New Political Theology in Beijing: Jürgen Moltmann’s Dialogue with Chinese Humanists

Abstract This article contextualizes the Chinese reception of Moltmann’s “new political theology” within Chinese academia by revisiting the “Beijing Summit” of October 2014, when Moltmann travelled to Renmin University of China to dialogue with ten leading Chinese academics in the humanities and social sciences. Debates raised concerned the recent Chinese reception of Carl Schmitt (1888–1985); President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream of National Rejuvenation; state responses to terrorism; and the “new political theology” introduced by Moltmann (1926–2024), Johann Baptist Metz (1928–2019), and others in post- WWII Germany. The article juxtaposes Moltmann’s and Schmitt’s political theologies in their respective receptions in Chinese scholarship, summarizes and presents a brief contextual analysis of the 2014 Summit with Moltmann, and probes the critical potential of Moltmann’s ideas for theological discourse in Chinese academia.