wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] PC(USA) helps prepare future professors for China

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Note #8074 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

PC(USA) helps prepare future professors for China
04026
January 15, 2004

PC(USA) helps prepare future professors for China

by Patrick Cole
Communications Coordinator
Worldwide Ministries Division

LOUISIVLLE - With Chinese Christians grappling with a clergy shortage, the
Presbyterian Church (USA) is helping prepare future teachers of ministers in
China.

	Three Chinese students are studying in American seminaries thanks in
part to scholarships offered through the Global Education and International
Leadership Development Office of the Worldwide Ministries Division here. All
hope to be seminary professors in China.

	"Since I came here, I have learned a lot from scholarly professors
and seminarians and sisters and brothers in First Presbyterian Church in San
Anselmo (CA)," said Jie Jiao, a student at neighboring San Francisco
Theological Seminary.

	Jiao and two other students, Manhong Lin, a student at the Graduate
Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and Jian-Guo Wang, a student at Princeton
Theological Seminary in New Jersey, are interested in helping Chinese
Christians develop a theology that is distinctively Chinese.

	Jiao, a former staff member for the China Christian Council (CCC),
said she hopes to "play a cross-pollinating role in the reconstruction of
theology in China and contribute to Chinese theological education."

	A deeper theological perspective based on a better understanding of
Chinese culture is sorely needed in China, said Lin, who also worked at the
CCC before coming to the U.S. "Further study at the doctoral level will
enable me to make better contributions to both theological education and the
ecumenical understanding of the church in the Chinese cultural context."

	Wang agrees that developing an indigenous Chinese theology is crucial
for the Chinese church. "The more I experience the more I become convinced
that the church in China needs to develop its own identity and its own
distinctive way in the sharing of the gospel with its own people," he said.

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