After Nietzsche: How Can We Do Sino-Christian Theology Today? – Critical Assessment of Liu Xiaofeng’s Sino-Christian Theological Proposals in 1994 and 1999

Abstract This article explores how Sino-Christian theology can respond to the challenges posed by modern thought after Nietzsche, through a critical examination of Liu Xiaofeng’s two Sino-Christian theological proposals in 1994 and 1999. Framed by the tension between the theological subject matter (Sache) – God’s revelation in Jesus Christ – and the historical context, it uses a textual-analytical case study to critically compare and assess Liu’s two proposals in terms of his reception and appropriation of modern thought. Liu’s 1994 proposal has a distinctly Barthian orientation: it emphasizes the encounter between the Christ-event and the existential individual, while raising key questions about the relationship between China and the West. In contrast, Liu’s significantly revised 1999 proposal adopts a Nietzschean position, shifting the focus to the tension between antiquity and modernity and prioritizing the historicity of theology. The article concludes by arguing that theology must, on the one hand, point to and bear witness to its subject matter and engage critically with horizontal, human constructions. On the other hand, theology must also become deeply contextual and seek to reconstruct horizontal, human realities from the perspective of God’s vertical revelation.