounding the study in Barth’s eschatology, which proves more amenable to secular culture than other models, DeCou shows that Barth’s approach recognized that the freedom of theology is qualified by the freedom of the Word and the freedom of secular culture. Barth therefore offers a “middle way” for evaluating and analyzing culture and religious forms. This book thus opens up a new avenue of interpretation of Barth and applies the insights of Barth’s theology in fresh ways to the structures of contemporary culture and its products.