Wang's Theology on Christian Living

Unknown to many Western Christians, Mr. Wang Mingdao (1901-1991) is one of the most influential and respected Chinese Christian leaders of the 20th century. He was a pastor of an independent church in Beijing founded on the “Three-self principle”. He was the conscience of the Chinese church boldly confronting false teachings and evils at his time. He was a prisoner for Jesus Christ spending two decades in prison suffering for his faith.

Wang Mingdao was born in Beijing where his parents had taken refuge within the Foreign Quarters of Beijing during the Boxer Uprising in 1900. This uprising was a xenophobic reaction against the “foreign devils” in general and Christians in particular. An estimated 30,000 Chinese Christians and 200 foreign missionaries were massacred during this uprising. Terrified at the sight of the rampaging Boxers, Wang’s father hanged himself weeks before he was born.

Wang was brought up by his widowed mother in extreme poverty. Wang had a sharp mind and did well at school. At an early age Wang aspired to become a great political leader and hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln in his home to remind himself. However, Wang became a Christian at the age of 14 and gave up his personal ambition to devote himself to Christian ministry. In 1919 Wang became a teacher at a Presbyterian mission school in Baoding, a hundred miles south of Beijing. Later he came to the conviction of believers’ baptism by immersion. He and his five friends broke ice at a creek in January and plunged themselves in the frigid water in obedience to their consciences. As a result, he was promptly dismissed from the school in 1920.

Later Wang retreated to Beijing’s western hills and read the Bible through six times in sixty two days which...

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...ristian living. He wrote extensively on these topics in Chinese and I would like to read more primary sources from him. I want to explore more is the relationship between state and church as the religious policy of the Chinese government that Wang resisted is still in place. I think these have practical implications on how Christian live out their faith in an atheistic and materialistic society.

Bibliography

Aikman, David. Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power. Lanham, MD: Regnery Publishing, 2003.

Cook, Richard R. “Acquainted with grief: Wang Mingdao’s Stand for the Persecuted Church in China.” Fides et Historia 37 (December 1, 2005): 149-151.

Lyall, Leslie. Three Of China's Mighty Men. London: OMF, 1973.

Wang, Mingdao, A Stone Made Smooth. Mayflower Christian Books: Southampton, Hants, 1981.