Sorry to be coming to this thread so late. My major theology prof in college was a strong Barthian and my historical theology prof in seminary was one of the translators of the 14 volume
Church Dogmatics, his 9,000+ pages
magnum opus.
I agree with everything Bruce offered already. Here are some extra colors for the basic picture.
* Barth cut his teeth on theological liberalism (total emphasis upon the imminence of God and the horizontal dimensions of "religion").
* Barth rebelled against liberalism and tried to pioneer a "return to the Bible" without fundamentalism and without ignoring the "insights" of the Enlightenment. He emphasized the transcendent God who acted in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
* Barth was afflicted with the philosophical implications of an existentializing of everything in the 20th century. His affinities with that failed philosophy can also be seen in Brunner and Bultmann.
* Barth was a "dialectical" thinker. A and its opposite B resolve themselves in C. Much of what he seems to affirm is put in stark opposition to its polar opposite. That is why it is so infuriating to ask him what he thinks of the Bible, universal salvation, etc. No sooner does he make a statement that seems orthodox when he denies it in the next paragraph. You can hardly read his voluminous writings without finding contradictory things said on the same subject. Reading Barth in context is essential, and essentially frustrating.
* During his famous visit to America in 1960 he was asked a question by Carl F.H. Henry, who identified himself as the editor of
Christianity Today. Barth responded by joking, "Oh, you mean Christianity Yesterday?" Kindof cold, don't you think? Then, on that same visit, he was asked to summarize his years of theological ruminations and he did so by saying: "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so."
*
Time magazine put him on its cover in April of 1962 (pretty impressive placement for a secular mag).
* During the 1950s and 1960s he was the doyen of mainline/liberal Protestantism in America.
* Several of my seminary profs and good friends studied (at least partly) under Barth in Basel, including Robert P. Meye and Daniel P. Fuller.
* Barth's personal life was very . . . er . . . hmmmm . . . "European." He had an assistant, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, who lived with his family for decades. He and she would go off summers to the mountains (without his family) to think theologically and "work." She acted as the hostess when Barth received important guests at his summer get-away.
* Barth began each day with a selection of Motzart, his favorite composer.
* Barth came from the Reformed tradition (in the same sense that the PCUSA and the CRC does). I mean, he wasn't a Baptist or a Lutheran, or a Roman Catholic. However, he took GREAT offense at Calvin and corrected him often.
* Barth understood that if election is understood in the Reformed sense, it would lead to heaven or hell. Only by redefining election as applying only to Christ (e.g., christomonism) does he solve the problem. Christ was the prodigal son, the judge who came to be judged in our place, the one on whom the judgment for sin fell AND the elect predestined one. Since humanity is IN Christ, he could offer no compelling argument against those who accused him of universalism. Because of the way in which he reconciled the two sides of God's electing grace in Christ, there was really no logical room left for hell.
* Barth is fairly popular today with emergents who like his ability to say "yes" and "no" at the same time in a cool and confusing way. They also like his unwillingness to posit anything other than a glorious future for humanity in Christ.
* G.C. Berkouwer (mentor to both Jack Rogers AND R.C. Sproul Sr) wrote a book, the
Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Barth liked it and said that Berkouwer understood him. Conservatives at places such as Westminster called it the "Triumph of Karl Barth in the Theology of G.C. Berkouwer."