Payk, Christopher. “Prevenient Grace and Chinese Theology.” April 29, 2021, Tyndale University, Toronto, Ontario: MPEG-4, 39:34 min. 1 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.220 Let me just take a moment, everyone, just 2 00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:09.400 to fix our attention and welcome our presenter. 3 00:00:10.360 --> 00:00:15.580 Yeah, so Christopher Pike is our presenter, I was going to say this 4 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:19.420 morning, I shouldn't do that because where he's coming from, it's almost midnight. 5 00:00:19.450 --> 00:00:22.260 But Chris is going to present for us his next session. 6 00:00:22.290 --> 00:00:27.780 And for those of you who don't know him, he's he is an ordained Canadian Free 7 00:00:27.810 --> 00:00:33.460 Methodist minister serving in Taipei, Taiwan, at the Morrison Academy. 8 00:00:33.490 --> 00:00:37.380 He is a PhD candidate with the National 9 00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:42.020 Chang Qi University researching indigenous Chinese theology. 10 00:00:42.050 --> 00:00:46.420 He is the author of Grace First Christian Mission and Pervenient grace in John 11 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:51.140 Wesley and he is a Master of Theology from Tim Dell Seminary. 12 00:00:51.160 --> 00:00:53.060 And today he's presenting to us a paper 13 00:00:53.090 --> 00:00:56.580 titled Provenant Grace and Chinese Theology. 14 00:00:56.610 --> 00:00:58.540 And just before I hand it over, just a 15 00:00:58.570 --> 00:01:02.960 reminder to all of you watching and listening, just to help the stream, if you 16 00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:07.260 could keep your videos off and keep yourselves muted. 17 00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:09.260 But if you have a question, as Chris 18 00:01:09.290 --> 00:01:13.360 presents, if a question comes to mind, please put it in the chat box and at the 19 00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:17.490 end of the paper, we'll take some time to moderate your questions. 20 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:19.100 And that's it. 21 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:20.720 I want to turn things over to you, Chris. 22 00:01:20.750 --> 00:01:24.100 And Chris, just want to say thank you for speaking with us today. 23 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:27.820 Thanks, Adam. I appreciate the opportunity to talk and 24 00:01:27.850 --> 00:01:32.340 just a few minutes ago got to connect with a few friends, so that was great. 25 00:01:32.370 --> 00:01:37.800 Nice thing for me, it's closing in on 1130 here, so it's pretty late, but I had a cup 26 00:01:37.830 --> 00:01:42.930 of coffee, so I remember Don Gert said to me that good ministry runs on a wave with 27 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:46.840 caffeine, so I'm riding the wave right now. 28 00:01:47.080 --> 00:01:53.780 My talk today is about John Lesley's doctrine of convenient grace and its 29 00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:56.210 importance for Christian mission in the Chinese world. 30 00:01:56.240 --> 00:02:03.570 And this presentation is very personal to me because it's the two areas that I've 31 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:08.060 spent the most time thinking about and now writing about. 32 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:12.540 Because you'll see there's four aspects to the presentation today. 33 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:15.940 The first is looking at what John Wesley said about prevenient grace and 34 00:02:15.970 --> 00:02:22.340 particularly some things that he said that were important for the Chinese world. 35 00:02:22.370 --> 00:02:24.580 The next part is about Methodist 36 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:26.730 missionaries that went to the Chinese world. 37 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:32.100 The third part is Methodists in China before 1949. 38 00:02:32.130 --> 00:02:34.580 So these are actually Chinese Methodists. 39 00:02:34.610 --> 00:02:38.660 And then the last part, Chinese Methodist after 40 919 49. 40 00:02:38.690 --> 00:02:40.420 And then a conclusion. 41 00:02:40.450 --> 00:02:46.700 So in 2009, I had the opportunity to work 42 00:02:46.730 --> 00:02:53.540 with Howard Snyder at Tindale Seminary and we worked on this book called Grace First. 43 00:02:53.570 --> 00:03:00.300 And what it was was looking at what did Wesley say convenient grace was and did. 44 00:03:00.330 --> 00:03:04.780 And at the end of the book, I made 19 45 00:03:04.810 --> 00:03:08.740 mythological implications for what he said. 46 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:15.780 What does this all mean for mission and for the sake of methodism in China? 47 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:22.660 I found four particularly useful after being in the Chinese world. 48 00:03:22.690 --> 00:03:26.900 I live in Taiwan have lived here for the past twelve years. 49 00:03:26.930 --> 00:03:30.900 I found four of them particularly interesting and useful. 50 00:03:30.930 --> 00:03:33.260 The first is that 51 00:03:33.290 --> 00:03:39.840 Wesley believed that after the fall, that 52 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:45.740 the enlightening of the sun, that true 53 00:03:45.770 --> 00:03:52.460 light, has reinscribed the moral law on everyone's heart, and that the faculty of 54 00:03:52.490 --> 00:03:57.980 conscience is not natural, but it's given to all people by convenient grace. 55 00:03:58.000 --> 00:03:59.700 And you can see the the references there. 56 00:03:59.730 --> 00:04:01.720 And if anyone wants a copy of this 57 00:04:01.720 --> 00:04:03.560 PowerPoint, I'd be happy to send it to them. 58 00:04:03.590 --> 00:04:05.700 You could just let me know. 59 00:04:05.730 --> 00:04:10.580 The next one is that prevenient grace is the source of the light of nature, which 60 00:04:10.610 --> 00:04:16.920 reveals God's omnipotence and divine being through the created order. 61 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:20.060 The third thing is that those that don't 62 00:04:20.090 --> 00:04:25.260 have the special revelation of the Bible are given God's revelation through the 63 00:04:25.280 --> 00:04:28.940 creation and the partial reading description of the moral law. 64 00:04:28.970 --> 00:04:34.300 And as I said before, the restored faculty of conscience through prevenient grace. 65 00:04:34.330 --> 00:04:37.420 And this provides knowledge of certain 66 00:04:37.450 --> 00:04:42.900 things like the Golden Rule, which you can see in world religions around the world. 67 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:49.540 And then the fourth is that Pravini grace explains the existence of human good works 68 00:04:49.570 --> 00:04:51.860 among those who are not justified by faith. 69 00:04:51.890 --> 00:04:57.540 So Wesley was even more scrupulous than the reformers were to ascribe anything 70 00:04:57.570 --> 00:05:04.420 good that took place in humankind to God's grace. 71 00:05:04.450 --> 00:05:09.520 Well, as the missionary expansion happened around the 72 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:12.180 world, you had Methodist like this is young J. 73 00:05:12.210 --> 00:05:19.620 Allen, who went from the United States or England or Canada to the Chinese world. 74 00:05:19.650 --> 00:05:22.940 And he was a particularly interesting 75 00:05:22.970 --> 00:05:26.380 missionary because he had a large impact in China. 76 00:05:26.410 --> 00:05:32.700 So he arrived in 160, and he believed that the light of nature 77 00:05:32.730 --> 00:05:37.180 revealed God's omnipotence and divine being through the created order. 78 00:05:37.210 --> 00:05:41.860 But he was particularly focused on science, and that he thought that through 79 00:05:41.890 --> 00:05:45.940 science, the God of Christianity would be revealed to the Chinese mind. 80 00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:48.940 But in his writings, it's interesting. 81 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:50.660 Although he was a Methodist and had great 82 00:05:50.690 --> 00:05:56.100 respect for Wesley, he doesn't make any references to Wesley or convenient grace, 83 00:05:56.130 --> 00:06:00.060 but he displayed an evolving attitude toward Confucianism. 84 00:06:00.090 --> 00:06:01.940 And I'm going to talk a bit about 85 00:06:01.970 --> 00:06:07.540 Confucianism today, and it's particularly interesting with regard to Wesley's belief 86 00:06:07.570 --> 00:06:10.780 that the moral law is inscribed on every human heart. 87 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:14.940 Alan pgame convinced that the moral imperatives found in the Ten Commandments 88 00:06:14.970 --> 00:06:17.820 were especially similar to Confucian teaching. 89 00:06:17.850 --> 00:06:23.660 So there was some Confucian teachings long before 90 00:06:23.690 --> 00:06:29.000 Christian missionaries arrived on civil piety toward your parents, honoring your 91 00:06:29.030 --> 00:06:31.980 parents, the forbidding of killing, lying and stealing. 92 00:06:32.010 --> 00:06:37.480 But although he brought Wesley's a plain account of Christian perfection with him 93 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:40.260 to China, we don't have any indication that young J. 94 00:06:40.290 --> 00:06:43.740 Allen was working with Wesley on these ideas. 95 00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:45.340 He was just finding it in the Confucian 96 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:50.620 tradition and pairing it with similar ideas he knew from Christianity. 97 00:06:50.650 --> 00:06:53.980 Another person that's very interesting is 98 00:06:54.010 --> 00:06:59.220 William South Hill, because he came from England. 99 00:06:59.250 --> 00:07:05.580 A Methodist missionary in 1882 arrived in China, and he thought 100 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:10.580 that Christianity was the fulfillment, not the destroyer, of Chinese religions. 101 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:13.700 And he wrote in a book, A Mission to 102 00:07:13.730 --> 00:07:18.060 China, that the religions of China had been preparing, even though imperfectly, 103 00:07:18.090 --> 00:07:22.740 the way of the Lord who came not to destroy Confucius or Louse or Buddha, but 104 00:07:22.770 --> 00:07:26.420 to perfect their imperfections and complete their incompleteness. 105 00:07:26.450 --> 00:07:31.900 So he was going a greater step further than Yang J. 106 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:39.060 Allen was in seeing Chinese religions as preparation for what Christ would bring. 107 00:07:39.090 --> 00:07:41.320 So he wrote 108 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:47.200 he wrote about a great respect that he had for Wesley, but again, he doesn't refer to 109 00:07:47.230 --> 00:07:50.300 anything that Wesley said about prevenient grace. 110 00:07:50.330 --> 00:07:53.020 So he's seen in the Chinese religious 111 00:07:53.040 --> 00:08:00.320 tradition some parallels with what he knows from Christianity. 112 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:03.620 This is going to get too complicated, so 113 00:08:03.650 --> 00:08:06.380 I'm just going to go on to Chinese Methodist now. 114 00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:13.460 So Chinese Methodist before 1949, you have now Chinese themselves who are converting 115 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:17.220 to Christianity, and they are becoming leaders. 116 00:08:17.250 --> 00:08:20.740 One of the most renowned theologians was 117 00:08:20.770 --> 00:08:25.780 this man, Zhao Fujan, and he was a Methodist. 118 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:28.540 He graduated from the Methodist College in 119 00:08:28.570 --> 00:08:32.020 Sujo and then went to United States Vanderbilt University. 120 00:08:32.050 --> 00:08:35.820 And he was a Methodist until 1941, when he became an Anglican. 121 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:37.500 He didn't feel like he was particularly 122 00:08:37.530 --> 00:08:41.920 bound to any denomination, but he fought for the reconciliation of 123 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:44.180 his Confucian heritage with his Christian faith. 124 00:08:44.200 --> 00:08:47.140 He was adamant in bringing the two 125 00:08:47.170 --> 00:08:51.620 traditions together, but he thought that superstition should be removed from 126 00:08:51.650 --> 00:08:55.940 Chinese Christian theology and a scientific worldview should be embraced. 127 00:08:55.970 --> 00:09:02.280 So he wanted to get rid of several what he considered superstitious teachings of 128 00:09:02.310 --> 00:09:06.360 Christianity, like what he thought was the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the 129 00:09:06.390 --> 00:09:10.540 resurrection from the dead, because Christianity needed to be updated 130 00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:15.780 and indigenous in order to provide hope for China, because, in his 131 00:09:15.810 --> 00:09:19.060 opinion, Christianity could save the nation. 132 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:24.380 There was all these save the nation strategies at the time of his writing that 133 00:09:24.410 --> 00:09:29.860 were hoping to provide hope for China on the other side of the spectrum. 134 00:09:29.890 --> 00:09:36.100 So Daljitan was considered a modernist. 135 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.280 Those are the terms that they use on the other side of the spectrum. 136 00:09:39.310 --> 00:09:41.540 The fundamentalist side, which is, again, 137 00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:47.020 the terms that they chose to use, is John Sung or Song Shanti. 138 00:09:47.050 --> 00:09:53.740 And he grew up in the Methodist Episcopal Church and in Fujian Province. 139 00:09:53.770 --> 00:09:57.340 And in 1920, many of you know, he went to 140 00:09:57.370 --> 00:10:00.660 the United States, eventually earning a PhD in chemistry. 141 00:10:00.690 --> 00:10:03.220 He comes back to China through 142 00:10:03.250 --> 00:10:08.580 fascinating ordeal, and he's an ordained elder in the Hingwa Conference of 143 00:10:08.610 --> 00:10:13.380 Methodist Episcopal Church and became known as the John Westley of China because 144 00:10:13.410 --> 00:10:17.740 in the early 40s, he was a powerful evangelist. 145 00:10:17.770 --> 00:10:22.740 But fundamentalists like sun were in complete opposition to the theological 146 00:10:22.770 --> 00:10:26.820 updates that Dalton wanted for Christianity. 147 00:10:26.850 --> 00:10:34.540 And people like some wanted the indigenization of the gospel in China, 148 00:10:34.560 --> 00:10:38.260 felt that though that was important, it was not crucial to saving the nation. 149 00:10:38.290 --> 00:10:44.440 So again, the idea of saving China, but he thought that through being faithful to the 150 00:10:44.470 --> 00:10:48.960 teachings revealed in the Bible were the only hope because that would lead to a 151 00:10:48.990 --> 00:10:53.980 transformed life and greater populace in the country. 152 00:10:54.010 --> 00:10:56.820 So this created a theological division 153 00:10:56.850 --> 00:11:00.580 between Methodists on the one hand, the Modernist, on the other hand, 154 00:11:00.610 --> 00:11:04.700 fundamentalists, and some people in the middle of that. 155 00:11:04.730 --> 00:11:07.180 Another factor is that 156 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:14.580 other leading Methodists like VKI Kwong or Jung Changwan, who was a Methodist bishop, 157 00:11:14.610 --> 00:11:18.180 was deeply involved with the political spectrum. 158 00:11:18.210 --> 00:11:21.780 So he was a student of Young Jae Allen at 159 00:11:21.810 --> 00:11:27.140 the school, and he became a bishop in the Chinese method of church. 160 00:11:27.170 --> 00:11:29.720 And he baptized Chenkaik, who would go on 161 00:11:29.750 --> 00:11:33.940 to become the leader of China before the Communist takeover. 162 00:11:33.970 --> 00:11:38.580 And he was asked an organization created by the Japanese 163 00:11:38.610 --> 00:11:43.180 when they occupied China in order to control the Christian churches. 164 00:11:43.210 --> 00:11:47.780 And according to Wang Ming Bal, who is another fundamentalist and known as the 165 00:11:47.810 --> 00:11:52.100 spiritual father of the House Church movement, because he was so closely 166 00:11:52.130 --> 00:11:58.940 connected with Chenkai Shek, he had deep connections with politics. 167 00:11:58.970 --> 00:12:02.000 And this was, according to Wang Mingdao, 168 00:12:02.030 --> 00:12:05.580 the reason that he accepted his role in Three Self Patriotic Movement. 169 00:12:05.610 --> 00:12:08.580 So that was the perception, at least among fundamentalists. 170 00:12:08.610 --> 00:12:10.740 Now, whether these statements are true or 171 00:12:10.770 --> 00:12:15.080 not, they do indicate that among fundamentalists like Wang Mingdao and Jung 172 00:12:15.110 --> 00:12:21.020 Sung that modernists like Jang Changtwan were connected to political power. 173 00:12:21.050 --> 00:12:25.860 And so their commitment to authentic Christian teaching was compromised, 174 00:12:25.890 --> 00:12:30.060 creating a greater divergence between the group. 175 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.060 And with fundamentalist Methodists like 176 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:37.060 John Sung looking with suspicion at modernist Methodists like Style BUNCHAN 177 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:42.660 and Jean tungwan due to their differences in theology and political involvement, any 178 00:12:42.690 --> 00:12:47.300 talk of the continuity with Chinese religions that the earliest earlier 179 00:12:47.330 --> 00:12:51.740 generations of missionaries like Yang Jay Allen and William Southeast described were 180 00:12:51.770 --> 00:12:54.380 not at all well received by fundamentalists. 181 00:12:54.410 --> 00:12:57.100 So much more prevalent was the teaching 182 00:12:57.130 --> 00:13:01.260 for a radical break with the past in order to provide hope for the future. 183 00:13:01.290 --> 00:13:06.360 And then with regard to Wesley, after the May 30 movement in 1925 and earlier, the 184 00:13:06.390 --> 00:13:10.600 May 4 movement in 1919, both fundamentalists and modernists didn't want 185 00:13:10.630 --> 00:13:14.140 to be seen as connected with Western cultural imperialism. 186 00:13:14.170 --> 00:13:17.140 And so to refer to an Englishman like John 187 00:13:17.170 --> 00:13:24.020 Wesley would not have been seen helpful to fundamentalists like them. 188 00:13:24.050 --> 00:13:30.980 So 1949, as we all know, the Communist takeover happened in China. 189 00:13:31.010 --> 00:13:39.600 And the theology of this period, 1940s, like late 1940s to the 1970s, is in 190 00:13:39.630 --> 00:13:43.420 keeping with the era, either activists or quiescent. 191 00:13:43.450 --> 00:13:45.820 And the overwhelming theological concern 192 00:13:45.850 --> 00:13:49.340 was what is the church's relationship to the state? 193 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:55.660 So again, this was not the time for John Wesley as a theological mentor. 194 00:13:55.690 --> 00:14:01.420 But Gauchanyan, who is a researcher at 195 00:14:01.450 --> 00:14:06.660 Academia Sinica here in Taiwan, did his PhD research in this area in Ping Tian 196 00:14:06.690 --> 00:14:14.500 Fujian Province in 2004 2005, right here where the arrow points. 197 00:14:14.530 --> 00:14:21.260 And he found that during his time there, after the Three Self Patriotic Movement 198 00:14:21.290 --> 00:14:26.620 was the official churches in mainland China, 199 00:14:26.650 --> 00:14:33.580 there were still chapels where most people identified with the Methodist tradition. 200 00:14:33.610 --> 00:14:38.780 Although all ties with American churches have been severed, galchenyan found that 201 00:14:38.810 --> 00:14:43.540 in a so called post denominational era of Chinese Protestantism, many lay 202 00:14:43.570 --> 00:14:47.420 Protestants in Ping Tian still identified themselves as Methodists. 203 00:14:47.450 --> 00:14:51.640 And in 2004, the Methodist branch of the Three Self Patriotic Movement claimed 204 00:14:51.670 --> 00:14:55.980 around 45,000 members among the inhabitants of Pink Tian. 205 00:14:56.010 --> 00:14:59.940 And that's from his PhD, which was put out in 2009. 206 00:14:59.970 --> 00:15:02.820 Now, as we all know, things happen very 207 00:15:02.850 --> 00:15:08.180 quickly in China, and between 2009 and 2021 there's been a lot of development. 208 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:12.740 But at least at this point, there were still people who identified themselves 209 00:15:12.770 --> 00:15:16.020 with the Methodist tradition in mainland China. 210 00:15:16.050 --> 00:15:22.620 But also, as we know, the Chinese world is beyond simply mainland China. 211 00:15:22.650 --> 00:15:31.420 And so what we find in around 2011, from what my research shows, is that Methodist, 212 00:15:31.450 --> 00:15:37.260 Chinese Methodists around the world start going back to Wesley. 213 00:15:37.290 --> 00:15:39.740 And this is a fascinating phenomenon 214 00:15:39.770 --> 00:15:46.220 because you have, say, for example, here in at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 215 00:15:46.250 --> 00:15:51.520 you have this group of theologians, and some of them are 216 00:15:51.550 --> 00:15:55.500 Methodists that wanted to look at John Wesley's concept of grace. 217 00:15:55.530 --> 00:15:59.700 And they put out this publication in 2013 218 00:15:59.730 --> 00:16:05.820 in which many of the articles refer to Wesley's doctrine of preventing grace. 219 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:12.400 Then also in Hong Kong, you have Peter Lee, who was a chaplain at the Chinese 220 00:16:12.430 --> 00:16:17.140 University of Hong Kong, did his PhD in Boston, and he gave two presentations at 221 00:16:17.170 --> 00:16:19.900 the Oxford Institute of Methodist Studies in 2013. 222 00:16:19.930 --> 00:16:25.140 And he found in his writings, he published 223 00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:28.060 this book, john Wesley's Creative Theology. 224 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:33.060 Some interesting things about prevenient grace in the Chinese world. 225 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:34.980 He was the director of an academical study 226 00:16:35.010 --> 00:16:39.300 center in Hong Kong, and he found that prevenient grace was specifically helpful 227 00:16:39.330 --> 00:16:43.580 when considering the Christian faith in relation to nonchristian faith. 228 00:16:43.610 --> 00:16:46.500 So he wrote that pervenient grace splits. 229 00:16:46.530 --> 00:16:49.300 And at points where Christians in dialogue 230 00:16:49.330 --> 00:16:55.100 with non Christians find converging issues like the virtue of life and the relentless 231 00:16:55.130 --> 00:16:59.900 search for excellence and pravinia, grace comes in when grace connects with innate 232 00:16:59.930 --> 00:17:04.050 good conscience and receptiveness to goodness even in nonchristian people. 233 00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:06.290 So these are his words. 234 00:17:06.320 --> 00:17:11.010 Prevent grace may not be nicely or let's say, neatly defined, but then it's 235 00:17:11.040 --> 00:17:14.010 unpredictable outside of Christian boundaries. 236 00:17:14.040 --> 00:17:17.740 So this was his presentation at Oxford. 237 00:17:17.770 --> 00:17:23.140 And he notes that prevenient grace, as understood by Wesley in his sermon, helped 238 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:27.080 him to make sense of how in a place like Hong Kong, in similar areas, with so many 239 00:17:27.110 --> 00:17:31.050 people, feeling a deep sense of lostness and moral and sensibility. 240 00:17:31.080 --> 00:17:33.050 Some people were touched by pervenient 241 00:17:33.080 --> 00:17:38.010 grace in his words and can begin to move toward God. 242 00:17:38.040 --> 00:17:42.090 Well, we also have in Malaysia a man named 243 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:47.220 Ling Jongchang who wrote a thesis on seeing God's sovereignty and salvation 244 00:17:47.250 --> 00:17:50.050 from John Wesley's view of provenian grace. 245 00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:57.570 Hong Kong, Malaysia and then in this thesis, he attempted to show how John 246 00:17:57.600 --> 00:18:02.420 Wesley's doctrine of preventing grace safeguards God's sovereignty in Wesley's 247 00:18:02.450 --> 00:18:08.940 superiorology and allows for a unique methodist understanding of salvation. 248 00:18:08.970 --> 00:18:12.700 Now, in Taiwan, where I live, 249 00:18:12.730 --> 00:18:19.530 this is Bishop Pangunwa, who is currently the bishop of the Methodist Church here. 250 00:18:19.560 --> 00:18:24.010 He did his education in Hong Kong and now he lives here in Taiwan. 251 00:18:24.040 --> 00:18:29.620 And he wrote this paper on Methodist small groups in the church renewal movement. 252 00:18:29.650 --> 00:18:34.740 And he found that the development of these small groups 253 00:18:34.770 --> 00:18:39.980 who are recovering the image of God, the new creation and responsible grace. 254 00:18:40.010 --> 00:18:42.290 And he knows that it's convenient grace 255 00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:46.460 that gives human beings the motivation to begin the journey to respond to God, 256 00:18:46.490 --> 00:18:51.660 establish positive relationship with other people and become holy people of God. 257 00:18:51.690 --> 00:18:53.660 And in a personal interview I did with 258 00:18:53.690 --> 00:18:58.480 Pastor Pong, Bishop Pongo, he mentioned that Taiwanese Methodists have not done a 259 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:02.220 lot of work in developing the implications of Westby's doctrine proven at grace. 260 00:19:02.250 --> 00:19:08.250 But it was through interpersonal conversations that Chinese 261 00:19:08.280 --> 00:19:13.900 Taiwanese methods have had with people who are followers of Chinese religions at the 262 00:19:13.930 --> 00:19:18.290 academic level along convenient grace lines, through interreligious dialogues 263 00:19:18.320 --> 00:19:23.770 that they've had interesting conversations of parallel phenomenon happening. 264 00:19:23.800 --> 00:19:28.290 So Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore. 265 00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:32.180 This is Wilfred Ho, who is a professor in Singapore. 266 00:19:32.210 --> 00:19:37.330 And he wrote, behold, John Wesley, a soterio pastoral theologian. 267 00:19:37.360 --> 00:19:39.940 And that's in Chinese. 268 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:48.660 And Pastor Bishop Panguinwat wrote that this is, according to his knowledge, the 269 00:19:48.690 --> 00:19:53.290 most comprehensive work on John Wesley's theology in Chinese. 270 00:19:53.320 --> 00:19:58.900 And he wrote, ho's analytical perspective of Wesley is, to use his phrase, to have 271 00:19:58.930 --> 00:20:03.700 the mind of Christ in walking as he walked, to think and live theologically. 272 00:20:03.730 --> 00:20:06.180 Convenient grace is the grace that comes 273 00:20:06.210 --> 00:20:10.380 in advance and provides the resources to begin this theological journey. 274 00:20:10.410 --> 00:20:14.660 And particularly interesting is Ho's use of Wesley's connection between proper 275 00:20:14.690 --> 00:20:19.940 thought having the mind of Christ and proper action walking as he walked. 276 00:20:19.970 --> 00:20:23.090 And for any of you that have read the 277 00:20:23.120 --> 00:20:28.090 analytics or mentius, you'll know that the connection between proper thought and 278 00:20:28.120 --> 00:20:32.220 proper action is integral to Confucian morality. 279 00:20:32.250 --> 00:20:35.090 So, in conclusion, 280 00:20:35.120 --> 00:20:39.880 what we see is Methodist missionaries, as we started at the beginning of the 281 00:20:39.910 --> 00:20:43.050 presentation to China in the 19th century, like Young J. 282 00:20:43.080 --> 00:20:48.180 Allen and William South Hill, although they were familiar with Wesley, did not 283 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:51.770 develop his ideas related to convenient grace directly. 284 00:20:51.800 --> 00:20:57.980 But they observed in the religions of China, and particularly in Confucianism, 285 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:01.860 some ideas that were consistent with the Wesleyan understanding of Christianity, 286 00:21:01.890 --> 00:21:06.140 such as the idea that morality is inscribed in the hearts of all people and 287 00:21:06.170 --> 00:21:09.810 then that the moral law was revealed by the light of nature. 288 00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:13.360 Now, some people, like Lee Rainey, will 289 00:21:13.390 --> 00:21:18.250 say that they were finding in Confucianism what 290 00:21:18.280 --> 00:21:21.620 they wanted to find, like the earlier Jesuit had. 291 00:21:21.650 --> 00:21:25.180 However, there's no question that a 292 00:21:25.210 --> 00:21:32.290 Chinese Methodist like Jao Tuchun and fundamentalists like Wang Mingdao also 293 00:21:32.320 --> 00:21:38.040 found in Confucianism a preparation for 294 00:21:38.070 --> 00:21:42.570 the Gospel that Jesus Christ fulfilled. 295 00:21:42.600 --> 00:21:44.660 So then, when we get to the early 20th 296 00:21:44.690 --> 00:21:48.980 century, the breach between Christian modernist and fundamentalists in China, 297 00:21:49.010 --> 00:21:54.460 which continues to this day in the unregistered and registered 298 00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:58.140 sections of the Church hampered the development of seeing God at work among 299 00:21:58.170 --> 00:22:01.330 people who were not directly connected with Christianity. 300 00:22:01.360 --> 00:22:05.090 Some modernist Methodists like Jal Zhang 301 00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:08.330 saw Christianity as being the fulfillment of confucianism. 302 00:22:08.360 --> 00:22:13.380 But fundamentalist Methodist like John Sung emphasized a radical break with 303 00:22:13.410 --> 00:22:17.050 Chinese religion and saw a little good in them. 304 00:22:17.080 --> 00:22:19.290 The political connections of modernists 305 00:22:19.320 --> 00:22:24.260 like Bishop Jiang Tankwan further alienated these two groups. 306 00:22:24.290 --> 00:22:31.420 And then, due to the impact of the May 30 movement in 1925 and resulted in desire to 307 00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:35.520 separate Chinese Christianity from foreign churches, neither group would be inclined 308 00:22:35.550 --> 00:22:40.980 to refer to John Wesley for theological support for their theology. 309 00:22:41.010 --> 00:22:47.290 But in recent years, particularly 2011, to 310 00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:51.500 the present, Methodists throughout the Chinese world, in places like Hong Kong, 311 00:22:51.530 --> 00:22:57.330 Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan have rediscovered the theology of John Wesley. 312 00:22:57.360 --> 00:23:00.810 And you could say the same has happened in the west. 313 00:23:00.840 --> 00:23:06.900 And since 2011, these theologians in the Chinese world have been using the 314 00:23:06.930 --> 00:23:11.360 theological category of convenient grace to explain and understand phenomenon in 315 00:23:11.390 --> 00:23:14.500 the Chinese religious world, both Christian and beyond. 316 00:23:14.520 --> 00:23:18.280 Many of these theologians were trained in Methodist schools in the United States and 317 00:23:18.310 --> 00:23:22.330 England, like traditional good Methodists were supposed to, 318 00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:28.260 but also in places like Hong Kong and Singapore and Malaysia and now Taiwan. 319 00:23:28.290 --> 00:23:30.180 So no doubt the implications of this 320 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:33.420 doctrine, the Chinese bug, will continue to develop as Chinese Christians 321 00:23:33.450 --> 00:23:36.740 encountered the God already at work among the Chinese people. 322 00:23:36.770 --> 00:23:40.940 And I just have 1 minute to show you this. 323 00:23:40.970 --> 00:23:44.540 Hopefully you can see that this is 324 00:23:44.570 --> 00:23:51.090 Hildy Marie Ogreed Movafas PhD dissertation and she just sent it to me. 325 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:53.090 She's going to defend it in a few days. 326 00:23:53.120 --> 00:23:54.810 This is called broadening. 327 00:23:54.840 --> 00:23:59.940 This perspective prevenient grace and contemporary Methodist theology. 328 00:23:59.970 --> 00:24:05.140 And she's looking at Westerners who are 329 00:24:05.170 --> 00:24:09.500 rediscovering Wesley's theology of prevention grace. 330 00:24:09.530 --> 00:24:12.380 But what's interesting in my part of the 331 00:24:12.410 --> 00:24:19.810 world is that Chinese theologians, chinese Methodists are also rediscovering the 332 00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:23.740 theology of John Leslie and they're finding the doctrine of convenient grace 333 00:24:23.770 --> 00:24:27.090 particularly helpful as they're doing theology. 334 00:24:27.120 --> 00:24:32.160 And they're going about their work, whether that's in academia or in the 335 00:24:32.190 --> 00:24:37.020 Church or in the bishopric, as Pang Junha has expressed in his paper. 336 00:24:37.050 --> 00:24:40.940 So that's my presentation to this point 337 00:24:40.970 --> 00:24:49.220 and I'll stop there and go forward if case anyone has any questions. 338 00:24:49.250 --> 00:24:56.900 Thanks, Chris, that was excellent and fascinating to hear. 339 00:24:56.930 --> 00:24:59.940 I was particularly intrigued there at the end. 340 00:24:59.970 --> 00:25:05.220 So if you have questions for everyone, please submit them in the chat. 341 00:25:05.250 --> 00:25:07.740 But just the running parallels with, as 342 00:25:07.770 --> 00:25:13.420 you said, the Western phenomenon of rediscovering prevention grace 343 00:25:13.450 --> 00:25:18.740 and the ties, particularly when you talk about Peter Lee and the convergence with 344 00:25:18.770 --> 00:25:23.330 Confucianism and this desire, this aim to do good. 345 00:25:23.360 --> 00:25:28.460 Could you explain a little bit more about that foundational piece of Confucianism 346 00:25:28.490 --> 00:25:34.050 because it brings up the Western parallel of the cultural presumption now of being 347 00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:38.860 inherently good and what kind of groundwork that lays now for evangelism. 348 00:25:38.890 --> 00:25:42.090 So could you unpack that a little bit more for us. 349 00:25:42.120 --> 00:25:44.620 Well, what I'll do is I'll talk about 350 00:25:44.650 --> 00:25:52.720 someone who I'm more familiar with because, of course, I'm not Chinese, but 351 00:25:52.760 --> 00:25:57.780 many people know the Beijing pastor of Wang Mingda. 352 00:25:57.810 --> 00:26:02.540 He is considered the spiritual father of the House Church movement. 353 00:26:02.570 --> 00:26:04.320 And 354 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:10.050 he would say, which surprises many people because he was a fundamentalist Christian, 355 00:26:10.080 --> 00:26:18.000 he would say that Confucius preached the Tao or the Way before 356 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:26.380 Christian missionaries came and preached the Tao or the way found in Jesus. 357 00:26:26.410 --> 00:26:33.050 And so what we find some Confucian Christians doing, like Jaltechn Udechuan 358 00:26:33.080 --> 00:26:38.090 and fundamentalist Christians, even like Wang Ming Dao, saying is that Confucius 359 00:26:38.120 --> 00:26:48.180 provided the moral enlightenment to how people should live. 360 00:26:48.210 --> 00:26:50.220 And when Christian missionaries came and 361 00:26:50.250 --> 00:26:55.620 preached the gospel, they fulfilled that teaching. 362 00:26:55.650 --> 00:27:01.090 And Wang Mingawa in particular, would say, provided the power to live it out. 363 00:27:01.120 --> 00:27:05.020 So when we look back at what Wesley was 364 00:27:05.050 --> 00:27:09.940 saying, that the reinscription of the moral law, the 365 00:27:09.970 --> 00:27:15.020 faculty of conscience, these are things that Chinese Methodists now are looking 366 00:27:15.050 --> 00:27:19.460 back and saying, yes, this is in our Confucian tradition. 367 00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:22.980 This is clearly in the analytics and dementia. 368 00:27:23.010 --> 00:27:26.020 These are things that 369 00:27:26.050 --> 00:27:33.860 we believed long ago because God has not left the Chinese people without a witness. 370 00:27:33.890 --> 00:27:37.460 And so that's a fascinating idea. 371 00:27:37.490 --> 00:27:41.840 And I think that recently, 372 00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:47.180 the Chinese Methodist Christians are putting that together, and Western Chinese 373 00:27:47.210 --> 00:27:52.380 Christians are putting that together, as Hildy's, PhD in Norway is showing us. 374 00:27:52.410 --> 00:27:58.320 And so all around the world, interesting things are happening on this topic. 375 00:27:58.400 --> 00:27:59.260 Yeah. Wow. 376 00:27:59.290 --> 00:28:05.500 And I appreciate too I can't recall who you were quoting, but 377 00:28:05.530 --> 00:28:08.810 the language of perfecting the imperfections, right. 378 00:28:08.840 --> 00:28:11.960 And so not denying the common ground, the 379 00:28:11.990 --> 00:28:18.680 solidarity in spiritual aim, and yet building upon them to bear witness. 380 00:28:21.080 --> 00:28:26.380 Also, I was curious, like you mentioned with Zhao Shishen. 381 00:28:26.410 --> 00:28:32.480 Like that's the refuting of superstition in place of a 382 00:28:32.510 --> 00:28:36.700 scientific worldview and just building upon, like also this proclamation of 383 00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:40.330 fulfillment or perfecting the imperfection of curious how that? 384 00:28:40.360 --> 00:28:45.840 Was either has continued to evolve or if you've seen something different there. 385 00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:51.980 Particularly in the mainland. 386 00:28:52.010 --> 00:28:54.180 You can't talk about Chinese Christianity 387 00:28:54.210 --> 00:28:57.140 without talking about the relationship to the States. 388 00:28:57.170 --> 00:29:00.050 So that's a fundamental idea because 389 00:29:00.080 --> 00:29:03.780 everything revolves around the church's relationship with the state. 390 00:29:03.810 --> 00:29:13.600 So just the idea that, well, let's go in this direction, 391 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.460 that definitely is taking place in many different spots. 392 00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:23.420 So right now, we have going on in June, we have the Yale Conference on Chinese 393 00:29:23.450 --> 00:29:27.660 Christianity, and many of the presenters are from China. 394 00:29:27.690 --> 00:29:33.460 And they're bringing up all these different interesting theologies which are 395 00:29:33.490 --> 00:29:39.900 showing goddess work in the Chinese past and connecting that 396 00:29:39.930 --> 00:29:44.140 with different works currently happening in China. 397 00:29:44.170 --> 00:29:49.290 And then you have a broader perspective in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia 398 00:29:49.320 --> 00:29:53.940 that are connecting the work from the past to today. 399 00:29:53.970 --> 00:29:58.000 So definitely, it's happening. 400 00:29:58.760 --> 00:30:03.780 Mainland China is, we know, a complicated place. 401 00:30:03.810 --> 00:30:08.700 And what's happening between the unregistered 402 00:30:08.730 --> 00:30:14.290 church and the registered church and academia are three different things. 403 00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:21.500 And then even in regionally, we have to talk about regions of the Chinese world. 404 00:30:21.530 --> 00:30:23.570 And so what's happening in Taiwan is 405 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:28.700 significantly different than what's happening in, say, Beijing. 406 00:30:28.730 --> 00:30:31.050 But definitely we're seeing connections to 407 00:30:31.080 --> 00:30:37.720 the past developing into the present with God at work among all people. 408 00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:41.620 Awesome. Appreciate that. 409 00:30:41.650 --> 00:30:45.050 Got some comments and questions coming in for you, Karen. 410 00:30:45.080 --> 00:30:46.980 Just wanted to say excellent presentation. 411 00:30:47.010 --> 00:30:52.840 I would see similar issues with theology concepts from those who come from an 412 00:30:52.870 --> 00:30:56.020 indigenous thought process thing in North American. 413 00:30:56.040 --> 00:30:57.050 Indigenous thought process. 414 00:30:57.080 --> 00:31:01.940 Great to connect this to prevenient grace, have you just, in your own journey, 415 00:31:01.970 --> 00:31:06.940 experienced any of that account of indigenous thought process? 416 00:31:06.970 --> 00:31:08.720 Yes. 417 00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:13.260 The one that comes out most clearly was teaching in Nepal. 418 00:31:13.290 --> 00:31:16.180 I was teaching at a pastor's conference in 419 00:31:16.210 --> 00:31:22.620 Nepal and talking about in Leviticus the sacrifice. 420 00:31:22.650 --> 00:31:29.700 And one of the pastors from Nepal came and asked me, where is that from? 421 00:31:29.730 --> 00:31:31.810 The sacrificial lamb? 422 00:31:31.840 --> 00:31:34.020 And I talked to him about it, and he said, 423 00:31:34.050 --> 00:31:38.090 that's really interesting because we have these sacrifices that happened. 424 00:31:38.120 --> 00:31:40.280 He was part of 425 00:31:40.360 --> 00:31:46.160 a tribe in the northeast portion of Nepal, and we have these sacrifices that bear a 426 00:31:46.190 --> 00:31:51.540 lot of resemblances to what you're describing from the Book of Leviticus. 427 00:31:51.570 --> 00:31:53.320 And 428 00:31:54.200 --> 00:31:59.760 so we see in places all around the world and this is not new, 429 00:32:00.080 --> 00:32:03.500 we can think of all kinds of examples of this around the world. 430 00:32:03.530 --> 00:32:09.020 And missionaries have written books on it where people are explaining indigenous 431 00:32:09.050 --> 00:32:15.700 ideas of sacrifice of animals, this idea that there must be a sacrifice for sin, 432 00:32:15.730 --> 00:32:21.420 and connecting that with the cross and what Jesus did as a final sacrifice. 433 00:32:21.450 --> 00:32:27.160 So I would say that, yeah, I see that. 434 00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:32.050 Okay, awesome. Amy's written. 435 00:32:32.080 --> 00:32:33.660 Thanks, Chris, for your presentation. 436 00:32:33.690 --> 00:32:36.620 As you see the discovery of Wesley in the 437 00:32:36.650 --> 00:32:41.260 Chinese context, seeing those connections and residences are encouraging. 438 00:32:41.290 --> 00:32:44.260 Is their influence going in the other direction? 439 00:32:44.290 --> 00:32:49.600 Are there teachings in the Chinese church that could bless the Western church? 440 00:32:51.840 --> 00:32:55.560 I'm particularly familiar with 441 00:32:56.160 --> 00:33:03.500 the modern Taiwanese context and the theology of Wang Mingdao. 442 00:33:03.530 --> 00:33:09.570 So when I think about what I've gained from being here, 443 00:33:09.600 --> 00:33:17.180 I would say definitely the emphasis on prayer as being a priority. 444 00:33:17.210 --> 00:33:23.980 I think that the average Taiwanese church is unusually focused on prayer. 445 00:33:24.010 --> 00:33:27.720 And you can see this in Korea, too, 446 00:33:28.520 --> 00:33:32.570 unlike what I've experienced in any church in Kansas. 447 00:33:32.600 --> 00:33:37.290 And then what we see in mainland China 448 00:33:37.320 --> 00:33:43.420 among some unregistered Chinese Christians 449 00:33:43.450 --> 00:33:48.330 who are willing to who are willing to sacrifice everything 450 00:33:48.360 --> 00:33:53.780 for what they think is what God wants them to do. 451 00:33:53.810 --> 00:33:58.320 I would say that both of those things have been 452 00:34:00.040 --> 00:34:05.860 both of those ideas that have prayer and that of sacrifice 453 00:34:05.890 --> 00:34:12.800 are things that the Western church definitely would be blessed by. 454 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:15.690 Absolutely. Thank you. 455 00:34:15.720 --> 00:34:20.420 I think our final question is from Eli. 456 00:34:20.450 --> 00:34:26.650 Was there inherent aversions to politics among Chinese, especially pre 1949, like 457 00:34:26.680 --> 00:34:30.300 we see in many North American Christian churches? 458 00:34:30.330 --> 00:34:33.260 Well, yes and no. 459 00:34:33.290 --> 00:34:43.120 So we have a very significant split that happened in missionaries 460 00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:49.740 between what we would call, let's say, conservative and liberal, and that went 461 00:34:49.770 --> 00:34:56.420 into Chinese Christians, and they chose the terms modernist and fundamentalist. 462 00:34:56.450 --> 00:35:01.980 The fundamentalists largely wanted to move away from politics. 463 00:35:02.010 --> 00:35:07.620 So people like Wang, Mingda and Johnson and Watchman Meet, they were moving in an 464 00:35:07.650 --> 00:35:14.740 independent direction from not only Western denominations, but politics. 465 00:35:14.770 --> 00:35:20.480 So Wangdao says in 1924, he made a conscious decision to turn his back on the 466 00:35:20.510 --> 00:35:28.560 world and focus on the cross, whereas other Chinese Christians 467 00:35:29.200 --> 00:35:36.860 join in mostly not exclusively, but mostly with the modernist movement and become 468 00:35:36.890 --> 00:35:40.940 leaders in what's currently three self patriotic movement. 469 00:35:40.970 --> 00:35:43.170 And that's become very muddied today 470 00:35:43.200 --> 00:35:48.130 because, of course, over the decades, things become very complicated and people 471 00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:53.060 move around, and some evangelicals are here and some modernists are there anyway. 472 00:35:53.090 --> 00:35:56.860 So modernists largely moving into the 473 00:35:56.890 --> 00:36:01.940 three self church are very involved in politics. 474 00:36:01.970 --> 00:36:06.080 So you have people that are all along that spectrum. 475 00:36:06.110 --> 00:36:11.780 But Chinese Christianity, especially in the mainland, is a very divided church 476 00:36:11.810 --> 00:36:17.100 currently between the unregistered people call them house churches or underground 477 00:36:17.130 --> 00:36:22.060 churches, probably a better term is unregistered, and the registered churches, 478 00:36:22.090 --> 00:36:26.780 which are the three self patriotic movement recognize churches. 479 00:36:26.810 --> 00:36:36.820 So, again, Unregistered is largely not wanting to participate in politics. 480 00:36:36.850 --> 00:36:42.040 Registered three self patriotic movement are willing to engage with politics. 481 00:36:43.200 --> 00:36:49.240 Okay, yeah, well, yeah, that relationship of with the state right. 482 00:36:49.640 --> 00:36:54.650 Relevant worldwide, certainly, and all the more so in our context here as well. 483 00:36:54.680 --> 00:36:56.580 Thank you for that, Chris. 484 00:36:56.610 --> 00:37:01.600 A reminder that maybe we have time for one more question, but just a reminder for 485 00:37:01.630 --> 00:37:06.060 folks that want a copy of Chris's presentation. 486 00:37:06.080 --> 00:37:07.780 Mona Moore, you've already sent in a request. 487 00:37:07.810 --> 00:37:10.580 If you could send your email address to Tabitha. 488 00:37:10.600 --> 00:37:12.320 She's looking after all the specifics 489 00:37:12.350 --> 00:37:17.740 there, and she'll make sure that you get a copy of Chris's presentation. 490 00:37:17.770 --> 00:37:22.540 So send your email to Tabitha privately here in the chat. 491 00:37:22.560 --> 00:37:25.100 Chris, are you going to do one more? Sure. 492 00:37:25.120 --> 00:37:26.100 Okay. Yeah. 493 00:37:26.130 --> 00:37:28.920 It's only midnight. 494 00:37:29.600 --> 00:37:31.380 Fair enough. 495 00:37:31.410 --> 00:37:32.620 Okay, here you go. 496 00:37:32.650 --> 00:37:35.130 Here's your Strike at midnight question. 497 00:37:35.160 --> 00:37:40.760 Is there any research looking at Pravini grace in the earliest Christian missions. 498 00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:45.520 As. We see it in the Jesus Sutras? 499 00:37:45.640 --> 00:37:47.620 Nice to hear from you, Donald. 500 00:37:47.650 --> 00:37:49.650 Is there any research looking at prvini 501 00:37:49.680 --> 00:37:56.040 grace in the earliest Christian missions as we see it in the Jesus Sutras? 502 00:37:56.080 --> 00:37:59.020 There definitely is. 503 00:37:59.050 --> 00:38:05.260 I'm not an expert on this field, but probably the best person to look at 504 00:38:05.290 --> 00:38:10.860 would be Chloe Starr at Yale Divinity School, who is a professor of 505 00:38:10.890 --> 00:38:16.900 Christianity and China, and she's actually a synologist, and her expertise is in the 506 00:38:16.930 --> 00:38:24.580 area of going back from the Jesuits to modern Chinese Christianity. 507 00:38:24.610 --> 00:38:28.980 And I did a presentation with her, and she 508 00:38:29.010 --> 00:38:33.500 said to me, doesn't this have roots back in the Jesuit missionaries? 509 00:38:33.530 --> 00:38:38.980 And I had to say, I don't know because that's not my area of expertise. 510 00:38:39.010 --> 00:38:41.580 But she does. 511 00:38:41.610 --> 00:38:44.170 And I read her recent book, which. 512 00:38:44.200 --> 00:38:48.460 Is Chinese theology. 513 00:38:48.490 --> 00:38:53.210 And if anyone writes clearly on research 514 00:38:53.240 --> 00:38:56.300 and previewing grace in the earliest Christian missions it's heard. 515 00:38:56.330 --> 00:39:03.420 And she does write it about Matteo Ricci and Verbias and other Jesuit missionaries. 516 00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:05.340 And that would be where to go for that. 517 00:39:05.370 --> 00:39:10.360 Chloe Star, chinese theology from Yale Divinity School. 518 00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:13.020 Okay, great. 519 00:39:13.050 --> 00:39:14.620 Thank you for the 520 00:39:14.650 --> 00:39:19.620 and thank you for your time and your incredible presentation, chris, we really, 521 00:39:19.650 --> 00:39:22.420 really appreciate your work and sharing it with us. 522 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.560 And I know everyone wants to express their appreciation for you.