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Political theology in China
Political theology in China investigates responses from Chinese Christian leaders and scholars who deal with the relationship between Christianity and politics in the specific socio-political context of the region.

Historical background
The history of the relationship between Christianity and politics in China could be traced to Tang Dynasty (618-907), when scholars believe that Christianity first came to China. Emperor Taizong and his successors of adopted the policy of religious tolerance. They allowed the mission of Jingjiao monks and invited them to translate scriptures for the empire. In 845, during the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution, Jingjiao was misunderstood as a sect of Buddhism; therefore, it was banned by Emperor Wuzong. In Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), several Mongol tribes converted to Nestorian Christianity. In the Western Christianity, the Pope also sent envoys to the Mongol Empire capital (Khanbaliq, Beijing). In Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Jesuits initiated mission in China. Matteo Ricci would be the most well-known among these missionaries. Jesuits exerted considerable influence at court via the policy of accommodation and converted several senior officials, such as Xu Guangqi. In Qing dynasty (1636–1912), Catholic missionaries still played important roles at court as consultants of emperors. In the 18th century, the Chinese Rites controversy had raised tension between the Vatican and Qing dynasty's Emperors. Emperor Yongzheng was formally against Christian converts among Manchu people and banned the mission again. After the First Opium War (1839-1842), with the aid of several unequal treaties, Christian missionaries were allowed to evangelize in China and continue to import the Western civilization to China. The impression that missionaries allied with foreign powers made Chinese people became hostile to Christianity, which further influenced the relationship between Christianity and politics since then. Many anti-missionary riots (Jiaoan), the Boxer Rebellion, and anti-Christian movement, can be considered as the consequences of such relationship.

Problem
The 20th century witnessed the emergence of some indigenous theologians in China. Arising out of the concern of national salvation in the background of foreign invasion, cultural crisis, and anti-Christian movement, Christian leaders like Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong) advocated Christianity as a way of saving China. Wu appealed to revolution theory and constructed indigenous Christian theology.

After 1949, the founding of People's Republic of China, the Chinese Christian leaders encountered new challenges— the new regime of the communist government is based on atheistic ideology of Marxism. They had to decide how to deal with the relationship with the atheistic government. There were different attitudes and theologies among them: some of them, such as Y. T. Wu, who were willing to support the new government, initiated the Three-Self movement (TSPM) in 1950s and reconstructed theology in terms of cooperation; others, such as Wang Mingdao, who were unwilling to endorse the radical TSPM and refused to be pro-communist, are regarded as the forerunners of the present-day "house church" (unregistered church).

In the 1950s Denunciation Campaigns, Some Christian leaders, such as Wang Mingdao, Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng), from the opposing camp were arrested and sentenced in the name of counter-revolutionaries. During the ten years of Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), all the religious activities were banned and many Christians met and worshiped in the Christians' houses.

In 1980s, religious activities recovered and churches gradually opened. However, Christians who were unwilling to joined the TSPM churches and chose to gather in the houses or apartments in the form of “unregistered church,”which are also called “house church” or “family church. ”  Y. T. Wu and K. H. Ting (Ding Guangxun) were leaders and representatives of the TSPM church; Wang Mingdao and Wang Yi would be representatives of the house church; the latter Wang is the pastor in the urban church in Chengdu which is not a traditional house church, but who still claims the link to the house church.

On the other hand, in the Chinese Catholic church, owing to the unestablished diplomatic relation between Vatican and Chinese government, there is a tension among the Catholics who obey the Vatican and those Local government.

Y. T. Wu
In the 1920s, Y. T. Wu was a pacifist and seek to create fellowship among youth. He aimed to cultivate the personality compatible with the spirit of Jesus for the liberation and development of the people's life. During next decade, Wu was attracted to the social gospel which aims to solve the problems of social injustice and to advocate gradual social reform. The focus would be shifted from individual salvation to social salvation. In his mind, Christians should participate in the social reform to create an ideal society, which is the way to advance the kingdom of heaven. From the mid-1930s to 1949, Wu started to appreciate and sympathize with communist theory of social revolution and he gradually realized that communism would be the only way for the national salvation. In 1941, in his theological treatise No Man Has Seen God, he wrote: “Our conclusion is that belief in God is not contradictory to materialism, just as it is not contradictory to ‘evolution,’ because both ‘evolution’ and materialism can be taken as the means by which God reveals Himself in nature…. A person who believes in God can also believe in materialism…. Even a materialist should be able to accept faith in God…. How do we know in the future the two seemingly contradictory systems of thought will not achieve a new synthesis?”

This paragraph illustrates his expectation of harmonious relationship between Christian faith and communism. This belief encouraged Wu to carry on his career in the new China in the 1950s when Wu was trusted by the communist leader, because of his intimacy with communism, and launched the TSPM in 1951. In order to response to the purge the political sphere of the impact of “Three Mountains” including imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism in the political sphere, the churches which participated in TSPM started to charge foreign missions. In a serial article under the title of “The Reformation of Christianity: On the Awakening of Christians,” Wu said, “we believe that renovation within Christianity must come. Christianity once passed from the Roman religion under feudalism to Protestantism under capitalism. Now the development is from capitalism to socialism…. Christianity must learn that the present period is one of liberation for the people, the collapse of the old system.… God had taken the key to the salvation of mankind from its hand and given it to another.”

K. H. Ting
Before the 1950s, influenced by his predecessor Y. T. Wu, Ting joined the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), attempting to devote to the national salvation and advocating that Christianity focuses not just individual salvation, but also social salvation. At that time, he also appreciated communism, though he showed cautious. In 1948 when he commented on the civil war in China, he wrote “With the fall of Chiang and the Kuomintang government, and after the defeat of contemporary Chinese reactionaries who now rally around Chiang, a democratic coalition government will be formed in which Communists, Democratic Leaguers, progressive Nationalists and members of other anti-reactionary parties will all participate. What Americans think of as a Communist dictatorship is not in the wind for China's future.”

After he returned the new China in 1951, he joined the Three-self movement which was led by Y. T. Wu and chose to cooperate with the CCP regime. Ting became one of most influential Christian leaders in the national Three-self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Christian Council (CCC) since the 1980s.

Ting's writings were mainly published after the 1980s. Ting formally started to construct his theological discourse aiming to deal with the relation of Christian faith with communism and other religions; meanwhile, he promoted “theological reconstruction” in an attempt to construct indigenous theology on the basis of Chinese socio-political and religio-cultural context.

Ecclesiology: The TSPM was regarded as the application of the three principles of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. Ting claimed that “it is work of God.”   Ting avidly accused Wang Mingdao of distorting the meaning of three principles and refusing to cooperate with TSPM. Besides, he believed that the church should play an active role in the society for serving the people, rather than cling to the church just paying attention to individual salvation.

Cosmic Christology: Ting summarizes that to understand Christ having a cosmic nature needs to know two aspects: “(1) the universal extent of Christ‘s domain, concern and care, and (2) the kind of love which we get a taste of in Jesus Christ as we read the Gospels being the first and supreme attribute of God and the basic to the structure and dynamic of the universe, in the light of which we get an insight as to how things go in the world.”   Influenced by Alfred North Whitehead’s process theology, Ting argues that creation is a long process in which Christ not just participated in creation in the beginning, but continues to sustain the incomplete creation. Redemption is in the process of creation. Following this, he contends that not Christians but humankind are involved in Christ's redemptive work. In this way, he appeals to Christians to appreciate the values in communism and other religio-cultural resources.

"The sinned against": Ting stresses that Chinese theology should emphasize “the sinned against” rather than the sin. Because China is a Confucian society where the theory of the goodness of human nature is the mainstream. The emphasis of “The sinned against” leads people to know the love of God and receive consolation after a long-time oppression and suffering in the history.

Relation between Christians and atheists: Atheists can be grouped into at least three categories of atheists: moral bankrupts, honest atheists and humanitarian atheists. The last category is referred to reformers and revolutionaries who have good morals and show God's love. Ting considers that Christians should get along well with non-Christians and atheists of all sorts. Besides, he further stresses that“Provisional unities of truths we can observe with joy and thanksgiving because they illuminate us and point toward the ultimate unity in Christ which is the promise of his revelation.”

Wang Yi
Wang Yi (simplified Chinese: 王怡, Pen Name: Wang Shuya王书亚) (June, 1973-) is a pastor in a Chinese Calvinist house church, Early Rain Reformed Church (Qiuyu Zhifu Reformed Church,秋雨之福教会), in Chengdu. He is also a productive writer, editor, and social activist, and was a scholar at Chengdu University before he resigned. In 2004, he was included in the list of “50 Most Influential Public Intellectuals of China” by Southern People Weekly(南方人物周刊，Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan). In 2005, he was converted, baptized, and started to serve in the house church. He was among the few pioneering Christian human-rights attorneys in China. In 2008, Wang attended Conference for Global Christians in Law in Washington D. C. and was awarded “Prize for the Contribution to Promoting Religious Freedom”. In the same year, He founded and started to serve the Chengdu Early Rain Reformed Church. In October 2011, he was ordained and became the senior pastor of the church.

Church-state relations: Regarding the church-state relations, drawing the resources in the Western tradition, Wang Yi argues that the idea of the separation of church and state was originated from the tradition of Christianity. He criticizes the Three-self church in China which has been caught up in the danger of idolatry of nationalism. It is easy for a nation without the principle of separation of church to worship secular authorities, which results in idolatry. When he talks about this principle, Wang refers it to part of the American politics which are deeply rooted in Calvinist theology of church-state, rather than the strict application of secular principle in French constitution; he thinks, the latter one ignores the most important part in the theology: sovereignty of God. Furthermore, he claims that the nation cannot interfere with church affairs on the one hand and should be obliged to protect the religious freedom out of the divine duty on the other. All in all, Wang Yi "wants to assert the superiority of the perspective of Calvinistic Puritans in its simultaneous pursuit of a constitutional polity and a transcendent power, which thereby provides a stronger basis for the separation of church and state."

Publicity of the house church: Wang wants to promote the transparency and publicity of the house church. Wang advocates that churches are ought to not only listen for God's voice, but also engage in the public affairs. He summarizes that the Reformed church in China should have pastoral mission for the Chinese church and prophetic mission for Chinese society.

The Christian Manifesto
This document was published in July, 1950 and its original title was "Direction of Endeavor for Chinese Christianity in the Construction of New China." The founding group of the Three-self Movement, including Y. T. Wu, drafted the document in consultation with Premier Zhou Enlai. During the Three-self Movement, 400,000 Protestant Christians signed on this document for public endorsement. The purpose of publishing of this document is “to heighten our vigilance against imperialism, to make known the clear political stand of Christians in New China, to hasten the building of a Chinese church whose affairs are managed by the Chinese themselves, and to indicate the responsibilities that should be taken up by Christians throughout the whole country in national reconstruction in New China.”   This document marks the establishment of Three-self Movement and also shapes the basic relationship between the Three-self Church and state for the later period.

=== The 95 Theses of the Chinese Reformed Church === In August 2015, one of the most well-known Chinese urban church Early Rain Reformed Church led by its senior pastor Wang Yi in Chengdu posted a document titled “Reaffirming our Stance on the House Churches: 95 theses” in an attempt to reaffirm the Chinese house church's position in the relationship between government and society. These 95 theses demonstrates the opinion of the state-church relationship from the perspective of the house church.

This document is divided into 6 sections: Theses 1-17: God's Sovereignty and Biblical Authority. Theses 18-31: God's Law and Christ's Redemption. Theses 32-39: Against the "Sinicization of Christianity." Theses 40-44: Church as the Body of Christ and His Kingdom. Theses 45-72: The Relationship between Two Kingdoms and the Separation of Church and State. Theses 73-95: Against the "Three-Self Movement" and Affirmation of the Great Commission.