Abstract
In this third case study, we shall explore the type C, history-oriented theology of Bishop K. H. Ting (Ding Guangxun, 1915–). In the previous chapter, we saw how T. C. Chao’s (Zhao Zichen, 1888– 1979) postimprisonment theology bore type C qualities. However, his work would be cut short due to the communism revolution. We also find that other Asian, type C theologies were developed during the twentieth century that emphasize “liberation”—namely the Minjung theology of South Korea and the thoughts of the Taiwanese Presbyterian, C. S. Song (Song Quansheng, 1929–). Many of them have been developed in similar, postwar contexts where there have continued to exist a degree of sociopolitical conflict. However, besides T. C. Chao’s postimprisonment theology, K. H. Ting is the only major type C representative speaking from and to the context of Mainland China. He is also one of the few Christian thinkers who has been alive and writing in both of China’s enlightenments, although most of his constructive theology occurred only after the Cultural Revolution. Bishop K. H. Ting, born and educated in the midst of the May Fourth Enlightenment, endures through the communist revolution and, in the Second Chinese Enlightenment, ascends as the new leader of the reinstated Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the newly formed China Christian Council (CCC).
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Notes
Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 73.
Philip L. Wickeri, Reconstructing Christianity in China: K. H. Ting and the Chinese Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007), 219–233.
Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (Eugene, OR Wipf & Stock, 2003), 21–22.
K. H. Ting, “Inspirations from Liberation Theology, Process Theology and Teilhard de Chardin,” in Love Never Ends: Papers by K. H. Ting, ed. Janice Wickeri (Nanjing: Yilin Press, [1985] 2000), 192–222.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Fall, Redemption, and Geocentrism,” in Christianity and Evolution, ed. René Hague (London: Collins, [1920] 1971), 40–41.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Mrxn, trans. Bernard Wall (London: Collins, [1955] 1959), 164–174, 262–263.
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 404.
In particular, this is something that the process theologian Charles Hartshorne argues. Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1948), 134–135.
These terms originate from Alfred North Whitehead. Charles Hartshorne explains this “dipolarity” in terms of God’s unchanging abstract essence and his concrete actuality. Ibid., 411. See John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976), 47–48.
Hartshorne, Divine Relativity, 88–90; John B. Cobb, Jr., God and the World (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1969), 80.
Tu Wei-ming, Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness, rev. and enlarged ed. (New York: SUNY Press, 1989), 78.
While Ting traces his Christology back to Y. T. Wu, Edmond Tang argues that a cosmic Christology can first be found in T. C. Chao. K. H. Ting, “Forerunner Y. T. Wu,” in Love Never Ends (1981), 73–75.
Edmond Tang, “The Cosmic Christ: The Search for a Chinese Theology,” Studies in World Christianity 1, no. 2 (1995): 131–142.
K. H. Ting, “The Cosmic Christ,” in Love Never Ends (1991), 408.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1990), 277–278.
Edmond Tang, “East Asia,” in An Introduction to Third World Theologies, ed. John Paratt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 86.
K. H. Ting, “A Chinese Christian’s Appreciation of the Atheist,” in Love Never Ends (1979), 35–42.
K. H. Ting, “Theological Mass Movement in China,” in Love Never Ends (1984), 140.
R. C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology?: Undrestanding the Basics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1997), 117–118.
Watchman Nee, Spiritual Knowledge (New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1973), 68–69.
K. H. Ting, “Human Collectives as Vehicles of God’s Grace,” in Love Never Ends (1979), 44–45.
Mao Tse-tung, “On the Question of the National Bourgeoisie and the Enlightened Gentry,” WMT (1948) 4: 207.
C. S. Song, Jesus, the Crucified People, vol. 1, The Cross in the Lotus World (New York: Fortress Press, 1996), 216.
Fredrik Fällman, Salvation and Modernity: Intellectuals and Faith in Contemporary China, rev. ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008), 71–75.
Liu Xiaofeng, Zhengjiu yu xiaoyao [Salvation and Easy Wandering] (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe [People’s Publishing Company], 1988), 173–183.
Liu Xiaofeng, “Joy in China, Sin in Christianity? A Comparison,” trans. Georg Evers, China Study Journal 7, no. 3 (1992): 17–25.
See Paulos Huang, Confronting Confucian Understandings of the Christian Doctrine of Salvation: A Systematic Theological Analysis of the Basic Problems in the Confucian-Christian Dialogue (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009), 171–244.
Thomas Wang, foreword to Li Xinyuan, Theological Construction-or Destruction: An Analysis of the Theology of Bishop K. H. Ting (Ding Guangxun) (Streamwood, IL: Christian Life Press, 2003), 7.
K. H. Ting, God is Love: Collected Writings of Bishop K. H. Ting (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries International, 2004), 621.
K. H. Ting, “On a Profound Christian Question,” in Love Never Ends (1996), 507.
K. H. Ting, “Creation and Redemption,” in Love Never Ends (1995), 481.
K. H. Ting, “An Interview on the Present-Day Church Situation,” in Love Never Ends (1990), 393.
Miikka Ruokanen, “K. H. Ting’s Contribution to the Contextualization of Theology in China,” Modern Theology 25, no. 1 (Jan. 2009): 119–120.
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© 2013 Alexander Chow
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Chow, A. (2013). K. H. Ting’s Cosmic Christ. In: Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment. Palgrave Macmillan’s Christianities of the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312624_5
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