Chinese Public Theology

Abstract

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, since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Christians in mainland China have been constructing a more intentional public theology to engage the Chinese state and society. 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 book explains that 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. Mindful of this, 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 path forward in the construction of a Chinese public theology. Chinese Public Theology promises a new perspective into the vibrant and growing area of Chinese Christianity.

The Question of Communist Violence and the Birth of Chinese Public Theology

“…Starting in the late 1980s, Liu and other cultural Christians introduced the Sino-Christian theology movement to Chinese academia, shaping the intellectual agenda of academic Christianity through massive research and translation projects. 55 Liu's colleague and another leading scholar of the movement, He Guanghu (何光沪, 1950-), identifies the two identities of cultural Christians: they regard themselves as confessing believers, and they define their primary working zone as the public sphere of the academy rather than the statesanctioned church. 56 In other words, cultural Christians are a confessional group external to the church.…”

“…Rejecting genuine transcendence, he said, their teachings sanctified absolute claims by imperial rulers and distorted Chinese people's moral cultivation in a world that collapses Heaven and earth and humanity. 61 Second, Liu challenged doctrinal Communism as nothing but a human-centred projection in the modern era. In practice, it facilitated the creation of revolutionary machinery and mentality, which deprived individuals of their humanity and capacity to love, as seen in the collective violence and moral nihilism of the Cultural Revolution.…”

Law, Religion, and Society in China: A Contested Terrain

“…m a u l d i n and 80 million in China today, across both registered and unregistered churches. 24 Until recently, the Christian population in China was seen (not least by the Chinese government) as limited to impoverished rural people, known pejoratively as the "four manys" (Si duo): many old, many women, many illiterate, many ill. 25 The Christian population in China is increasingly an urban phenomenon. In recent years, a new group of urban, elite Christians have gained prominence in the coastal cities and in universities.…”