Chinese Christianities Unit
The Chinese Christianities Unit is an intellectual community committed to understanding Chinese Christianities not as any singular pre-bounded identity of geography, ethnicity, politics, language, or denomination, but rather as a lens for appreciating the dynamisms and contestations of such experiences, commitments, and concerns as generative in religious aspirations and social life.
This year, we invite papers that engage the 2026 conference theme of “Futures,” especially on the following timely topics. In general, we invite reflection on the future(s) of “Chinese Christianities as World Christianity,” focusing on how Chinese Churches around the world adapt, change, and express their faith in different parts of the world, negotiating their cultural identities and their conception of the global Church in conversation with local life in any place where the Chinese find themselves, from Brazil to Canada, Indonesia to Spain, and across the African continent.
- Chinese Transnationalism and Public/Political Theology: Apocalyptic Imaginations of the Past and the Future
We invite reflection on the eschatalogical and/or apocalyptic imaginations which Chinese Christian communities have generated or are generating, as well as their implications for public and/or political life locally and/or around the world.
- Theological Education and Chinese Missions in the 21st Century: Seminaries and Bible Colleges Around the World
Though under-studied in the academy, Chinese-language seminaries and Bible colleges – both in East Asia and in myriad countries around the world – deeply shape the theological tenor, evangelical aims, and social aspirations of Christianity. We invite papers that attend to these dynamics of formation and missioning in Chinese Christianities globally today.
- Gendered Experience: Present Realities and Future Trajectories
Since the field of Chinese Christianities remains dominated by histories and endeavors of heterosexual men, we invite attention to contestations and retrenchments around gender (e.g. women, LGBTQ+) in Chinese Christian communities around the world in different cultural and legal contexts.
- 50 Years After the Chinese Cultural Revolution: Fractured Memories, Tentative Hopes
On the half-centennial anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), we invite papers that reflect upon the importance of that time for Chinese Christian identities around the world, wrought in narration of past, present, and future.
This Unit provides a collaborative forum for scholars of different disciplines to engage in an academic discourse about the field of Chinese Christianities. Christianity is the fastest growing religion in mainland China today, and arguably the religion of choice for a growing number of diasporic Chinese. “Chinese” is an expansive term, including mainland China proper as well as a large, linguistically, and culturally diverse diaspora, encompassing more than a fifth of the world’s population; the Han Chinese people are sometimes described as the world’s largest ethnic group. Hence, with the increasing critical mass of Chinese Christians, there has likewise been a growing academic interest in various instantiations of Chinese Christianities, as understood across geographies (e.g., mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, North America, etc.) and groupings (e.g., house and state-sanctioned churches, Catholic, Pentecostal, etc.). Chinese Christianities both transcend and hinder a number of regional, social, religious, etc. boundaries. Over the course of these five years, this unit will offer a unique opportunity for scholars to engage and to debate the implications of the multiplicity of Chinese Christianities with regards to the boundaries they engage.
Second, the Steering Committee meets on Zoom to discuss the papers. When there is agreement among our shortlists, we assemble panels. The cochairs take minutes and send the agreed-up on panels to the committee prior to assembling them on the PAPERS app.
If there are any changes, the cochairs write to the committee for consensus.