An Ethically Oriented Dao Christology
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CHAPTER 7 Toward a Chinese Christology: An Ethically Oriented Dao Christology Chao welcomed the founding of the New China with great enthusiasm.1 However, since the early 1950s, his contextually theological thinking had to be unfinished by successive political movements. In an article written in 1950, Chao expressed his anxiety for the future of the Chinese church. He added these lines as an appendix to the article: I feel tired in mind and exhausted in strength, and there is too much anxiety in my heart and my mind. From now on, I am going to follow the Lord wholeheartedly, and to obey the commandments of God so that I can eventually finish the rest of my life in world.2 If his theological thinking had not been undone by the political atmosphere of the time, Chao would have been able to further develop his Christology. Following the analysis of both Chao’s early and later Christology in the previous chapters, this chapter will form the constructive part of the present study. In this chapter, I will try to give some creative ideas and basic principles for constructing a Chinese Dao Christology. Dao, which refers to both cosmic principle and the way of human life, is a central concept in Chinese culture. By the term “Dao Christology,” I concentrate on the ethical dimension of Dao and attempt to establish a practical ethical dimension of Christology which may be relevant to the Chinese context, while also paying attention to the ecumeni- cal understanding of Jesus Christ. Prior to beginning this constructive part, I would like to sketch Chinese Christology beyond T. C. Chao. 7.1 Chinese Christological Thinking beyond T. C. Chao In the first half of the 20th century, a group of influential church leaders, theolo- gians, and Christian thinkers emerged as a force within Chinese Protestantism. They made their own contribution to the development of Christianity in China 1 Chao 1949b, 1949c, 1949d. Chao also had a vision for a true Chinese church. Chao 1950i, 226. 2 Chao 1950d, 215. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/97890043��4�7_008 Toward a Chinese Christology 277 and each has a place in the history of Chinese Protestantism and in the history of Chinese Christian thought.3 With the founding of the New China in 1949, the Chinese church began to encounter a new socio-political context. Because various political movements came one after another between the early 1950s and the late 1970s, it was not until the 1980s that the theological thinking in the church began to be vibrant.4 During the past several decades, however, there have been well-known church theologians who contributed to a contextual Chinese theology. Among them, K. H. Ting and Wang Weifan were the most productive and creative. Chen Zemin and Shen Yifan (沈以藩) should also be mentioned, but the present study cannot include an analysis of their Christology. This section aims to discover how Chao’s ethically oriented Christology closely relates to the Christological interpretations of other Chinese theo- logians, both his contemporaries and the next generation of theologians. Although they have different concerns in their thinking, each of them is responsible for constructing a Chinese theology. Facing rapid social change themselves, each of them recognized the urgent need for contextual theologi- cal thinking in the Chinese church.5 My major purpose here is to identify their main common concerns and their continuity with Chao’s Christology, which should be revealing for my own constructive part in section 7.2 below. I have no intention to draw a comprehensive picture of Chinese Christology during the last century. For the sake of convenience, I have selected three contemporaries of Chao: Wu Leichuan, Y. T. Wu and Xie Fuya,6 and two 3 They were numerous as the stars in the sky: besides T. C. Chao, Xie Fuya, Wu Leichuan, Y. T. Wu, Xu Baoqian, Cheng Jingyi (诚静怡), Liu Tingfang, Wang Zhixin, Chen Chonggui (陈崇桂), Zhang Yijing (张亦静), Jia Yuming (贾玉铭), and Ni Tuosheng (Watchman Nee 倪柝声) among others, should be noted. 4 However, there was a lively theological mass movement in the 1950s based in Chinese Christians’ spontaneous responses to the new social-political situation. England 2004, 178– 179; Ting 1982a, 102; 1984b, 21–23. 5 Contextual theology attempts to understand Christianity in terms of a particular context at a particular time. As Stephen Bevans notes, contextualization is a way of doing theology which takes into account the spirit of the gospel message; the tradition of the Christian people, the culture in which one is theologizing and the social change taking place in that culture. Bevans 2004, 1. 6 They are selected on the basis of the following criteria: first, they were key representatives of the Protestant thinkers in their own time; second, each of them proposed his own distinc- tive theological position for the Chinese church; third, their thinking was their theological response to the rapidly changing society, and their thinking is thus worthy of more attention in the theological construction of the present time..