Editorial

Abstract

Neo-Calvinism, a theological movement with cultural repercussions that originated in the Netherlands in the latter half of the nineteenth century, boasts of a respectable pedigree in Sinophone Christianity. It began to shape the churches across the Sinophone world in significant ways in the 1970s. The late Jonathan Chao (趙天恩, 1938-2004) popularized an indigenized, ecumenical, and missional form of Reformed theology rooted in his learnings at Westminster Theological Seminar in Philadelphia. He contributed to the founding of a number of institutions and organizations that proved to be highly influential, including China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, China Evangelical Seminary in Taiwan, as well as China Missions International that reshaped the faith of underground churches in China in fundamental ways.It was also Chao who travelled to Sumatra, Indonesia, to convince Stephen Tong (唐崇榮, b. 1940) to begin offering theological courses for the laity throughout Asia. Eventually, Tong, an autodidact in theology, initiated the Reformed Evangelical Movement that gave rise to a highly creative and evangelistic form of the Reformed faith that began to exert immense influence among churches in mainland China in the 1990s. While his teachings do not always conform to confessional orthodoxy, he and Chao were at any rate the first to popularize a number of key neo-Calvinist ideas, including the cultural mandate, among Sinophone Christians.The introduction of Reformed theology in general and of neo-Calvinism in particular to Sinophone Christianity was furthered by younger contemporaries of Chao and Tong, including Peter Chow (周功和), Samuel Ling (林慈信), Ken Ang Lee (李健安), Stephen Chan (陳佐人), and the late Wing-Hong Wong (黃穎航), among others. Some of them propagated a narrower version of neo-Calvinism passed down from Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987. Others began to introduce broader and more eclectic forms of neo-Calvinism to Sinophone Christianity.Neo-Calvinism took root in Protestant house churches in mainland China in the 2000s. A number of intellectual elites in Chengdu converted to Christianity when they became convinced that neo-Calvinism promised to provide the