Does Karl Barth’s Der Römerbrief convey an idea of authority to its readers by means of its specific rhetoric? This is a persistent issue when reading Der Römerbrief with attention to its context of societal and theological crisis and its drive for reorientation in the early Weimar Republic. For instance, does the description of the critical human situation include and establish a notion of authority, and is this theological reflection at the same time open to political and social perspectives?

The aim of this contribution is to clarify the notion of authority in Der Römerbrief in the context of reorientation by examining heuristically the figure of prophecy, a figure that occurs in the book and the use of which I suggest is significant for how the book relates to its readers and their need for reorientation. My purpose is to gain insight reading Barth in light of the notions of prophecy and charismatic authority by two representatives of the preceding generation of thinkers, the sociologist Max Weber and the theologian Karl Holl.