The Legacy of K. H. Ting and Wang Weifan

This past weekend I had the privilege of offering the keynote at the AGM of the Friend of the Church in China (FCC). I was asked to speak about two figures of whom I have written about academically: K. H. Ting 丁光训 (1915–2012)¹ and Wang Weifan 汪维藩 (1927–2015).² This was an especially interesting treat as Ting gave his famous speech about the cosmic Christ at the 1991 meeting of the FCC, and I was now asked to speak about him and another key leader in the state-sanctioned Protestant church of China, the TSPM and the CCC.

Now, if you read the literature about Ting, you will encounter many strongly polarised views.

Wang Weifan: An Evangelical in the TSPM

When I was finishing my postdoctoral fellowship in China, a friend of mine who was affiliated with the TSPM asked if I had read much of Wang Weifan 汪维藩 (1927-2015). As I had researched and written much about the TSPM, I had come across his name a few times but was not very familiar with his thinking. She gave me one of the volumes of his collected writings and told me how much Wang Weifan, as an evangelical loved for his preaching and devotional writings and poetry, has left a major imprint on the Protestant church in China.  Since then, I have asked many pastors and leaders of the TSPM and the CCC about Wang Weifan, and I often heard the same thing: 他是我的老师 (he is my teacher).¹

(Dis)unity in the Church in China

When I was first interested in Christianity in China, the Protestant terrain was laid out very clearly to me. There are two churches in China: (1) the true and faithful house churches who’s members endure persecution to live the faith and (2) the Three-Self churches who’s members are not really Christians because they have compromised the gospel to communism. Over time, I have come to realise that these characterisations are far from representative of these two groups, and a lot of good can come out of discarding them.¹

Can anything good come out of the TSPM?

A few years back, I was delivering one of my first academic papers in a conference in North America. I was discussing the controversial figure Bishop K. H. Ting (丁光训), saying I did not agree with many of his actions, though I did think a theology that tried to encourage the church to engage non-Christians was a good thing. One of the respondents from the audience stood up and basically spent the next ten minutes explaining to me that this type of theology was neither biblical nor Evangelical. I responded by saying that Ting’s theological approach could arguably find resonance in the thinkings of a few notable Evangelical theologians, but this in no way appeased the fury of this man (it probably angered him even more!).