For Barth the good news of the Christian message was that this triumph was already complete. In light of this, the task of Jesus’s followers was to bear witness to the victory that has already been achieved. This witness exposed the futility of evil and helped to open human beings to the healing and transformative work of grace. For Niebuhr the good news of the Christian message was that Jesus’s death and resurrection inaugurated God’s triumph over evil, which would be completed at the final judgment. In the meantime, the task of followers of Jesus was to become participants in the process of
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