One Island, Two Voices of Freedom: Imaginations of Freedom in Late Twentieth-Century Theology in Taiwan

The development of theology in late twentieth-century in Taiwan presents an intriguing case for the exploration of Christianity and nationalism. In this paper, I compare the writings of two theologians from this period, namely, Huang Po-ho and Chow Lien-hwa, both of whom, living in Taiwan, drew upon their Christian faith as a source of inspiration for their theological commitment to the pursuit of freedom. However, as they were shaped and influenced by distinct national ideologies, the meaning and vision of freedom they articulated differed drastically for different peoples and communities living in Taiwan. 

The theologies represented by Chow (Jidu xinyang yu zhongguo [Christian belief and China], 1972) and Huang (Ben xiang chutoutian de zimin [A people headed for Chhut-Thau-Thin], 1991) do not find an easy home within traditionally defined fields of academic research, namely, “Taiwanese theology” or “Sino-Chinese theology.” They are also underrepresented in the broader field of East Asian theologies and World Christianity. Existing surveys of Taiwanese theology have largely focused on the theology and methodology of Shoki Coe and C. S. Song, particularly their commitment to a decolonial and contextualized theology, often framed within the broader pursuit of national self-determination (see Huang Po-ho, “Taiwanese Theologies” in Dictionary of Third World Theologies, 2000). However, at the same time, another group of theologians represented by Chow operated within Taiwan, drawing inspiration from early twentieth-century Chinese Christian intellectuals and their vision of a Sinicized Christianity. These theologians, using Cold War-era Taiwan as their base, worked under the Chiang Kai-shek-led Nationalist Republic of China and within Taiwan’s unique geopolitical environment to construct a localized theology aimed at serving a “global Chinese” Christian community. Within the ideological framework of the time, Taiwanese people were also considered part of this broader global Chinese identity, reinforcing a theological vision that was deeply embedded in a specific form of Chinese nationalism (see Lo Lung‐kwong, “Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau,” in Christianities in Asia, 2010). It was only in recent years that Chow’s theology has been re-evaluated for its contribution to Taiwanese contextual theology (Chang-shing Wu, “Zhou lian hua bensehua shenxue sixiang de jianggou shijian yu Taiwan shehui” [The Construction and Practice of Chow Lien-hwa’s Indigenous Theology and Taiwanese Society], 2017). 

In this paper, I focus on the pursuit of freedom and nationalism as central themes in Huang and Chow’s work, which constitute key aspects of their stated goals. More specifically, I explore how differences between their theologies arise from their distinct national identities and the historical narratives that shape them. Importantly, in these pursuits, both Huang and Chow’s opponents were associated with Christian powers—if not a different expression of Christianity outright—such that Christianity not only informed and encouraged their struggles but also became the very force they opposed. 

Chow and his intellectual community were deeply influenced by nationalist movements of the late Qing and early Republican era, which sought to establish a sovereign Chinese nation amid Western imperial encroachment. Their theological vision was further shaped by key historical events, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Chinese Civil War (ending in 1949), and the Nationalist government’s ongoing campaign of “recovering the mainland” (1949–1987). Chow’s goal, as such, was the independence of the Chinese church, namely, that it could be free from Western cultural and religious imperialism. 

In contrast, Huang and his theological predecessors emerged from a very different historical context: Taiwan’s fifty-year period under Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), which culminated in Taiwanese conscription into the Pacific War as colonial subjects. Following Japan’s defeat, Taiwan was drawn into the post-war political struggle of the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949), becoming the target of the Nationalist government’s efforts to “recover,” “decolonize,” and “re-Sinicize” the island through political control, cultural assimilation, and national re-education. This period was also marked by 38 years of authoritarian rule and the suppression of political dissent under martial law (1949–1987), which included the conflict between Huang’s church tradition (the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, PCT) and the party-state political bloc led by Chiang, who was not shy about his affiliations with Christianity. For Huang, then, freedom meant liberation from the control and oppression of various colonizers in both a spiritual sense and political sense (i.e., democratic self-determination). Notably, Chow was himself the personal pastor of Chiang and his family and for a period of time even endorsed their party-state and cultural agenda by enriching their version of Christianity. Thus, Chow and Huang do not simply represent different ideas of what it means to be Christian; they were often direct opponents. 

We thus find Christian churches and theologians on both sides of a tension-filled pursuit for freedom, the exact meaning of which differs between two communities, who, once living in disparate contexts before the Second World War, now find themselves on the same island in the latter part of the twentieth century. Each theologian exercised his own agency to construct a theology that spoke to his context and the people to which he belonged. Now, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, the boundaries between the two peoples have grown increasingly blurred. While neither Huang nor Chow’s theology may adequately address the present realities of Taiwan’s churches and society, their contributions to the nebulous concept of what it means to be Taiwanese and what it means to engage in Taiwanese or Chinese theology lie precisely in the difficulty of this endeavor: that for the task ahead, theology must engage with all historical narratives that have shaped contemporary society. Furthermore, all ideologies that once motivated their theological projects—anti-imperialism, decolonization, and Chinese or Taiwanese nationalism—continue to inspire diverse theological development.