This book provides an itinerary for studying political theology in Chinese society, including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It explores the changing role of religion in Chinese history, from the rise of Buddhism alongside Confucianism and Daoism, through the arrival of Christianity and Islam, to the suppression of religion under communism. Since the reform and opening period beginning in 1978, China has experienced a resurgence of religiosity, with powerful societal implications. Governing authorities have sought to regulate religious practice in line with their governing system. Political theology in Chinese society is very much in flux and the chapters in this volume provide an array of windows through which to view the evolving reality. They include historical approaches and descriptive analyses, with an interdisciplinary and international range of perspectives by contributors based in and outside China. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of theology, religious studies, and contemporary China studies.

This book addresses the issue of Christianity in public life in China through methodological and constructive approaches. It aims to answer the following questions: How does Christianity, with its moral and spiritual resources, engage in and contribute to public life in China? How does Christianity operate amidst a background of religious diversity, cultural and social dynamics, and political realities in China? The distinctive contribution of this book is that it moves beyond simple description and evaluation of what is happening in Chinese Christianity toward a constructive theology for the distinctive realities of Chinese culture, society, and politics. This book proposes Christian public responsibility in order to identify the moral problems in Chinese public life. It attempts to enhance a public face of Christianity in China theologically and ethically by activating Christian resources in response to public life and highlighting Christianity's moral impact on the state and civil society without "the imposition of confessional bonds" or "the exercise of authoritarian control." (quoted from Abraham Kuyper). This book relies on both methodological and constructive approaches to define the meaning of public theology while making theological efforts to engage in public issues constructively in the Chinese context. Besides the Western Christian public theologians such as Kuyper, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, this book extensively refers to Chinese resources such as Christian thinkers, philosophers and social scientists, etc. to perceive public theology in China. This new formulation of Christian public theology in China desires to engage with Chinese experiences, struggles, traditions and ideology such as Confucianism and communism when investigating moral responses to public issues such as social justice, human rights, and religious freedom. A Christian co-construction with philosophical and social scientific perspectives on public life will lead to the modification of moral vocabulary in Chinese public life.

It has been widely recognized that Christianity is the fastest growing religion in one of the last communist-run countries of the world: the People's Republic of China. Yet it would be a mistake to describe Chinese Christianity as merely a clandestine faith or, as hoped by the Communist Party of China, a privatized religion. Alexander Chow argues that Christians in mainland China have been constructing a more intentional public theology to engage the Chinese state and society, since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Chinese Public Theology recalls the events which have led to this transformation and examines the developments of Christianity across three generations of Chinese intellectuals from the state-sanctioned Protestant church, the secular academy, and the growing urban renaissance in Calvinism. Moreover, Chow shows how each of these generations have provided different theological responses to the same sociopolitical moments of the last three decades. This study illustrates how a growing understanding of Chinese public theology has been developed through a subconscious intermingling of Christian and Confucian understandings of public intellectualism. These factors result in a contextually-unique understanding of public theology, but also one which is faced by contextual limitations as well. With this in mind, Chow draws from the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Chinese traditional teaching of the unity of Heaven and humanity (Tian ren heyi) to offer a way forward in the construction of a Chinese public theology.

Although Christianity has been a minority religion in Chinese societies, Christians have been powerful catalysts of social activism in seeking to establish democracy and rule of law in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and diasporic communities. The chapters gathered in this collection reveal the vital influence of Christian individuals and groups on social, political, and legal activism in Chinese societies. Written from a range of disciplinary and geographical perspectives, the chapters develop a coherent narrative of Christian activism that illuminates its specific historical, theological, and cultural contexts. Analyzing campaigns for human rights, universal suffrage, and other political reforms, this volume uncovers the complex dynamics of Christian activism, highlighting its significant contributions to the democratization of Greater China.

This book, rooted in the disciplines of theology and peace studies, reflects with and on war-affected communities in Colombia about transitioning from violence to peace. It argues that much that is significant for peace- building in situations of war escapes the notice of governments, human rights organizations, and academics because it is accomplished through a kind of agency they do not recognize. This book names that agency as constructive agency under duress and demonstrates its significance for peacebuilding by reflecting on a form that the author has seen operating in Colombia over nearly two decades.

This major new study examines the history of Chinese theologies as they have navigated dynastic change, anti-imperialism, and the heights of Maoist propaganda In this groundbreaking and authoritative study, Chloë Starr explores key writings of Chinese Christian intellectuals, from philosophical dialogues of the late imperial era to sermons and micro blogs of theological educators and pastors in the twenty-first century. Through a series of close textual readings, she sheds new light on the fraught issues of Chinese Christian identity and the evolving question of how Christianity should relate to Chinese society.

Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies explores the interaction between religion and nationalism in the Chinese societies of mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. On the one hand, state policies toward religions in these societies are deciphered and their implications for religious freedom and regional stability are evaluated. On the other hand, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam and folk religions are respectively analyzed in terms of their theological, organizational and political responses to the nationalist modernity projects of these states. What is new in this book on Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies is that the Chinese state has strengthened its control over religion to an unprecedented level. In particular, the Chinese state has almost completed its construction of a state religion called Chinese Patriotism. But at the same time, what is also new is the emergence of democratic civil religions in these Chinese societies.

This book analyzes the interaction of religion, society, and governance in China - suggesting it is much more subtle and complex than common convention suggests. The edited work addresses civic engagement, religion, Christianity, and the rule of law in contemporary Chinese society.

This volume combines the perspective of religion as a constructed category of modernity with the analytic focus and empirical grounding of institutional social science to develop a new approach to the study of state and religion in modern and contemporary China.

This book addresses the issue of public religion and its implications in Chinese society. Zhibin Xie explores various normative considerations concerning the appropriate role of religion in public political life in a democratic culture. Besides drawing on the theoretical discourse on religion in the public sphere from Western academics, it holds that the issue of religion in Chinese politics should be addressed by paying attention to characteristics of religious diversity and its political context in China. This leads to a position of "liberal-constrained public religion" in China, which encourages religious contribution to the public sphere as a substantial component of religious liberty in China on the one hand and proposes some constraints both upon government and religions for regulating religious political discourse on the other.