Chao Tzu-ch'en (14 February 1888-), known as T. C. Chao, Protestant theologian, was dean of the school of religion at Yenching University for more than 20 years.
A native of Tech'ing, Chekiang, T. C. Chao received his early education along traditional Chinese lines. Many of his contemporaries who became Protestant leaders had been reared in the Christian faith, but he did not encounter Christianity and become a Christian until he was an undergraduate at Soochow University, shortly before 1911. His conversion marked the beginning of a long career as a vigorous and persuasive interpreter of the Christian view of life. His goal was broad : the adaptation of Christianity to the special environment and needs of modern China and construction of the foundations for an indigenous Chinese Christian church.
T. C. Chao was graduated from Soochow University in 1913. In 1914 he was a lay delegate of the China Mission Conference to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In later years he became closely associated with many Western churchmen through international conferences, deputations, and lectureships. In the autumn of 1914, after the Methodist conference, Chao began graduate study at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, which led to the M.A. degree in 1916 and the B.D. in 1917. At Vanderbilt, as at Soochow University in China, he was a classmate of Lu Chih-wei (q.v.), later chancellor of Yenching University. Returning to China in 1917, T. C. Chao began his career as Christian educator. He served as professor of sociology and religion at Soochow University. In 1922-23 he became the first dean of the college of arts and chairman of the faculty at that institution. Invited by Dr. J. Leighton Stuart to Yenching University in 1925, Chao left Soochow University and moved in 1926 to Yenching to teach philosophy. Two years later, in 1928, T. C. Chao became dean of Yenching's school of religion, succeeding Timothy T. Lew (Liu T'ing-fang, q.v.). Except for brief trips to the United States and Europe, including a year's study at Oxford in 1932, Chao continued to head the school of religion and to teach the philosophy of religion at Yenching for more than 20 years.
In 1939-40 T. C. Chao spent a sabbatical year at Kunming, devoting much of his time to the chaplaincy of the Sheng Kung Hui [Episcopalian] church which served the students at the refugee institutions of Peking University, Tsinghua, and Nankai, known collectively as the Southwest Associated University. Through this experience, a growing allegiance to the Episcopal Church came to fruition, and he was ordained in the Sheng Kung Hui while in Hong Kong in 1940.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Chao was imprisoned by the Japanese for six months because of his outspoken loyalties and convictions; he devoted this period to writing poems, hymns, and a book. Although he was under surveillance after his release, he was able to engage actively in the work of the Sheng Kung Hui in China. When Yenching University reopened in Peiping in December 1945, T. C. Chao resumed his duties as dean of the school of religion.
T. C. Chao was active in national Protestant groups in China. He was appointed to the National Christian Council when it was organized in Shanghai in 1922, and he served for many years as member of the national committee of the YMCA in China. He was a delegate from China to the meetings of the International Missionary Council in Jerusalem (1928), in Madras, India (1938), and in Whitby, Canada (1947). His international prominence as a Protestant leader was affirmed in 1948 when the first general assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting at Amsterdam, elected him one of its six vice presidents. In 1949 Chao remained in China and welcomed the new Communist government. In April 1951, when the World Council of Churches approved the military action undertaken by the United Nations forces in Korea, T. C. Chao severed his connection with that organization.
T. C. Chao was known for his creative and penetrating inquiries into Christian theology. At first, his religion was primarily a social concern with strategy and tactics to be employed in improving the human situation in China. Over the years, this initial humanitarian impulse matured into a more profound and theologically more conservative faith. The very small group of Protestant leaders in China exerted an influence far out of proportion to its size. Chao's influence was personal as well as intellectual, and much of his impact upon the thought of contemporary young China was made through sermons and lectures. Among Christian groups in the United States and Europe, he was known as a notably effective speaker. Student groups and religious conferences constantly called for his participation, and he gained renown through his ability to speak cogently and lucidly on complex religious subjects without using texts or notes. T. C. Chao's tall, spare figure and his personal qualities of dignity and humility created an impressive presence in all situations.
A prolific writer, in both Chinese and English, of books, articles, poems, hymns, and translations, T. C. Chao was one of the most widely read Chinese Christian leaders of these years. The range of his publications indicates his broad interest in the Christian philosophy of life and in the relevance of Christianity to the life of modern China.
