In his article Adapting Christianity to Socialist Society: Theological Changes Xiao Anping postulates, “that changing times and social development also bring about changes and development in theology” and then considers the way in which the adaptation of Christianity to Chinese socialist society should be viewed, which according to Anping is from the perspective of changes in theological thinking – presumably historically, politically, and socially.
Indeed, the whole argument of this article seems to be focused around creating an understanding of the necessity of theological reconstruction within Chinese Christian theology. It should be understood here that Anping is not seeking to change the theology of the Chinese Church for mere change sake, but to contextualize his Christianity into a new and changing socialist society. For legitimate reasons, Christianity has historically been associated with Western civilization. But China is an Eastern civilization with a developing socialist society containing a unique set of social ideals. In many ways it is a world that is completely foreign to the Western mind. And if we as Westerners struggle to understand and integrate ourselves into Eastern culture, then we can’t expect anyone to conform to our ideas of something as central as ones faith.
Anping then demonstrates the flexibility of Christianity to adapt to its socio-political climate by tracing the development of Christian thought from the early Middle Ages through the Reformation. He says that a history of theology is, “the history of the contextualization of theology in different societies and cultures, and its development within that context.”
Here it is interesting to note that a significant assumption of Anping’s is that the progress that is made within Christian theology is also an advancement in and to society. For example he says, “the religious reformation became… directly involved in the great transformation in thinking that took place. Thus the religious reformation can be seen as the expression of humanism within the church, not only causing changes in theology, but also promoting the advancement of the whole of European history and society.”
But while Anping says that theological evolution is a social development, his understanding of this concept is unclear. It seems that while he is arguing for this need of “contextualization” in theology due to an existing socio-political context, he also wants to argue that this change in theology contributes to a change and development in society. He seems to create for himself a contradiction between these two ideas. However, I think that perhaps a better way of looking at this is to view this relationship as a parallel “both and” relationship as opposed to one of cause and effect. Because religion and culture cannot separate from each other. In fact, it is not that one is always influenced by the other, it is that each is continually impacted by the other.
But Anping claims that, “changes in theology are not in contradiction to the Bible” – a statement that may or may not be true depending on the specific nature of the change he discussing. We could accept his statement if it were clear that he were only talking about shifts within orthodox Christian thought. However, he does not make this clear, and only succeeds in creating more questions as to what the specific nature of these theological “changes” entail when he attempts to support this point scripturally.
He first cites the difference in some individuals’ notions of God and how that differed between the Old and New Testaments (where some view God as a strict disciplinarian in the O.T. and as love in the N.T.). This is problematic for two reasons. First, because we numerous cases of God’s love, mercy, and redemption in the O.T. and His justice and righteous indignation in the N.T. And second, because these individuals who might have held such a specific view of God were not (to any fault of their own) privy to the complete spectrum of theological revelation that we are today which could have led them to an incomplete, albeit uninformed, view of God.
Second, and perhaps even more speciously, Anping uses the Acts 15 text of the meeting of the Apostles in Jerusalem to argue that theological change is not in contradiction to the Bible. He says that the shift away from a Christianity that required certain law fulfillments to a Christianity that was characterized in “justification by faith” only demonstrated to people that Christianity was not exclusively for the Jews and served as a severance point from Judaism. But, while those things are true, I would argue that the very reason that the Jerusalem council was held was because the gospel that Peter and others were preaching was a gospel that was in contradiction to the gospel of Christ (and by implication the gospel of the Bible). This can be seen by the very fact that Paul has to publicly confront Peter and condemn his behavior towards the gentile believers. In fact, even were the Judaizing gospel the biblical gospel, the shift that we see here in Acts 15 is a contradictory change in theology; the change from the “Judaizing” theology to “Paul’s” theology is a change from a works based theology to a faith based theology – such a drastic change in theological systems as to warrant one or the other outside of orthodoxy.
When we understand the backdrop from which Anping writes, then we begin to be able to understand his reasons for advocating theological change and his means of doing so. Anping is actively involved as Dean of Zhongnan Seminary and is a part of what is commonly known as the “Three-Self Movement”, which is the legally licensed and recognized Christian church in China. As someone involved in the Three-Self Movement, Anping is concerned with national pride and development as a part of his local Chinese theology, which is probably why he spends such a great deal of time discussing the need for theology to be contextualized. Further, he probably does not hold a very high view of the non-registered church movement, as he thinks that they tend to be more what we might refer to as “traditional”, of which he would say that such a theology is irrelevant to the modern Chinese and therefore incapable of reaching him.
In conclusion I would say that Anping is accurate in his assessment of the need for theology to adapt to its socio-political context and that this is the perspective from which we should view Chinese theological reconstruction. However, I am wary of the ambiguous nature of his needed theological “change”, and curious as to the bounds of his defined Christian orthodoxy and how far this said “change” is allowed to develop before it becomes something that is unrecognizable.
