A member of the Confessing Church, and primary author of the Barmen Declaration, Karl Barth was a prominent voice of opposition to Nazism in the church. Barth wrote a number of letters addressing different groups of Christians, in the wake of various events connected with World War II. This volume presents Barth’s 1942 letter to American Christians, addressing the proper function of the church in relation to the war and addressing those that deal with the responsibility of the church in post-war reconstruction. Also included are some remarks also written specifically for American Christians, which as Samuel McCrea Cavert notes in the introduction, present “a review of the way in which the Protestant churches of Europe had met the crisis of National Socialism and the war up to the fall of 1942 … significant for its indirect disclosure of Dr. Barth’s judgments on the elements of strength and weakness in the churches of Europe.”
