Abstract
This article explores, from a theological standpoint, the growing concerns about the role of the church and how it may contribute to society without compromising Christian beliefs. It deconstructs some views favoring Western theology and reconstructs a Chinese theology in the Chinese context to argue how the church should be shaped and how transformative theological education could help the church achieve its goals. Given the Chinese context, this article proposes that theology could be described as a way of thinking about God and His relationship with the world and a way to witness to Jesus Christ, allowing the church to present itself from its very origin as a political body—a polis—a community that offers an alternative political methodology to influence society. To influence Chinese society, the church must apply both transformative theological education and theological praxis.
Introduction
During the past few decades, Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, has been growing rapidly in mainland China.1 Daniel H. Bays notably suggests that “Christianity has become Chinese and part of the Chinese social scene.”2 This growing phenomenon has given rise to concerns among scholars and church leaders about what type of theology could best provide the church with a prophetic voice and allow it to address Chinese social and political issues without compromising Christian belief. Responding to these concerns, Wang Yi (王怡), among the most influential of the house church leaders and a prominent figure in the human rights movement in mainland China, proposes that Reformed theology and tradition can offer an effective theological resource. He argues that historically, this approach not only transformed the Western church but also reshaped the Western political order,3 and that Reformed theology and tradition can function in the same way to achieve this goal in mainland China. Following this line of thinking, several influential Reformed urban house church leaders have implemented the Reformed theology and tradition to form their churches to approach communities and society.4 Affirming the social role of Christianity manifested in Western society, Carsten T. Vala goes so far as to point out that the Chinese Protestant church can contribute to civil society development in mainland China by offering Christian values.5
However, other church leaders argue strongly against such views. They articulate that Western theology and the church’s praxis grounded in the Western context cannot resonate with Chinese society. Western theology has also failed to retain a connection to Western society, given the decline of Christianity in the West.6 Most importantly, Western theology has been constructed within the Christendom context, “in which church and state were distinguished but viewed as parts of a larger, unified Christian society.”7 In contrast, Christendom has never been a feature of mainland China, nor has China adopted the Christendom image, namely “the widely shared belief throughout Europe…that only one church and one religion should be recognized in a given jurisdiction.”8 As Wang Aiming (王艾明) illustrates, while Christianity has been intertwined with the formation of Western society, and the church has been a significant source of social influence, history shows that the triumph of Christianity seen in the West could never be repeated in China because China’s established traditions and values left little room for it. Hence, Chinese Christians must find a new way to construct their own theology in the Chinese setting to prophetically proclaim God’s message to the Chinese people and serve their society.9 Concurring with Wang, Cai Hongqiang (蔡宏强) emphasizes that while Western theology and tradition have served the Western church well, they cannot speak to Chinese churches and society; it therefore becomes necessary to construct Chinese theology within its own context.10
While both Wang and Cai insightfully point out the limitations of Western theology and the necessity of constructing a uniquely Chinese theology, neither have articulated precisely how to achieve this goal. Hence, this article begins to engage with their concerns from a theological approach to shed more light on this topic—first by investigating the limitations of Western theology and proposing the necessity of constructing Chinese theology in its own context, and later exploring how this type of theology might inform the Chinese church as a political body. This body, as a polis, would be a community that offers an alternative political approach to influencing society. However, to exert such influence, both transformative theological education and theological praxis by the church must be applied.
The Need for Examining the Limitations of Western Theology
Following the line of Wang’s and Cai’s critique, however, it is clear that constructing Chinese theology requires further investigation of the limitations of Western theology as well as critical reflections on issues raised in the way Chinese theologians might approach theology. Regarding limitations, all theology is contextual, because our cultural and historical contexts always influence how we conceive of God and express our faith.11 This means that Western theology and non-Western theology are each constructed in their own setting and hence cannot speak to the other’s context; while they can learn from and even mutually illuminate each other, one can never reflect the other’s culture and context. For Western theology, the concept of Christendom reflects a sociopolitical characteristic of Western society, or “the union between Christianity and secular power”12 and “the dominion or sovereignty of the Christian religion.”13 It becomes reflected in the system beginning in C.E. 313, when Constantine’s Edict of Milan transformed Christianity from the most persecuted religion into the dominant one. Since then, Christianity as a religion has not only provided the ethos of morality to society, but in different ways it has also been involved in engaging the political order. This historic shift has changed the theological landscape: earlier theology, through apologetics, aimed at defending the Christian faith and enabling Christians to be faithful to Jesus Christ. However, modern theology is now committed to securing the sociopolitical order in the name of Christ by making the Gospel intelligible to the world, not vice versa.14
Comparatively, Christendom has never been a feature of China; nor is it something desirable for most Chinese Christians, because their experience has made them aware of the danger of any forms of union between church and state. Seemingly, such a union ensures safety for church practice and belief; but consequently, the church surrenders its true freedom. For example, the form of the Three-Self church intertwined with the Chinese government’s religious policy forces the church to prioritize state interests and practice its loyalty to the state rather than to the Lord.15 While the history and reasoning behind this type of union is complicated and different from the Western experience,16 in both cases we must conclude that such a union has been problematic. Notably, the shadow of Christendom has haunted both the Chinese government and the Chinese people, and ever since, the role of Christianity as an established religion has been closely associated with colonialism, with some Western missionaries even acting as the “religious arms” of colonial powers.17 This burden of the past compels Chinese society to be suspicious of the role of Christianity, as it still views Christianity, to some degree, as a tool of Western power that poses a potential threat to China. This complexity sets an agenda for Chinese Christians to eliminate the negative image of Christianity as the “Western religion” in the context of Christendom, and to restore the truth that Christianity originated from Israel and that its message of salvation is meant for the entire world.
Apart from the context of Christendom, there is a particular crisis in Western theology’s ongoing theological disputes which poses a barrier to constructing a Chinese theology. To understand this crisis, it is crucial to refer to the theological challenges which faced early Christianity. As we get a sense of how early Christianity shaped this crisis, we will see how it has continued in an ongoing theological debate until the present day. The challenges faced by early Christianity are also relevant for Chinese Christians. Understanding these challenges can help in translating the message of God into their world and constructing Chinese theology in their own setting. Regarding the origin of Christianity, we need to acknowledge that it did not arise in a vacuum; Christianity was born into the Greco-Roman world, whose historical and cultural context had a considerable impact on its development. On the one hand, early Christians absorbed the cultural and intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world while translating the message of Jesus Christ into their world. On the other hand, early Christians also grappled with a variety of eastern religious beliefs and ancient philosophical views, which constantly challenged them to separate and distinguish themselves from other religions both in belief and practice.
By coming to grips with this challenge, the fundamental Christian doctrines and creeds were formulated. Christianity was consolidated under the authority of emperors after its legalization in C.E. 313. Even then, the debates and conflicts between orthodox and “heretical” groups were never settled. With the increasing impact of Greek philosophy on Christianity in the Middle Ages, coping with the relationship between theology and philosophy while defending Christian beliefs led to two different philosophical positions—realism and nominalism—which produced theological tension within orthodox groups. As Michael Allen Gillespie comments, “the tensions within Christianity between revelation with its emphasis on divine omnipotence and incarnation, on the one hand, and philosophy with its emphasis on rationalism and the notion of a rational cosmos, on the other, were not so easily resolved and remained a continuing problem for Christianity through its long history.”18
The realists laid a Greek philosophical foundation for theology which understands God as the highest being and creation as a rational order of being extending to God. Nominalists, on the other hand, thoroughly rejected the Greek notion of God and Greek philosophical reason itself; they laid out a new vision of God and human beings, emphasizing the importance of revelation. Furthermore, nominalists argued that there were no universals and that God Himself is not a being in the same sense as all created beings; human beings could know little about God and His intentions beyond what God revealed to them in the Bible.19 It is therefore faith alone which teaches that God is omnipotent. Creation is an act of sheer grace and is comprehensible only through revelation, and the God Who created the world continues to act within it freely.20 Such an understanding redefines the nature of God, humans, and the cosmos and creates a distance between God and the world. Nominalism fundamentally dismantled theological metaphysics and left unresolved many theological dilemmas pondered from the Middle Ages to this day.
As a result, the metaphysical claims of Christianity have become harder to justify, and modern theologians must find a new way to approach theology. In the end, this crisis made the traditional way of doing theology with respect to the Greek and medieval periods obsolete, and brought about a turn to an anthropological approach—one which emphasizes the central role of human beings in the understanding of religious faith. This change is reflected in the epistemological and intellectual turning away from traditional Christian theology, which took place in pre-Enlightenment Western theology,21 wherein religious systems of thought are deemed insufficient for providing answers to certain fundamental questions about belief in modern culture. In this shift, reason free of tradition was introduced to the realm of epistemology. Under the influence of this kind of reason, modern mainline theologians have been inclined to rely on the philosophically defensible post-Enlightenment intellectual and moral background to make sense of Christian beliefs in the modern world; and, if we take Paul Tillich’s work as the chief representative paradigm (noting that even Karl Barth calls Tillich a “great Theologian”)22 we can see that these attempts have left their mark on today’s theology. Tillich’s work reflects Heidegger’s influence in his existential starting point to develop a kind of ontotheology. It also demonstrates a new apologetic approach to develop a satisfying Christian theology in the context of an acceptable philosophy, aiming to bridge the gap between the Christian faith and the modern world.23
Admittedly, Tillich’s theology is insightful at times, even if we can identify certain flaws. His way of doing theology is to interpret the contents of the Christian faith into modern language, such that the triune God becomes Ultimate Reality and Christian faith becomes Ultimate Concern. It seems that this interpretation can be successful within a range of agreements about core Truth as accepted by all the major religions and the secular culture, and it even opens a door for religious dialogue. However, Tillich’s expression of God makes it seem as if the Christian God does not exist when the substance of Christianity is removed. It comes down to the question: Is there a place for the person of Jesus Christ as God’s self-revelation? This assertion of Jesus Christ must be the standard against which every theology is judged,24 otherwise the danger is that “the bridging concepts tend to transfer intellectual attention from Christian particularity to the bridging concepts themselves.”25
To put it strongly, replacing the Christian language with short concepts distorts the nature of Christianity. Nevertheless, this sort of epistemological idea has been implemented in the discipline of modern comparative religions.26 For example, treating God as the ultimate reality in Chinese religion likens the Confucian notion of Heaven to God, which has nothing to do with the Christian God. Given Stanley Hauerwas’s critique of Tillich and the Tillichian approach, we find that “religion became the determinative Tillichian genus of which ‘Christianity’ is but a species…by the very act of our modern theological attempts at translation, we have unconsciously distorted the Gospel and transformed it into something it never claimed to be—ideas abstracted from Jesus, rather than Jesus with his people.”27
Tillich’s methodical interpretation of Christian thought merely reflects a type of philosophical approach engaging Christianity. Other Western theologians are no longer interested in the Tillichian existential starting point in the theology of translation, and yet, they still rely on philosophical reflections to develop a pattern of theology by producing fresh ideas and formulations to continue to make faith credible to the modern world. Seemingly, this sort of reductionist theology minimizes the conflict between Christian faith and modern culture. However, its theological approaches go too far and are unable to provide the resources necessary to justify Christian belief and answer fundamental questions such as “What is being a Christian all about?” and “How is Christian life shaped in relation to the final goal for which Christians have been made and redeemed?”28 Since these questions are equally crucial for Chinese Christians to discern, I propose an alternative way of constructing Chinese theology.
Constructing a Chinese Theology in the Chinese Context
As previously examined, the limitations of Western theology mean that Chinese Christians cannot use modern Western theology as an off-the-shelf framework to construct their own theology; this approach to Christian belief has thrown up confusion in theological studies. Yet, despite these limitations, we should not ignore the attempts of Western Christians to defend the Christian faith in their time and in their context. Their unsuccessful attempts not only lend non-Western Christians a way to pay close attention to the traditional roots of theology and to re-examine their presuppositions and arguments, but they also point to an alternative by going back to the Gospel story itself and to the early days of Christianity (C.E. 30 to 313) for theological reflection. Under this approach, constructing Chinese theology to guide Chinese church activities in their own context takes into account two matters: the present context and the experience of the past, including the attempts of early Christians and Western theologians to defend Christian beliefs.29 In essence, the construction of Chinese theology is based on being both faithful to the past and open to the present and future. It stresses the catholicity of the Chinese church as standing in continuity with the faith and practice of early Christianity, while also being guided by the Holy Spirit to address the new conditions and new ways of living which have been introduced into their world.30
I therefore make an experimental argument that theology is neither (as in much of Western theology) concerned with the analysis of religious experience, nor with making Christian beliefs credible to the world; theological thought is not found in thinking from a human center but from the triune God and His revelation. This suggests that Chinese theology should begin by reorienting all theological discussion around Jesus Christ and the earliest Christian witnesses to His life, death, resurrection, and ministry. Furthermore, taking the early Christian experience seriously offers a way for Chinese Christians to tackle their own complicated religiocultural and sociopolitical contexts without compromising Christian belief. Like the earliest Christians, Chinese Christians today never take the Gospel story for granted. Wrestling with the surrounding culture, a multitude of practiced religions, and the dominant political system, they face two options: adapt the Gospel story and assimilate it into Chinese society, or retain its uniqueness with the consequence of being marginalized and even persecuted. And in fact, a similar struggle has taken place throughout Chinese history: when Christianity was first introduced to China by a Syrian monk in 635,31 its unique belief system met recognition by the Tang Emperor Taizong but did not survive religious suppression by Tang Emperor Wuzong.32 When Christianity reentered China in 1583 and encountered the deep-seated tradition and dominance of Confucianism it failed to take root once more, even in spite of significant efforts by Jesuit missionaries Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri to conform to the habits of the Chinese culture, and the acceptance of Ricci himself as a “Western Confucian scholar”.33 More recently, it appears that Christianity has grown rapidly (since the 1980s), yet it still struggles for compatibility with Chinese culture and wide acceptance by the Chinese people. Christianity is still seen by authorities as a dangerous and subversive foreign religion due to its complex history, and it is therefore allowed limited room to maneuver. And, when it comes to local non-Christians, some perceive the church as a cult because of its regular gatherings, its binding nature, and the commitment of people to love one another. Others see it as a xenocentric club where people worship foreign culture and advocate a foreign religion.
To reconcile Christianity with Chinese culture, earlier Chinese theologians believed that the task of theology was to make a cultural adaptation and enable Christianity to blend into Chinese society. Jesus Christ thus became a Confucian saint Who set a moral model for the Chinese to imitate.34 The traditional doctrine of justification by faith was interpreted as justification through the love of maintaining a harmonious society.35 More recently, seeing Christianity as an aspect of Western civilization, non-Christian Chinese intellectuals who adhere to Christian values and appreciate Christian culture have established Sino-Christian theology as an academic discipline used to approach Christian culture independent of the church.36 This adaptation simply reduces the irreducible components of Christian belief in the style of Western reductionist theologians. But Christianity is not fundamentally about moral teaching and Jesus as a moral exemplar, nor is it about Western civilization, though all of these may stem from it. Instead, Christianity is first founded on the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who became a man and died on the cross in order to reconcile us to God. His life, death, and resurrection give those who believe in Him a new life. Then, through following and imitating Him their lives are transformed, and their transformation has a tremendous impact on the world.
Given the existing issues in Chinese theology, I argue that Chinese theology should be described as a way of thinking about God and His relationship with the Chinese people to witness the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in their own concrete context. By incorporating the earliest Christian witnesses and their experiences, a holistic approach toward Chinese theology becomes grounded in both the Bible and in ancient doctrine. It begins with the Bible to construe the nature and activities of God and the interactivity of the God-human relationship. According to the Bible, human beings are created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26–27). Drawing from the scriptures, early patristic theologians such as Irenaeus and Augustine developed the concept of the image of God as a foundational doctrine of Christianity. A direct result of humans bearing God’s image is that they have a relationship with the Divine. The narrative of the biblical story exemplifies that God is a relational God, and His relationality manifests in His covenants with Israel and all creation. The covenants demonstrate His journey with His people from the very beginning to the end, and the climax of the covenants takes place in the incarnate Christ revealing God’s relational love and action to restore right covenant relations with the Creator. Through Jesus, those who believe enter into a mutually loving relationship with the triune God, and they are called upon to reconcile with people and the world, and to participate in the glory of God revealed in the crucified and resurrected Jesus by the Spirit.
The biblical narrative hence shows that the relational God cannot be understood independently of creation, covenant, Jesus Christ, or revelation.37 Importantly, it reveals that the relationality rooted in the incarnate God not only makes it possible for believers to encounter God and God’s Word through a particular part of their real-world context, but it also reshapes their personal and social levels of existence in the world. On the personal level, Christians seek to be Christ-like by imitating God—an imitation made possible because Jesus lived as a man and taught humans how to live as dearly loved children—and by living a life of love as Christ loved us (Ephesians 5:1,2). Consistently doing so forms a Christian in virtue to live in relation with God and others, and embodies the story of Jesus Christ. On the social level, Christians are commanded to love their neighbor, act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). The two levels display God’s holistic—rather than dualistic—mission to people and the world.
Such relational views give insight into how the church makes possible God’s salvation and mission to the Chinese people and transforming their society, because the relational God is a God who gathers His people within His life and ministry through the church, where they learn how God proclaims and embodies a way of life that Jesus Christ has made possible. The emphasis on God’s particular relationship with the church as theologically central for an explication of the church’s existence reconstructs the life and mission of the church imaginatively. It is the way of life and mission defined by the Gospel that shapes the church in its very origin as a political body—a polis—a new kind of community that offers an alternative political route for influencing society.38 This particular political body is marked by the cross, which symbolizes “the punishment of a man who threatens society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life.”39 Paradoxically, the political body through the cross also signifies that Jesus Christ, very man and very God, disarms the powers and authorities nonviolently within the earthly power structure (Colossians 2:15). The cross-shaped new polis therefore indicates that a powerful and faithful demonstration of following Jesus Christ and becoming His disciple is to share in that way of life of which the cross is the culmination. It implies that a distinct way of political life presented as a countercultural and non-conformist movement in society might confront followers’ personal lives and even undergird their family ties and sociopolitical relations. Given this, we might conclude that the church as a political community has its politics defined by the Gospel. It is also an imagined community, which offers its members a means to imagine themselves participating in Christ’s death and resurrection in this particular way. In principle, to voluntarily belong to the Christian community is to learn virtues that will help Christians be faithful to witness the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in this world and learn how to live out another kind of political identity to impact society in accordance with faith, hope, and love. There is no doubt that this kind of community politics faces a challenge because its political system is incompatible with that of the world.
The church as an alternative polis address both first-century and twenty first-century Christian churches and bears decisive implications for the Chinese church. I see the situation of the Chinese church today as similar to the sociopolitical context of the early church up to the time of the Nicene Fathers. The state authority puts itself in charge of religions and Christian beliefs, and its attitude toward Christianity shifts among neutral, favorable, and hostile positions for sociopolitical and cultural reasons. Accordingly, the church’s participation in the life and mission of Jesus Christ revealed on the cross means paying the price of social nonconformity in like manner to Jesus. The church acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God might lead to inexplicable and unpredictable suffering because it is a social reality representing in an unwilling world the Order to come.40 However, the church has not only endured and survived hostility (like the early church), but it has been flourishing since the 1980s. Recently, the church has been called to move beyond its “safe” zone and become active in the public sphere to contribute to society, which has produced significant growth in urban settings. In Wenzhou, for example, Christian entrepreneurs leverage their financial influence and business activities to engage the local community and government; they proclaim the Gospel to employees in their offices and factories, invite both Christian and non-Christian workers to attend their prayer meetings and Bible studies, and support local government-organized social services.41 In doing so, churches in Wenzhou have even “created a new form of church-state relations and presented the dynamics of the church-state relations by their gaining recognition and respect both from government officials and from the society at large.”42
Shaping the Role of the Church as Transformer of Society: the Integration of Chinese Theology and Theological Education
The church, as an alternative polis, is called to be part of the Gospel to live out another kind of political identity. This type of existence will inevitably present challenges to earthly power and suffer from earthly authority. However, the way of nonconformity and suffering love for social engagement within the sociopolitical structure not only empowers the church to participate in God’s triumph over earthly power, but also enables the church to profoundly transform the community and society. Theological education for a church in this context then becomes essential to form this kind of community with the virtues necessary to fulfill its calling. Theologically, it aims to help Chinese believers shape their role from a foundational relationship with the triune God and deepen their faith to transform the individual, family, community, and society as a whole. Understanding theological education this way points to the “Athens” model43 as an approach that takes into account the Chinese context and culture.
The Athens model is derived from the ancient Greek philosophical educational methodology of paideia, which aims to cultivate the ideal citizen of the Greek polis through related virtues for civic responsibility. The Greek paideia was adapted by the early church fathers to be a Christian paideia for cultivating converts with Christian virtues in distinctly different ways, and it reached its culmination in medieval Christian civilization. As David H. Kelsey articulates, “Clement of Alexandria and his brilliant student Origen were self-consciously affirming…Christianity is paideia, given by God in Jesus Christ, turning on a radical conversion possible only by the Holy Spirit’s help and taught only indirectly by the study of divinely inspired Scriptures in the social context of the church understood to be in some ways a school.”44 The Christian paideia stresses the formation process, in which three key elements—Holy Spirit, Scriptures, and church—are closely integrated. Its goal was to teach converts how to change their way of life, direct them towards a new way of life in becoming like God, and form a new identity for them in Christ. The whole process of paideia can be considered a character cultivation to preserve and present the new way of Christian life. It is worth noting that the task of paideia is not just to form Christians with virtues that allow them to live out a new life, but also to address the social and public dimensions in preparing Christians for public undertakings.
The early church paideia is relevant to today’s Christ-centered education and is workable in the Chinese context; the early church epitomizes the current position of the Chinese church and therefore offers a new way forward. The early church experienced and overcame the same types of challenges now facing the Chinese church, such as how to translate the Gospel into a new culture with new cultural conceptions, survive in the current sociopolitical climate, and create first-generation disciples. The early apologists have paved the way for the Chinese church, which can learn from their educational tradition and experiences to accomplish the same task. Following their steps, it is essential that the Chinese church be committed to Chinese theological education with the early church paideia by focusing on character cultivation. Character cultivation directs Christians to become like God by developing a new identity in Christ and cultivating life-long growth toward areté (excellence) in body, mind, and spirit. The cultivation process is a long journey that does not happen spontaneously; it is a deliberate process of conforming to the image of Christ and attaining a desire to act in the way Jesus Christ acted for the sake of others. This journey also seems painful rather than pleasant, yet later it produces a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have endured it (Hebrews 12:11).
Imitators, imitation, the Holy Spirit, and the church facilitate the transformation, as evident in Paul’s own life experience and his textual argument on the formation of the Galatians’ new identity in Christ (Galatians 4:19). Stephen Richard Turley illustrates how the Galatians formulated a distinctly Christian identity through imitating and exemplifying the cross of Christ in His life together with His resurrection, enabling God’s people to endure suffering along with joy as a testimony of God’s grace exemplified on the cross.45 Like the Galatians, with His enabling power Chinese Christians can follow the spiritual exercise to train their minds by focusing their eyes on the cross of Christ and imitating Jesus, who is the Perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:1–2). This spiritual training allows their lives to reflect the life of Jesus more and more (2 Peter 1:3–10) and keep their roots in Him. Over time, these spiritual pieces of training lead to Christian habits, which shape followers with Christian virtues to become God’s people. They become able to resist secular cultural practices and gain a disposition to engage in day-to-day Christian practices, consistently acting out godly behavior and godly action. In this way, character cultivation could deepen the faith among Chinese believers, leaving them better prepared for the practice of ministry.
Based on a biblical and traditional application of paideia, placing character cultivation at the center of Christian theological education in seminary could be far more effective than academics as a prescription for education. Character cultivation adopts apprenticeship learning, and it must be an intentional part of training in the seminary, both inside and outside the classroom, both on and off campus. The role of faculty and teaching differs from that of academia in that seminary faculty take on the role of spiritual mentors, and their teaching is a way to nurture students and share their lives with students. As Stelios Ramfos insightfully describes this distinct teacher-student relationship, following the model of the early desert father-follower relationship, “the principle of the teacher’s authority leads not to be a kind of education which is overbearing and domineering, but to an education by example.”46 This training also has to be played out in the study of both doctrine and Christian tradition; and, it must also use sacraments because these essential elements shape what Christians believe and guide their spiritual lives. Thus, campus activities must integrate intellectual study and spiritual formation practices, such as solitude, prayer, worship, and mission work. Off-campus, this training would extend to the church and community, the foundational assumption being that character cultivation is an individual and communal transformation toward lifelong discipleship in ecclesial ministry. Moreover, the holistic formation of church leaders is ultimately reciprocal between school and church and church and community.
We can see that character cultivation refers not to a Christian’s self-edification alone, but rather to an ecclesial, communal, and missional dimension. The telos of character cultivation is to prepare God’s people for God’s mission in the world, not merely to live out a Christian lifestyle. As David H. Kelsey comments, “theological education on the ‘Athens’ model is, finally, a public undertaking.”47 However, this mission has to start with spiritual transformation within the church, because the life of the church and participation within it strengthens both the congregation and students with God’s Word, ensuring that Christian values and mindsets are always rooted in God and match one another as students enter the world. Within the church, students—under supervision of clergy—could lead worship to focus on what God has done for us and through us in the act of worship. Students may preach the Gospel to invite God’s people to engage in the message and perform sacraments to bring to memory the event of Jesus Christ, encouraging the people of God to become part of His mission and join what God is doing in the world. Spiritual transformation shapes the church’s vision and communal life in terms of God’s participation in it, and it also helps produce disciples to be sent into the world on missions. In the mission field, students engage the real world of service with the assistance of mentors and in that process, continue their own transformation and refine their ministry skills. Field education and mission work can be creative and broad, and the church should abandon the old-fashioned “come-and-see” model in favor of a “go-and-tell” model, where the mission is through everyday activities rather than occasional events at the church. This could allow various ministries to contribute to the broader community in practical ways, such as instructing parents on child-rearing with God’s wisdom, tutoring children during or after school, volunteering as teen crisis counselors, organizing food banks, or facilitating Bible studies in the workplace.
All these ministries demonstrate exemplary models and effectively promote inspirational images through transformed Christians, who bring a transforming influence to the community and may even become a force to reshape the structure of society. For example, consider again the praxis of Wenzhou’s entrepreneurial “boss Christians” who, in the Chinese context, are those “inseparably involved in the social, economic and cultural work of the modern secular society…they are affluent members of the secular society with devoted Christian faith and active involvement in church work.”48 These Christians have been beneficial to the economic reform policies of the early 1980s and have been successful in fostering a commodity economy and specialized markets. However, as Christians, they credit their success to God’s blessings. This perception orients them toward a Weberian work ethic and Christian morality, which informs how they conduct business and engage in the broader society in a multitude of ways. Unlike other Chinese Christians, they have no fear of displaying their religious status publicly and challenging church leaders, as they are the major financial supporters of the churches and boosters of democratic practices in local church management.49
In a profound way, these “boss Christians” have gone beyond religious restrictions to steer the public sphere with private faith. They preach the Gospel in factories and offices, organize Bible studies every Wednesday evening, encourage all workers to attend regardless of their religious backgrounds, and hold prayer meetings during the workday while sharing meals.50 As their businesses expand, they travel across the country and overseas on business, and wherever they go they conduct the same mixed business-ministry model, applying their beliefs to business activities domestically and internationally.51 From their perspective, “employers and employees work together for the glory of God as well as for the benefit of others.”52 Moreover, their practices are not limited to the business world—they leverage their wealth to collaborate with the government to build churches, seminaries, nursing homes, and hospitals. They also take part in government projects to alleviate social poverty, thereby offering the financially disadvantaged jobs, career training, and business opportunities to improve their living conditions.53 Their contribution brings “boss Christians” recognition and respect from the government and the broader society. Additionally, their active involvement in ecclesial activity has transformed current church-state relations and their dynamics.54 Under their leadership, many churches have become a transformative force for reshaping communities and societal structures. However, one could point out that the government has imposed new religious policy to limit the churches’ activities recently, and has even started demolishing church buildings and destroying crosses in Wenzhou and elsewhere. All these factors seem to indicate that the church cannot continue performing Christian faith both privately and publicly. Admittedly, the government’s interference and religious policy have impacted the church’s activities. But, on the other hand, it also influences some church leaders to reflect on how they leveraged their economic power to even go beyond the government’s power to achieve their goals, which could cripple a thriving faith community in a matter of days. Such reflection has transformed their faith practice from focusing on constructing luxury megachurch buildings to theological education and community faith building.55
Engaging Theological Education: a Framework for Curriculum Design
I have proposed that theological education is about forming virtuous and moral agents for a Christ-like lifestyle and social participation. The telos of theological education, therefore, is to facilitate the formation of servant leaders who have practical wisdom and a body of knowledge about God’s Word and truth which may be used to transform the community and society. Given these objectives, this theological education must be situated in the Chinese context to assist emerging seminaries—underground seminaries in particular—as well as Chinese Christian church leaders who may lack the historical knowledge and experience often attained from formal theological education.56 The curriculum design must meet their unique needs by seeking an integrated vision of faith and learning, covering three key areas as follows:
Scripture and tradition should comprise a significant part of the curriculum. As students come from various religious settings, the curriculum must ensure that their beliefs and life of faith are redirected and aligned to the Biblical metanarrative—through which God’s revelation is made known to Christians, and God’s relationship with His people is evidenced. Students should be immersed in the Apostolic tradition to determine their Christian identity and learn a new way of worship and spirituality. Moreover, learning from tradition and realigning with the biblical context, resources, and language will help students solidify their understanding of past experiences; statements of doctrine are still indispensable to the Chinese church.57 This approach fosters hope to press on in the redemptive journey and gives insight into how people and tradition can enact God’s story in various sociocultural contexts. The study would include courses on topics such as the Bible and the making of the people of God, the Bible in a postmodern context, the Church fathers, early stages of Christian thought, and various communities. These courses would be designed to explain the connection between Scripture and Christian tradition and how they reflect Christian belief. The courses would also provide a way for students to compare the beliefs and practices of the early church with those of today’s—becoming aware that the differences in how those two contexts are described provide a unique historical opportunity to observe, listen, and critically examine the traditions and experiences of the community to which the church belongs, and to communicate its vital teachings.
The ways of teaching and community of practice are also crucial for both teachers and students. Theological training should take place not in academies, but in seminaries where apprenticeship offers hands-on placement within the teacher-student relationship and ways of teaching. Taking a close look at how Jesus taught in scripture, we find that His teaching and interaction with disciples and people around Him demonstrate a relational and experiential teaching style. Unlike today’s functional teaching approach, which lacks relationship-building, Jesus’s approach to disciples is relational. His way is more practical, teaching through dialogue as well as question-and-answer group discussion. His teaching methods are rich, inclusive, and experiential, including the story, parable, and proverb, which go deep into people’s lives to help them explore more profound understandings and reflections.58 His teaching was also free to take place anywhere and anytime, and He never tired of answering questions. He lived with His disciples as a community where they shared meals, went fishing, visited the needy, and performed miracles. His teaching was integrated with practice—He equipped disciples, sent them out for ministry, and then brought them back to reflect on their experiences (Matthew 10: 1–15). He Himself also exemplified the way of contemplative knowing to draw disciples to God, as it is “the way of being present, waiting on God, receiving in stillness and silence.”59 Contemplation is helpful for disciples to discover their inner knowing, self-reflection, and their heart, opening to the Holy Spirit for transformation--through it, they learn to love God with all their heart, mind, and soul. Notably, the combination of teaching and learning is community-based, which strengthens personal and communal growth, provides mutual support, and cultivates the virtue of humility to serve each other. In practice, this community-based apprentice model is exemplified at Alliance Bible Seminary (abs) in Hong Kong. The abs is located on an island where the native hk people have been heavily influenced by local folk religion. This presents a dual challenge to the abs as they try to retain their own Christian beliefs as a minority while also transforming the island with Christian beliefs. To survive the exclusive environment without being isolated by the process, abs has successfully built itself as a community where teachers and students live together and serve each other, while together reaching out to the island weekly for ministry to gain contextual understanding and knowledge. Although it might be more difficult for many other seminaries to adopt the abs training approach, applying the apprentice model to the classroom and campus is still possible and beneficial.
As we consider the nature of the church and Chinese theology, it becomes clear that formation and transformation are the keys to theological education within the Chinese context. This begins with shaping and creating a certain kind of Christian, with virtues, and practices according to the way of life Jesus taught and modeled, and participation in the reign of God that Jesus Christ inaugurated in His earthly ministry. This draws us back to the biblical story as a lens for viewing the world and reimagining our relationship with God and to others to understand where to embark on the God-people journey of formation and transformation. Considering this goal theologically and practically, spiritual formation, virtue cultivation, mentoring, and practice are involved, aiming to build the original vertical relationship with the triune God and the horizontal relationship with people to reshape human relations. Since God created humans in His image, He desires His people to be drawn out of themselves, away from self-preoccupation, self-absorption, and self-fixation, to participate in the divine life and become self-in-relation-to-others.60 This shift results in an awareness of the relationships humans have with themselves and those in their spheres of influence.61 The relationships form in classrooms, which create a safe place for teachers and students to allow them to be vulnerable and be willing to be open to each other. For example, at the annual Orientation Day at the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, there is a session for teachers, including the president, to share their personal stories. This opens a real dialogue among all teachers and students and brings about acceptance of differences and a respect for the voices of others. This practice allows teachers to know and be known and to open up in a relationship, which allows them to draw students into the formation of the community of truth and extend it beyond the church.
Conclusion
This article has shown the possibility and necessity of developing a Chinese theology and how theological education can shape the role of the church as a transformer of society. It also discusses how to engage theological education through curriculum design. But, it also identifies areas of theological education that warrant further exploration: How does one design an integrated curriculum for transformative theological education? What is the standard? Who should determine what type of theological education is appropriate given the complex diversity of the Chinese church in mainland China—be it the state church theological educators, the house church theological educators, ministry practitioners, ecclesiastical leaders, or the government? This article is, therefore, exploratory rather than definitive, offering a beginning upon which to build the discussion of both Chinese theology and theological education, thereby contributing to the ongoing concerns about the role of the church and its contributions to society. Additionally, this article contributes to the present debate on how to Sinicize Christianity through theological education, and let it take root in Chinese soil in faith and social practice, without compromising the essence of Christianity.
Bibliography
Alexander, Irene. “Modelling Our Teaching on the Jesus of the Gospel.’ In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches, eds. Johannes, M. Luetz, Tony Dowden, and Beverley, Norsworthy (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), pp. 115–17.
Bays, Daniel H. Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. ix.
Bevans, Stephen B. “Christian Complicity in Colonialism/Globalism.” https://www.webcitation.org/6FLkZGAfR?url=http://www.secondenlightenment.org/Christian%20Complicity.pdf (Accessed August 23, 2021).
Bevans, Stephen B. Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), p. 3.
Bevans, Stephen B. Essays in Contextual Theology (Boston: Brill, 2018), p. 2.
Cai, Hongquiang. “A Grassroot Church Leader’s Perspective on Doing Chinese Theological Study.” https://gospeltimes.cn/portal/article/index/id/51201. [Accessed August 11, 2021].
Cao, Nanlai. Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2011).
Chen, Cunfu and Huang, Tianhai. “The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in China Today.” Review of Religious Research 46 (2) (December 2004), 189.
Chen, Yihai and Changfu, Chang. “Christianity Encounters Confucianism: Communication Strategies of the Missionaries in China during the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties.” Intercultural Communication Studies 13 (2) (2004), 6–7.
Chow, Alexander. “Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today.” International Journal of Public Theology 8 (2) (2014), 158–75.
Crawford, Ann. “Teaching as Relationship.” In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches, eds. Johannes, M. Luetz, Tony Dowden, and Beverley, Norsworthy (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), p. 125
Curry, Thomas J. Farewell to Christendom: The Future of Church and State in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 12.
Ding, Guangxun. A Collection of Essays by Ding Guangxun (Nanjing: Yilin Publishing Press, 2000), pp. 285–89.
Gillespie, Michael A. The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 20.
Hall, Douglas J. The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002), p. ix.
Hauerwas, Stanley and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something Is Wrong (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014).
Kelsey, David H. Between Athens and Berlin: The Theological Education Debate (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 6–11.
Liu, Xiaofeng. Sino-Theology and the Philosophy of History: A Collection of Essays by Liu Xiaofeng (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015).
Luetz, Johannes M, Tony, Dowden, and Beverley, Norsworthy. “Making Sense of the World: Reimagining Bible Engagement in Christian Education with Teenagers in Light of Maxine Greene’s Aesthetic Pedagogy.” In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), 2018.
Luetz, Johannes M, Tony, Dowden, and Beverley, Norsworthy. “Modelling Our Teaching on the Jesus of the Gospel.” In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018).
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Penguin UK, 2010), p. 572.
McKelway, Alexander J. The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich: A Review and Analysis. (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1964), P. 261.
Moffett, Samuel H. A History of Christianity in Asia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), pp. 288–314.
Montgomery, Brint, Thomas J. Oord, and Karen, Winslow. Relational Theology: A Contemporary Introduction (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), pp. 5–6.
Morrison, Stephen D. “A Barthian Critique of Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology.” https://www.sdmorrison.org/barthian-critique-paul-tillichs-systematic-theology [Accessed December 6, 2022].
Moule, A. C. Christians in China Before the Year 1550 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930), p. 38.
Neville, Robert C. Ultimate Realities: A Volume in the Comparative Religious Ideas Project (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001).
Ng, Tze Ming Peter. “Church-State Relations in China: Three Case Studies.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39 (2) (April 2015), 79.
Ramfos, Stelio. Like a Pelican in the Wilderness (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000), p. 211.
Reno, R. R. “Stanley Hauerwas and the Liberal Protestant Project.” Modern Theology 28 (2) (April 2012), 322–23.
Stanton, Graham D. “Making Sense of the World: Reimagining Bible Engagement in Christian Education with Teenagers in Light of Maxine Greene’s Aesthetic Pedagogy.” In Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), pp. 138–39.
Turley, Stephen R. “Paideia Kyriou: Biblical and Patristic Models for an Integrated Christian Curriculum.” Journal of Research on Christian Education 18 (2) (2009), 8.
Vala, Carsten T. “Protestant Christianity and Civil Society in Authoritarian China.” China Perspectives no. 3 (2012), 43–52.
VanDrunen, David. Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2010), p.83.
Wang, Aiming. Magisterial Church and Free Church (Hong Kong: Chung Chi College, 2017), pp. 289–304.
Wang, Yi. The Gospel Revolt: Meditation of Protestant Reformation (Hong Kong: Covenant Publishing Limited, 2017).
Wright, N. T. After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010), p. ix.
Yoder, John H. Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1998).
Yoder, John H. The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 53.
Zhang, Yuanlai. “Churches Resurrected After Their Demolition in Wenzhou.” Christian Times, (July 16, 2014). 张远来：浴火重生的温州教会 ——“三改一拆”事件对温州教会的影响-基督时报-基督教资讯平台 (christiantimes.cn) [accessed December 7, 2022].
Zhao, Wenjuan. “Being a Protestant Church in Contemporary Mainland China: An Examination of Protestant Church-State Relations.” Asia Journal of Theology 33 (2) (October 2019), 1–31.
Zhao, Zichen. The Biography of Jesus. (Beijing: Zhongguo Youyi Company, 2015).
In this article, my discussion mainly focuses on the Protestant church in mainland China. Given the complexities and diverse faith practices of the many different groups of the Protestant Church, a discussion of the Roman Catholic church and its practice would be beyond the scope of this article. Thus, churches referred to are Chinese Protestant unless otherwise noted.
Daniel H. Bays, ed, Christianity in China: from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. ix.
Wang Yi, The Gospel Revolt: Meditation of Protestant Reformation 《福音的政变：宗教改革沉思录》 (Hong Kong: Covenant Publishing Limited, 2017) （香港：聖約出版社有限公司, 2017）.
This is discussed in Alexander Chow, ‘Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today’, International Journal of Public Theology 8:2 (May 2014), 158–75.
Carsten T. Vala, ‘Protestant Christianity and Civil Society in Authoritarian China: The Impact of Official Churches and Unregistered “Urban Churches” on Civil Society Development in the 2000s’, China Perspectives 91:3 (January 2012), 43–52.
In this article, Western theology that is discussed refers to Euro-American theology, which has been developed since the Enlightenment.
David Van Drunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2010), p. 83.
Ibid, p. 83.
Wang Aiming, Magisterial Church and Free Church (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong) 《体制教会与自由教会》, (Hong Kong: Chung Chi College of Hong Kong) （香港：香港中文大学崇基学院, 2017）, pp. 289–304.
Cai Hongqiang, ‘A Grassroot Church Leader’s Perspective on Doing Chinese Theological Study’, （基层传道人：我对做中国神学研究的负担）, Gospel Times （福音时报）, (March 2020). https://gospeltimes.cn/portal/article/index/id/51201 [accessed August 11, 2021].
Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2002), p. 3.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Penguin Publishing Group, 2010), p. 572.
Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002), p. ix.
Some scholars point out that Christendom has already come to an end because modern governments refuse to “uphold the teachings, customs, ethos, and practice of Christianity.” Thomas J. Curry, Farewell to Christendom: The Future of Church and State in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 12. Yet, the Christendom mentality still haunts Western Christians and has been influential in their theological and ecclesial approaches. This point of view is also substantially presented in the book, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know that Something Is Wrong (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon; The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1998), by John Yoder.
For details, see my article, ‘Being a Protestant Church in Contemporary Mainland China: An Examination of Protestant Church-State Relations’, Asia Journal of Theology 33:2 (October 2019), 1–31.
Ibid.
Stephen B. Bevans, ‘Christian Complicity in Colonialism/Globalism’, https://www.webcitation.org/6FLkZGAfR?url=http://www.secondenlightenment.org/Christian%20Complicity.pdf [accessed August 23, 2021].
Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 20.
Ibid, p. 24.
Ibid, pp. 22–23.
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, pp. 20–24.
Stephen D. Morrison, ‘A Barthian Critique of Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology’, https://www.sdmorrison.org/barthian-critique-paul-tillichs-systematic-theology [accessed August 26, 2021].
R. R. Reno, ‘Stanley Hauerwas and the Liberal protestant Project’, Modern Theology 28:2 (April 2012), 322–23.
Alexander J. McKelway, The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich; A Review and Analysis (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1964), p. 261.
R. R. Reno, ‘Stanley Hauerwas and the Liberal protestant Project’, 323.
For details, see Robert C. Neville, ed, Ultimate Realities: A Volume in the Comparative Religious Ideas Project (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, p. 21.
N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (Harper One: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010), p. ix. Stephen B. Bevans, Essays in Contextual Theology (Boston: Brill, 2018), p. 2.
Ibid, p. 2.
Ibid, p. 10.
Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), pp. 288–314.
A. C. Moule, Christians in China Before the Year 1550 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930), p. 38.
Yihai Chen and Changfu Chang, ‘Christianity Encounters Confucianism: Communication Strategies of the Missionaries in China during the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties’, Intercultural Communication Studies 13:2 (2004), 6–7.
Ding Guangxun, A Collection of Essays by Ding Guangxun (Nanjing: Yilin Publishing Press, 2000), pp. 285–89.
Liu Xiaofeng, Sino-Theology and the Philosophy of History: A Collection of Essays by Liu Xiaofeng (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015). trans., Leopold Leeb. This book makes the first major attempt to achieve it.
Brint Montgomery, Thomas Jay Oord, and Karen Winslow, eds, Relational Theology: A Contemporary Introduction (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), pp. 5–6.
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, p. 30.
Ibid, p. 96.
Regarding the development of churches in Wenzhou and the church-state relationship, see Cao Nanlai, Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2011).
Peter Tze Ming Ng, ‘Church-State Relations in China: Three Case Studies’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39:2 (April 2015), 79.
David H. Kelsey, Between Athens and Berlins: The Theological Education Debate (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 6–11.
Ibid, p. 11.
Stephen Richard Turley, ‘Paideia Kyrious, Biblical and Patristic Models for an Integrated Christian Curriculum’, Journal of Research on Christian Education 18:2 (July 2009), 8.
Stelios Ramfos, Like a Pelican in the Wilderness (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000), p. 211.
David H. Kelsey, Between Athens and Berlins, p. 21.
Chen Cunfu and Huang Tianhai, ‘The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in China Today’, Review of Religious Research 46:2 (December 2004), 189.
Ibid, 189.
The information comes from my interviews with seminarians from Wenzhou from 2006 to 2014 in Hong Kong.
I joined and witnessed ministries of two groups of boss Christians in Chengdu, Sichuan, in 2005.
Chen Cunfu and Huang Tianhai, ‘The Emergence of a New Type of Christians in China Today’, 192.
The information comes from my interview with ten boss Christians in Hong Kong in Spring of 2007.
Peter Tze Ming Ng, ‘Church-State Relations in China: Three Case Studies,’ 79.
Zhang Yuanlai (张远来), ‘Churches Resurrected After their Demolition in Wenzhou’ (浴火重生的温州教会)，Christian Times (基督教时报) (July 16, 2014), 张远来：浴火重生的温州教会 ——“三改一拆”事件对温州教会的影响-基督时报-基督教资讯平台 (christiantimes.cn) [accessed December 7, 2022].
It is worth noting that both the underground seminaries and training centers have been ignored even though they have played a vital role in training house church leaders in mainland China. They are intentional about their invisible existence and hidden work because they want to ensure they have their own agency in how they practice and teach their faith without government influence. As a theological educator, I have been involved in the underground theological training since 2005, and my personal experiences and witness have informed me to increase awareness of their existence and significance while continuing to provide ideas which can guide and strengthen their theological education.
Graham D. Stanton, ‘Making Sense of the World: Reimagining Bible Engagement in Christian Education with Teenagers in Light of Maxine Greene’s Aesthetic Pedagogy’, in Johannes M. Luetz, Tony Dowden, and Beverley Norsworthy, eds, Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), pp. 138–39.
Irene Alexander, ‘Modelling Our Teaching on the Jesus of the Gospel’, in Johannes M. Luetz, Tony Dowden, and Beverley Norsworthy, eds, Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), pp. 115–17.
Ibid, p. 118.
Ann Crawford, ‘Teaching as Relationship’, in Johannes M. Luetz, Tony Dowden, and Beverley Norsworthy, eds, Reimagining Christian Education: Cultivating Transformative Approaches (Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, 2018), p. 125.
Ibid, p. 126.