A Variation of Apocalyptic Anxiety and Eschatological Hope: The Transnational Missionary Ambition of CCCOWE and Its Resonance in Chinese Public Theologies, 1976–2010

This paper examines how shifting eschatological imaginaries shaped the missionary and public-theological development of the Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism (CCCOWE), the most extensive transnational Chinese Protestant network since its founding in 1976. Early CCCOWE leaders, especially Rev. Thomas Wang, drew on Dispensationalist apocalypticism to frame Chinese evangelism as an urgent “final baton relay,” mobilizing global missionary activism. By contrast, younger leaders influenced by the Lausanne Movement’s “Whole Gospel” articulated holistic understandings of mission that integrated social concern, public engagement, and emerging forms of Christian counterculture. Through analysis of CCCOWE publications and archival materials, this paper traces how these contrasting eschatologies circulated across Hong Kong, North America, and the United Kingdom, generating new modes of public theology within global Chinese Christianity. It argues that the movement’s gradual shift from apocalyptic anxiety to eschatological hope reshaped Chinese evangelical identity and expanded Christian social participation by 2010.