Postdenominational Chritianity in China

What is it about?

Abstract The Chinese Protestant church is the ecumenically most advanced church in the world because, as a merger of some 70 denominations, it has given up the confessional divisions and denominational structures. The Chinese model of “postdenominational” Christianity is more progressive than the ideal of the modern international ecumenical movement which promotes “unity in reconciled diversity.” In this model, the confessional differences and denominational structures stay as they are but they are not any more seen as divisive; the unity of faith becomes visible in common worship of God’s word and of the sacraments. Giving up denominations was politically forced in China in the 1950’s. Because the change was quick and abrupt, there was no time to develop any theological foundation for a postdenominational identity of the church. Also the ecclesial structures are complicated and weak in Chinese Protestantism. Although the Chinese model of a postdenominational church is a challenging model for world Christianity, it urgently needs theological strengthening, a deeper ecclesiology. The Chinese church is still in the process of unification. This paper argues that merging postdenominationalism with the idea of Eucharistic communion ecclesiology, presently the most promising international ecumenical model, could greatly benefit and strengthen the Chinese Protestant church. There is a widely accepted consensus that the church is the congregation of believers in which the pure gospel of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed and the sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist) properly administered. This essential life of the Christian church becomes concrete in common worship celebrating together God’s word and the sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. If there is a common understanding and shared life in this essence of the Christian faith, a lot freedom remains for varying contextual expressions of the faith. As they worship together, the Chinese Protestant Christians must attend to the hard theological task of building up and expressing some kind of an agreeable ecclesiology on the basis of the Scripture and on the dogma of the undivided early church. Perhaps also a creation of a Chinese postdenominational catechism for a minimal expression and teaching of the common faith is necessary. Hopefully, the appreciation of the Holy Eucharist will increase in Chinese Protestantism, it would strengthen the identity of the Chinese church as an authentic ecumenical Christian church. Combined with the reality of Eucharistic communion ecclesiology, the idea of postdenominationalism has a great ecumenical potential. These two can complement each other: communion ecclesiology offers more theological substance to postdenominationalism, whereas postdenominationalism challenges traditional churches to make brave progressive moves towards a fuller visible unity of the body of Christ by giving up divisive traditions and structures. There is a growing global tendency in Protestant Christianity toward confessional and denominational indifferentism. In this new situation, the postdenominational experience of Chinese Protestantism could make an important contribution to the world-wide ecumenical development.

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