American City on a Chinese Hill: Single-Origin Narrative of American Freedom in Chinese Christianity

Abstract In recent years, a number of high-profile Chinese Christian dissidents, who once championed liberalism, democracy, and constitutionalism in China, have become outspoken supporters of Donald Trump and Christian Nationalism. Complex historical factors led to this change, but this article highlights one important intellectual facet that undergirded many of their arguments for Christian Nationalism. It is a single-origin historical narrative, whereby American freedom came exclusively from Calvinism as testified in the original Westminster Confession and practiced by the New England Puritans. This article traces the historical process through which this single-origin historical narrative was transported from its American roots to contemporary Chinese Christianity. This is a two-part history: the first being the ministry of Charles Chao, Jonathan Chao, and Stephen Tong, who jointly introduced this single-origin narrative to China, and the second being the process through which Yu Jie, an outspoken Chinese Calvinist and Trump supporter, inherited and exaggerated the single-origin narrative. Altogether, this article explores a previously understudied Sino-American connection in the history of contemporary Chinese Christianity.