Shoki Coe (; 20 August 1914 – 28 October 1988) was a minister of the

Presbyterian Church in Taiwan The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT; ; ) is the largest Protestant Christian denomination based in Taiwan. The PCT is a member of the World Council of Churches, and its flag features a "Burning Bush," which signifies the concept of burning ye ...

, erstwhile principal of Tainan Theological Seminary (1949-1965) and director of the Theological Education Fund of the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most ju ...

. Through the Theological Education Fund, he is widely known for his coinage of the notion of " contextualizing theology," later better known as "contextual theology," which argues for theology's need to respond to the sociopolitical concerns of a local context. He was named by

Kosuke Koyama was a Japanese Protestant Christian theologian. Biography Koyama was born in Tokyo in 1929, of Christian parents. He later moved to New Jersey in the United States, where he completed his B.D. at Drew Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. at Pri ...

as the latter's spiritual father.

Name

His name reveals several layers of complexity in his own sense of identity. He was given the name Chang Hui Hwang (or C. H. Hwang) at birth, a name he published under in 1968. However, the name he chose to publish under in the 1970s and 1980s was Shoki Coe, the Anglicized version of his name in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, reflecting the context of the Taiwan of his birth under Japanese rule.

Education

Coe studied at Taiwan High School, the former version of

National Taiwan Normal University National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU; ), or ''Shīdà'' is an institution of higher education and normal school operating out of three campuses in Taipei, Taiwan. NTNU is the leading research institute in such disciplines as Education and ...

between 1931 and 1934. It was the only school that could connect to tertiary education during the Japanese colonial period. He pursued a BA in Philosophy at

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

and finished in 1937. In 1938, he obtained a scholarship to study

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

Westminster College, Cambridge Westminster College in Cambridge, England is a theological college of the United Reformed Church. Its principal purpose is training for the ordination of ministers, but is also used more widely for training within the denomination. History T ...

and stayed at the home of a Taiwanese missionary, David Landsborough.

Family

He married Winifred Saunders, a

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...

native, in 1944 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Together they had four children - David, Michael, Eileen and Andrew.

Writings

* ''Recollections and reflections''. New York: The Rev. Dr. Shoki Coe's Memorial Fund, 1993. * Christian mission in the context of Asian nation building. New Jersey: Princeton Theological Seminary Educational Media, 2011. * ''Human rights in Taiwan today''. New Jersey: Princeton Theological Seminary Educational Media, 2011. * ''Missio Dei''. New Jersey: Princeton Theological Seminary Educational Media, 2011. * ''Text and context in missions''. New Jersey: Princeton Theological Seminary Educational Media, 2011. * ''Christian mission and the test of discipleship : the Princeton lectures'', 1970 (edited and introduced by Michael Nai-Chiu Poon). Singapore: Trinity Theological College, 2012.

Name

Education

Family

Writings

References

Further reading