Teaching World Christianity and Decolonizing Theological Education in Chinese Seminary Contexts

Chinese-language seminaries, both in East Asia and across the diaspora, have largely not incorporated the insights of world Christianity scholarship into their curricula, even as Western theological institutions increasingly offer such courses as part of efforts to decolonize theological education. This paper argues that Chinese-language seminaries cannot simply adopt world Christianity curricula as developed in Western institutions. The field’s prevailing cartography, organized around a Global South/Global North axis, reflects a Western subject position that does not map onto the positionality of Chinese theological education. A direct transplantation risks replacing one form of epistemological dependency with another. The paper identifies five areas where curricular remapping is necessary, including attention to the East-West axis of Christianity under communist regimes, Indigenous Christianity in North America, and Christianity in the East Asian. It further addresses practical questions of implementation, including AI-powered translation tools and a thematically organized course outline as a model for adaptation.