Christian Faith and 21st Century China Conference

This past August 22-24 a conference on the church in China was convened at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. The main sponsor of this event was the Forum of Chinese Theology (a Chinese organization based in Singapore), with Gordon-Conwell serving as co-sponsor. The meeting brought together some 34 scholars and church leaders from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom to discuss a wide variety of issues related to Christianity in China. In addition, more than seventy other guests attended the conference, most associated with organizations that work closely with or support the church in China. Below is a brief summary of the meeting and some of the papers presented during the three days.

Doug BirdsallThe first day of the conference was centered on the theme of “Christian Faith and Traditional Chinese Culture,” with Christian scholars of Confucianism engaging with three influential New Confucian scholars from China and Taiwan. The opening panel on Christianity and Confucianism in contemporary China consisted of three Christian scholars, including Prof. He Guanghu (Renmin University). He argued that Christianity and Confucianism should be able to co-exist harmoniously, because the former is a religion but not a particular culture, while the latter is a particular culture but not a religion. In the panel that followed, the three New Confucian scholars had a chance to express their views on Christianity and Confucianism. Prof. Chen Ming (head of the Confucianism Research Center at Capital Normal University) argued that Confucianism is in fact a religion and forms the foundation of Chinese culture, and thus expressed hope that it would be recognized as a formal religion in China with a pre-eminent position in shaping the culture, while other religions like Christianity would play a secondary role. The final panel of the day, on Christian and Confucian worldviews, was composed of three Christian scholars, one of whom was Prof. Huang Baoluo (Helsinki University). He criticized the New Confucians for turning the humanistic ethical system of Confucianism into a kind of absolutist cultural ideology, and suggested that Christianity could play a vital role in China’s future development by countering the negative impact of materialism, encouraging a more open political system and the rule of law, and helping China move from a narrow nationalism to a broader global outlook. Though obviously there were very deep differences between the Christians and New Confucians, the discussion was respectful and relationships were strengthened. At the end of the first day, Wang Wenfeng (Secretary-General of the Forum of Chinese Theology) presented a document that had been signed by most of the Chinese Christian scholars at the conference setting forth their common views on the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture. This statement focused on the compatibility between Christianity and Confucianism, clarified the largely positive role that Christianity has played in Chinese history, and emphasized that Christianity both affirms Chinese culture and maintains a certain distance from it, since all human cultures need to be reformed in the light of God’s revelation.

The second day of the conference turned to the theme of “Christian Faith and Chinese Society.” Some brief opening remarks were offered by Prof. Daniel Bays (Calvin College), the distinguished American historian of Christianity in China, in which he challenged the audience to think more deeply about what constitutes a Sino-Christian theology and discussed the failure of missionaries prior to 1949 to devolve authority to the Chinese. The first panel of the day then considered the role of Christianity in shaping the current rise of China, with one of the talks given by Wang Wenfeng. He examined the major ideological camps in contemporary China and the response of Chinese Christians to them, including Liberalism (favorable response), New Leftism (unfavorable response), and New Confucianism (mixed response), while encouraging a more active Christian engagement with China’s intellectual trends. The second panel explored the close relationship between Christianity and modernity in China, mostly from a historical angle. John Barwick (Global China Center) spoke on the rise of elite Chinese Protestants in the early decades of the 20th century and their promotion of such aspects of modernity as literacy, civil society, the elevation of women, and democracy, and suggested that the growing number of educated urban Protestants in China today will likely lead to renewed emphasis on the church’s cultural mandate. The final panel focused on the social mission of the church in China. One of the presenters was Prof. Carsten Vala (Loyola University of Maryland), who examined the issue of how much Protestant churches contribute to civil society in China. He found that both official and unregistered churches achieved a higher level of autonomous organization than other religious groups, and pointed to the rise of large urban churches with highly educated members as the most dramatic manifestation of this trend.

ParticipantThe third and final day of the conference dealt with the subject of “Christian Faith and the Chinese Church.” The first panel was particularly significant, since it brought together a major house church leader named Zhang Fuheng (head of the Chinese Gospel Fellowship, a large house church network) and a top leader of the official church named Prof. Wang Aiming (Vice-President of Nanjing Theological Seminary). Zhang spoke in his presentation about the need for China’s house churches to transition to new biblically based structures (resembling Evangelical churches in the West) in order to meet the challenges of their increasingly modern and urban context. Prof. Wang, meanwhile, compared the TSPM in China to the “magisterial churches” of the Reformation (e.g. Lutherans) because of their ties to the state, and likened the emerging urban house churches  to the “free churches” (e.g. Mennonites) because of their separation from the state, and suggested that the push of the latter for legal recognition would help reform China’s religious policy in a way that would allow both types of churches to more effectively fulfill their social and spiritual role.  The second panel, which examined the contours of the church in China, included a presentation by Prof. Gao Shining (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), in which she discussed the term “ecological imbalance of religions” that some Chinese scholars use to describe the rapid growth of Christianity in China relative to traditional “Chinese” religions. She criticized this concept for its lack of scientific rigor and view of Christianity as a tool of Western influence, when in fact its rapid growth reflects a positive evaluation by the Chinese people of Christianity and its moral influence. The closing panel of the conference discussed the role of the Chinese church in world missions, with one of the papers presented by David Ro (Lausanne Deputy Director for East Asia) on how China’s urban house churches have shifted from a focus on indigenization and local growth to making efforts to link with the global Evangelical church in promoting world missions. He argued that just as the rapid growth of urban churches in Korea during the economic boom of the 1970s later led to a major increase in the number of Korean missionaries, the current growth of China’s urban churches is likely to lead to a similar missionary movement, especially since Chinese church leaders are very eager after sixty years of isolation to join with the global church in the work of mission.

Without a doubt, this conference was a rare occasion for Christian scholars and church leaders from both China and the West to gather in the United States. It was an unusually rich time, given the dialogue with New Confucian scholars, the mixing of academics and practitioners, and the presence of both house church and official church figures. It is hoped that the public discussions, private conversations, and relationship building that occurred over the three days of the gathering will yield lasting spiritual fruit and bring blessing to God’s church, and especially the church in China.

Dr. John Barwick is a research associate with Global China Center and served as the Executive Coordinator of the conference on behalf of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.