Tour Westminster, the Chao Room

March 18, 2009

Dr. Jonathan Chao, W.T.S. B.D.’66, lecturer in apologetics, went to be with the Lord on January 12, 2004, after several months of battling cancer. He was 65.

Chao was founder and president of China Ministries International (CMI), a mission organization with branches in Korea, the Philipines, Canada, The United States, Austrailia and the United Kingdom. In 1978, Chao founded the Chinese Church Research Center in Hong Kong, renamed CMI in 1987. His leadership focused the organization on theological and cultural research, the training of Chinese workers in Taiwan and the U.S., the training of house church leaders in China and the publication of Chinese literature.

A delightful teacher, he served as lecturer in apologetics at Westminster. He was the founder of the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong and Chinese Mission Seminary in Hong Kong, he also developed the academic program for China Evangelical Seminary and served as President of Taosheng Theological Seminary in Peitou as well as Christ College in Taipei. He also taught students at a number of North American schools.

Chao received degrees from Geneva College (B.A.), Westminster (B.D.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D), writing his dissertation on “The Chinese Indigenous Church Movement: Protestant Response to the Anti-religious and Anti-Christian Movement in Modern China, 1919-1927.”

He authored five books in Chinese, including A History of Christianity in Socialist China, 1949-1997 (Taipei, 1998). He produced a China Mission Handbook in English for Lausanne II in 1989 and an interview of house church leaders in 1983 called Wise as Serpants and Gentle as Doves: Christians in China Tell Their Own Story.