Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment

Chow, Alexander

doi:10.1057/9781137312624

Cited by 21 publications

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“…TSPM and CCC leaders have recognised the low theological level of the officially-sanctioned church, while the more traditional house churches have tended towards a 'primitivist Christianity' which emphasises conversion and supernatural acts of healing or prophecy. 60 Hence, some of the more philosophical debates within the Calvinist tradition (e.g., the insistence on divine monergism 61 ) have had difficulty squaring with the Chinese mindset. Moreover, China's push towards rapid urbanisation has resulted in a noticeable migrant worker population moving from rural farmlands to urban metropolises, many of whom would likely have not had the same academic education as China's public theologians.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today

Chow

2014

Int J Public Theol

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has often been characterised as a religion for the marginalised of society. However, since the 1990s, there has been a growing phenomenon within the country's burgeoning urban metropolises with an increasing number of urban intellectuals converting to Protestantism. This paper explores the theology of several representatives of these urban intellectual Christians who makes use of the teachings of John Calvin and his followers. It will show that there is a strong theological interest in engaging in the public sphere around subjects like the rule of law, constitutionalism, and a civil society. Though

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today

Chow

2014

Int J Public Theol

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“…Alexander Chow (2013) compares three outstanding 20th‐century Chinese Christian thinkers, Watchman Nee (or Ni Tuosheng), T. C. Chao (or Zhao Zichen), and K. H. Ting (or Ding Guangxun), and presents a theoretical framework by analyzing a Chinese worldview of tianren heyi , or heaven and humanity in unity with theosis . Wang Jue (2021, p. 115) offers her critique of transhumanism and concludes that Confucianism “cannot accept transhumanism (due to the Confucian notion of ‘the unity of heaven and [humanity]’.” For Wang, transhumanism severs the relationship between heaven and humanity and falls into an egocentric antithesis of heaven and humanity.…”

Section: Implications For a Constructive Chinese Theological Response...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Alister E. McGrath and China: Toward a Chinese theology and science on transhumanism for the third millennium

Feng

2023

Dialog

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In the past three decades, Alister E. McGrath's popularity has been constantly on the rise in China. More than 20 of his books have been translated into Chinese. To the Chinese intellectual mind, the most fascinating among McGrath's works are his writings on theology and science. This is not surprising due to China's ambitions to achieve scientific and technological dominance by boosting creativity. However, such a daunting task faces insurmountable difficulties due to a prevailing lack of innovation, which might contribute to the rising interest in McGrath's work on science and theology. Due to the dominant political ideology in China, theology is by and large put aside, if not marginalized. This essay suggests that the wide‐scale reception of McGrath's works by Chinese academia and churches not only opens a door for the public square to change their attitude toward Christian theology, but also challenges Chinese theology to contextualize McGrath's scientific theology on Chinese soil and to engage Chinese worldview with its pragmatic epistemology. This paper seeks to adapt McGrath's scientific theology on the topic of transhumanism, which has received increasing scholarly attention from the perspective of traditional Chinese philosophies and religions, such as Confucianism and Daoism. Unfortunately, Chinese theology has largely failed to grasp the opportunity to offer any significant constructive proposal to this interdisciplinary discussion. This paper argues that a Chinese theology of science built on a sympathetic and critical engagement with McGrath's scientific theology has a rich potential to dialogue with modern sciences and traditional Chinese philosophies and religions on transhumanism. Such constructive theology not only serves as a conversation partner, but also provides a theological critique to the prevalent scientism and humanism in China.

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“…The final two constructive chapters will explore how the Confucian imagination also offers a unique tendency in Chinese public theology to prioritize questions related to transcendence and ecclesiology. Building on my previous work on the Eastern Orthodox understanding of theosis and the Chinese understanding of the unity of Heaven and humanity (Tian ren heyi), 63 Chapter 6 will engage Aristotle Papanikolaou's recent work on political theology and argue the case for Chinese Christianity to have an integrative theology which pursues a Divine-human unity as the foundation for the theologian and the church to engage the state and the society. 64 Chapter 7 will underscore the important place of ecclesiology in the formation of a Chinese public theology.…”

Section: Structure Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinese Public Theology

Chow¹

2018

Oxford Scholarship Online

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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.

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Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment

Cited by 21 publications

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Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today

Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today

Alister E. McGrath and China: Toward a Chinese theology and science on transhumanism for the third millennium

Chinese Public Theology

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