'Let us go on towards perfection': A Critical Study of John Sung's Theology of the New Birth and Sanctification

Abstract

From 1928 to 1940, the evangelistic and revivalistic ministries of John Sung (1901-1944) in China and Southeast Asia drew about 100,000 people to the altar for salvation and sanctification, Spirit-filling and healing. Research on him to date has focused more on his life and ministry in his milieu than his theology. This thesis is the first detailed study of Sung’s teaching on new birth and sanctification. It demonstrates that new birth and sanctification were the axial themes of Sung’s life and thought, and contends that Sung developed a practical and contextual theology on jidutu lingcheng 基督徒灵程 (the Christian spiritual journey) that sought the formation of the Christian, as ‘the bride of Christ’, by the Gospel power of Jesus. This theology stresses the new birth as an incipient sanctification which involves inward, qualitative, and instantaneous deliverance of the heart of a sinner who thoroughly confesses sin and trusts in Jesus’ atonement. It proclaims sanctification as a continual purification of a born again Christian from the old self through the constant baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that he or she may go on towards the apex of sanctification—perfection or full salvation from the root of sin. Evangelicalism, the transpacific Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, and the Holiness and Pentecostal movements of Sung’s time, plus Uldine Utley, John Wesley, Dwight Moody, and the Bethel Worldwide Evangelistic Band, inspired Sung and were sources for his theology of regeneration and sanctification. Sung articulated his theology through sermons, Bible study materials, parables, songs, and autobiography, employing associative, typological, allegorical, devotional, and tropological readings of Scripture. For Sung, the problems of sin, Satan, and sickness necessitate ‘the Christian spiritual journey’. The Trinity’s graciousness and human faith enables this ‘progress towards Canaan’ that is meant to prepare a perfected bride of Christ. This thesis provides fresh perspective on Sung’s legacy, showing that Sung developed an indigenous Protestant evangelical grassroots soteriology by translating the Arminian, Wesleyan-Holiness, Pentecostal, fundamentalist, and revivalistic understandings of the Gospel of new birth and sanctification into Chinese cultural and conceptual categories. Particularly, he utilised the Confucian notions of ‘Five Relationships’, ‘complete man’, a life of learning, self-restraint, and ‘Heaven and humanity in unity’ in his teaching of sanctification and perfection. Sung did not however address the socio-political realities and crises of his age, and so his revivalism was not holistic in this broader sense. This thesis contributes a new understanding of Sung’s impact on Chinese Christianity through the lenses of his interpretation of the new birth and sanctification.

Date of Award	15 Jun 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Geordan Hammond (Main Supervisor) & RMS UnKnown (Co Supervisor)