Christian faith turns on the claim that God revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth and that he is the Lord and Saviour for all humanity. This exclusive claim raises many questions in a pluralistic and multi-cultural world. In particular it seems to be both excluding and therefore to presuppose various kinds of violence towards others. This research endeavors to address such questions by seeing what can be learned from the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Barth is a good test case because of his famous Christological concentration. He is often taken as a paradigm ‘exclusivist’. Situating Barth in his historical and intellectual context I shall argue that Barth formulates a Christologically inclusive humanism that addresses the supposed tolerance of Liberal theology, the actual violence of anti Semitism, secularizing understandings of community and the imperial mentality of Western Christendom towards non-Christian religions. By adapting a scripturally informed rationality which is cultivated in the Christian community, Barth expounds (1) a Christologically based tolerance towards non-Christian others (Chapter one); (2) a covenantal understanding of Jewish-Christian solidarity (Chapter two); (3) an ethic of the neighbours which grounds solidarity with poor, marginalized and oppressed communities (Chapter three); (4) a Christological anthropology which respects the irreducible otherness of others (Chapter four); (5) a politics of community which celebrates the community of near and distant neighbours (Chapter five); and, based on the above understandings, (6) a self-critical theology of religion for grounding interfaith encounter (Chapter six). By way of conclusion, I argue that Barth’s theology should not be understood on postmodern lines but that it accentuates the universal in the particular. For this reason, I claim that Barth’s theology, though Christologically based, is capable of contributing to a global responsibility for building a society of love and justice. As a Chinese scholar, I also argue that Barth can contribute to a burgeoning Chinese theological tradition, advancing a Christologically based humanism in a multi-religious and cultural society.

Die Untersuchung geht von dem im christlich-jüdischen Dialog erreichten hermeneutischen Konsens aus. In einer theologischen Grundlagenreflexion werden ausgehend von der Erkenntnis, dass die Bibel Israel das gemeinschaftlich geteilte Erbe ist, das Judentum und Christentum verbindet und zugleich der Ausgangspunkt zweier religiöser Überlieferungen ist, die das Erbe auf verschiedene Weise rezipiert haben, vertiefende hermeneutische Kriterien entwickelt. Im Mittelpunkt stehen die Konzeptionen von Brevard S. Childs, Rolf Rendtorff und Erich Zenger, die mit der Fokussierung auf den Kanon und die Christologie, auf die gemeinsame christlich-jüdische Lektüre und die lesetheoretisch begründete Hermeneutik der „kanonischen Dialogizität“ exemplarische Positionen abdecken. Die Untersuchung kommt zu folgenden Ergebnissen: In Anknüpfung an rezeptionstheoretische Überlegungen ist die Hermeneutik des Alten Testaments im christlich-jüdischen Dialog erstens als spezifisch christliche Leseweise zu definieren, die zugleich auf das Gespräch mit der gleichrangigen jüdischen Lesart angewiesen bleibt. Sie ist zweitens als theologische Auslegung zu entwerfen, die auf den Kanon aus Altem und Neuem Testament bezogen ist. Dabei trägt sie der Vielfalt der biblischen Stoffe Rechnung, indem sie von Zengers Konzept der kanonischen Dialogizität ausgeht. Als Beitrag zu einer „Theologie nach Auschwitz“ wird sie drittens keinen neutralen Standort einnehmen können. Viertens wird sie an die christologische Interpretation anschließen und sich dabei von Childs’ Verständnis des christologischen Bezugs als pneumatologisch qualifizierter Ausdehnung leiten lassen. Indem sie schließlich fünftens an das Textdenken Jacques Derridas und dessen Verständnis des Ereignisses anknüpft, das von ihm als messianischer Einbruch verstanden wird, kann sie aus theologischer Perspektive das Verstehen nur als pneumatologisch qualifiziertes Ereignis der Offenbarung Gottes begreifen, das methodisch nicht sicherzustellen ist. / The starting point chosen in this work is the hermeneutic consensus achieved in the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Reflecting upon some of the fundamental aspects of theology, the study develops more in-depth hermeneutic criteria based on the insight that the Bible of Israel is the shared common heritage that both establishes a link between Jews and Christians and is the point of origin of two religious traditions that have interpreted the heritage in different ways. It primarily deals with the conceptions held by Brevard S. Childs, Rolf Rendtorff and Erich Zenger who cover paradigmatic positions, ranging from a focus on the canon and on christology to a common Jewish-Christian reading and to a hermeneutic approach of “canonical dialogism”. The study yields the following results: Firstly, building on considerations embraced by the theory of reception, Old Testament hermeneutics within the Jewish-Christian dialogue have to be defined as a specifically Christian reading that, at the same time, continues to depend on the dialogue with the equal-ranking Jewish reading. Secondly, this hermeneutic approach has to be designed as a theological interpretation that relates to the canon of the Old and New Testament. This involves taking into account the diversity of the biblical material by using Zenger’s concept of canonical dialogism as a starting point. Thirdly, as is makes a contribution to “post-Auschwitz theology”, this reading will not be able to adopt a neutral standpoint. Fourthly, it will expand upon the christological interpretation and, in doing so, it will go by Childs’ concept of the christological relation being an extension conceived in pneumatological terms. Fifthly, by adopting Derrida’s deconstruction and his notion of the “event” as a messianic irruption, this hermeneutic approach can only conceive the act of understanding as an event where God is revealed, an event to be described in pneumatological terms that can not be warranted by any methodological effort.