An Unusual Diaspora: Negotiating “Chinese” Identity in Chow Lien-hwa’s Chinese Indigenous Theology in 1970s Taiwan

This paper examines the Chinese indigenous theology of Baptist pastor and theologian Chow Lien-hwa (1920–2016), focusing on how the Chinese diasporic context of postwar Taiwan shaped both the content of this theology and the form of “Chinese” identity it articulated. The mass migration of mainland Chinese to Taiwan after 1949—of which Chow was a part—created a distinctive diasporic setting in which a displaced Chinese community maintained cultural and linguistic dominance under the Republic of China regime while interacting with a postcolonial Taiwanese society. Through close textual analysis of Chow’s theological works from the 1970s, this paper argues that mainland memory, ROC political ideology, and long-term settlement in Taiwan together reshaped Chow’s Chinese Christian identity as the product of a distinctive diasporic experience. Situating Chow’s theology within this context highlights Taiwan as an underexplored site of Chinese Christian diaspora for understanding Chinese Christianities as World Christianity.