Using the theological work of Karl Barth as a resource for present-day inquiry, the contributors discuss the complex interconnections between the religious and the political and address the contemporary challenges these interconnections pose for Western and Asian societies.

Using the theological work of Karl Barth as a resource for present-day inquiry, the contributors in this volume discuss the complex interconnections between the religious and the political designated by the term theo-politics. Speaking from various political and cultural contexts (Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China) and different disciplinary perspectives (Protestant Theology, Political Sciences, and Sociology), the contributors address contemporary challenges in relating the religious and the political in Western and Asian societies. Topics analyzed include the impact of diverse cultural backgrounds on given theo-political arrangements, theological assessments of political power, the political significance of individual and communal Christian existence and the place of Christian communities in civil societies. In their nuanced discussions of these topics, the contributors neither advocate for a privatized, apolitical understanding of the Christian faith nor for a religious politics seeking to overcome modern processes of differentiation and secularization. Critically engaging Barth’s theology, they examine the Christian responsibility in and for the political sphere and reflect on the practice of such responsibility in Western and Asian contexts.

Part One

Christianity, Politics, and Culture: A Complex Relation in Western and Asian Contexts

1.Religion, Politics, and Sino-Christian Theology

Chloë Starr

2.Yes! Intercultural Existence Today

Volker Küster

3. Recent Male Circumcision Controversies, Barth, and Infant Baptism

Grace Y. Kao

4. Caesarean Section between High-Tech Medicine and a Theology of Birth: Developing an “Ethics of the Middle Range”

Martin Wendte

5.The Ecclesiological Implications of the Political Attitude of the Chinese Authority toward Christianity

Kim-kwong Chan

6.The Power of the Religio-Poietic Complex in Politics: Karl Barth’s Strategies against the Nation Becoming Religiously Charged

Günter Thomas

Part Two

Legitimacy and Sovereignty: Political Power in Theological Perspective

7.Constitutional Theology: Karl Barth and Carl Schmitt on Legitimacy and the Rule of Law

Clifford B. Anderson

8.A Tale of Two Sovereignties: Karl Barth and Carl Schmitt in Dialogue

Devin Singh

9.The Political Theology of the “Surveillance Society”: Lordless Powers, Drones, and the “Eye of God”

Hanna Reichel

10.Sino Theology as Public Theology: The Reception of Karl Barth’s Theology and its Significance in the Chinese Context

Kenpa Chin

11.Karl Barth and the Righteousness of God: The Attributes of God in Political Context

Alexander Massmann

12.Religion, Democracy, and Globalization: Schmitt and Barth on the Chances of Global Democracy

Oliver Hidalgo

Part Three

Christian Praxis and the Church: Political Dimensions of Christian Existence

13.Neither Self-evident “Frame” nor Self-enclosed “Sect”: The Christian Church in Barth’s Political Ecclesiology

Markus Höfner

14.Democracy and Church: Barth and Yoder on Democratic Practice

Kristopher Norris

15.Training for a Serious Game: Theo-Political Deliberation as a Christian Practice

Angela Dienhart Hancock

16.“Gleichnis wagen”: Karl Barth's Political Theology and Its Meaning for the Church-State Relationship in Mainland China Today

Xutong Qu

17.Religion, Politics, and the Christian Church in Germany: Perspectives from Sociology

Gert Pickel

18.Karl Barth's The Christian Life and the Task of Political Theology

Paul Dafydd Jones

Part Four

Democracy and Tradition: Christian Engagement in Civil Society

19.Religious Diversity, Democracy, and Public Theology: Conversing with Barth in a Hong Kong Context

Pan Chiu Lai

20.American Democracy and Trinitarian Sovereignty: Lessons From Barth and Tocqueville

David Haddorff

21.Public Theology and Christian Social Action in Hong Kong: From the Past to the Present

Kin Yip Louie

22.On Becoming a Citizen: Reading Barth in the Midst of Political Change

Daniel Lee

23.Religion, Civil Society and Democracy: Insights from Political Science

Jeffrey Haynes

24.Whatever Happened to the Social Gospel? Religion and Political Economy in the USA Today, and for the Future

Charles Mathewes

25.Civil Societies and Biblical Value Systems in the West

Michael Welker