Fuller President Remarks on the Passing of Bishop K. H. Ting (1915-2012)

Word from China about the death of Bishop K. H. Ting came on Thanksgiving morning, and I personally received that message with an response of thanksgiving to God for the Bishop’s friendship to me and his service to Christ’s Kingdom. Bishop Ting’s contribution to the Chinese church has been most significant, and his legacy–through his writings and other accomplishments–will continue for generations.

My friendship with the Bishop, longtime leader of China’s officially “registered” churches, was forged in a controversy that marked the very beginning of my presidency. As we were planning my inaugural events in the early autumn of 1993, we received word that he would like to attend my installation service. It struck me that it would be appropriate for him to bring greetings at the ceremony, and he accepted our invitation for him to do so. This turned out to be a highly controversial decision on my part, and during the weeks preceding the inauguration I was under much pressure from critics of the Three-Self Churches in China to rescind the invitation. We stuck with the decision, and the Bishop participated. The visible protest during the ceremony was carried out quietly and with respect.

Our friendship grew as the Bishop greeted Fuller delegations on many visits to China. On two occasions he specifically requested that he and I meet alone for confidential conversations about challenges and opportunities he was wrestling with.

My friendship with the Bishop was not the beginning of Fuller’s friendship with him, however. In 1984, David Allan Hubbard, my predecessor in the presidency, took a group of trustees and administrator to China to learn about the condition of the churches there. The delegation visited Bishop Ting, and presented him with a gift of books for the library at Nanjing’s Union Theological Seminary. This was a creative and courageous gesture on David Hubbard’s part. At the time, there was a general distrust among Western evangelicals of the “government-sanctioned” churches in China, and Dr. Hubbard deliberately chose to break ranks by offering an evangelical hand of friendship. A few years later, President Hubbard hosted a luncheon for Bishop Ting in Pasadena. These gestures made a deep and lasting impression on the Bishop, thus preparing the way for our subsequent partnerships in China.

Bishop Ting’s passing signals the end of an important era in the relationship of church and government in China. In one of our last conversations, he asked me whether I thought it was a good thing for the Chinese churches to be headed up by a bishop-while the Three-Self Churches are officially “post-denominational,” Bishop Ting maintained his own bishop status in the global Anglican communion. I smiled when he asked me that question, telling him that he was putting a Presbyterian on a theological spot! But then I said in seriousness that I was firmly convinced that having a bishop had been a genuine strength for the Chinese churches in their decades of negotiations with the Party leadership about issues of religious freedom.

The situation in China regarding the role of religious groups continues to be a work in progress. And we do see much progress, for which we owe much to the Bishop’s leadership during complex and difficult times. Fuller Seminary has solid relationships with churches and educational institutions in China-and with friends in the leadership at the State Administration for Religious Affairs. We are inspired by what we see the Lord doing in that great nation, and we are privileged to have significant opportunities to see first hand, and to learn from, the exciting things that are happening there.

As I come close to the conclusion of my presidency, I see Fuller’s relationship with China as an important achievement of the past two decades. And it all began when two great leaders-David Hubbard and K.H. Ting-reached out to each other in friendship!