Eberhard Busch on Barth on Christian Participation in the “political service of God”

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Eberhard Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology (Eerdmans).
Christians do not do anything that is alien either to their faith in the God who graciously commands or to those who are responsible in the secular polis, when they too participate in this political service of God. They should not try to evade this duty on the grounds that it would involve digression from their “proper” task. If they do not want to deny their freedom in the world, they should never restrict their obedience to the command of God to an inner sphere, in order to subject themselves externally to the laws of some other authority. Just as the kingdom of God is hidden in the polis but still present, Christians, even when acting “anonymously” in the polis, may not suspend the one standard of the command of the God who reigns both here and there (172).
Christians must act to resist the power exercised by humans over humans that robs them of freedom and pushes them onto the margin of society. Following Christ's solidarity with the lost...Christians must 'look downward' upon the socially and economically weak. They must 'summon the world to reflect on social injustice...and to alter the conditions and relationships in question' (173-4; quoting from Barth's CD 4.3).

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