SPEAKERS AND CONTRIBUTORS: Bios & Abstracts (Alphabetical)

 

Dr. Kutter Callaway

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: Kutter Callaway is Associate Professor of Theology and Culture and Associate

Professor of Psychological Science at Fuller Theological Seminary. He writes and speaks

on the interaction between theology and culture—particularly film, television, and online media—in both academic and popular forums.

 

Dr. Jiushuang Chen

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: Jiushuang Chen is an art critic, scholar, and practicing artist working at the

intersection of Chinese contemporary art, Christian theology, and visual culture. He holds a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University and a graduate degree in painting from the China

Academy of Art, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (Hong Kong), and Fuller Theological Seminary.

 

Dr. William Dyrness

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: William Dyrness is Senior Professor of Theology and Culture and Dean Emeritus at

Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of Visual Faith (2001), Poetic Theology: God

and the Poetics of Everyday Life (2011), The Origin of Protestant Aesthetics (2019), and

most recently The Facts on the Ground: A Wisdom Theology of Culture (2022). Ordained in the PC(USA), he has taught in Manila, the Philippines; Nairobi, Kenya; and the United States.

Presentation Title: 

The Modern Context of Art: Religious Responses to Modernity and Its Art

Abstract:

Over the last two centuries, visual art has taken on a modern form that has contributed to what Hans Blumenberg calls “undecidability,” a characteristic of modernism itself. As a result, Christian traditions in their various forms have often been uncertain how to respond to modern culture—an uncertainty visible in religious responses to modern art and artists, what this presentation calls “exhibit A” in the religious experience of modernity. This presentation argues that learning how to respond to modern art may offer a constructive strategy for responding to modernity more broadly. Since Impressionism, artworks have no longer been understood primarily as mirrors of the

world, but as tools for interpreting it—a contested space. This requires viewers to learn how to engage what modern artists are doing. The difficulty of modern art may open

space for viewers to connect more deeply with their own lifeworlds, and the interpretive tools gained may support deeper conversation with the “new creation” that the Creator is bringing about.

 

Dr. Qingsong Hao (speaking on behalf of Dao Zi)

Affiliation: Herald Urban Mission Institute (HUMI), New York

Bio: Qingsong Hao is an art critic and curator and received his Ph.D. in Art from Tsinghua

University. He currently serves with the Herald Urban Mission Institute (HUMI) in New York. He has curated numerous exhibitions and has served as a jury member and consultant for multiple international art initiatives, including the 3rd–5th “How Beautiful Is Your Name Throughout the Earth” Christian Art Biennial in Hong Kong (2022–2026). He also served as a visual arts judge for Duke University’s Yage Literature and Art Award (2021) and curated Purdue University’s Chinese Contemporary Christian Art Exhibition.

Presentation Title: 

Spiritual Legacy and the Historical Coordinates of “Saintism Ink Art”

Abstract:

“Saintism Ink Art” is an artistic concept proposed by Dao Zi, a renowned Chinese

Christian artist. Ink-wash painting is a genre that strongly represents traditional Chinese

art and has also become a pathway for modern artistic practice. Dao Zi’s “Saintism Ink Art” reflects on both the historical traditions and the modern transformation of ink-wash painting from the perspective of Christian faith, reimagining it as a spiritual artistic expression of life renewed in Christ.

Prior to the Five Dynasties period, Chinese ink-wash landscape painting featured “lofty

and distant” compositions and visions, rooted in the spiritual heritage of God’s general revelation. However, following the “Tang–Song Transformation,” the “flat and distant” landscapes of Jiangnan lost an upward dimension of transcendence. “Saintism Ink Art” traces this spiritual turning point, responding to special revelation by “transforming blood

into ink,” thereby reconnecting with the sacred tradition of ink-wash painting.

Standing amid the spiritual ruins of contemporary art, “Saintism Ink Art” not only reflects on cultural history but also illuminates a path of life, becoming a landmark in the spiritual reorientation of contemporary art.

 

Dr. Daryl Ireland

Affiliation: Boston University

Bio: Daryl Ireland is a Research Associate Professor of Mission at the Boston University School of Theology, where he is also the Associate Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission. His work gravitates toward popular religion, focusing on how everyday believers experience and express faith. His most recent book is the co-edited volume Chinese Christian Witness, which examines how diverse Chinese Christian communities have understood and participated in mission over the past four hundred years.

Presentation Title: 

Posters, Contextualization, Politics, and Theology

Abstract:

China, in the first half of the twentieth century, teetered on the edge of an abyss.

Internally, it was beset by natural disasters, civil wars, and political chaos. Externally,

foreign powers circled, hoping to seize land, grab natural resources, and bleed China’s

coffers through unfair trade agreements. Watching their country collapse, Chinese men and women asked, “How do we save our nation?” It was the most debated question in China, and it was not confined to parliamentary halls or university classrooms. It spilled into the streets where the question was asked and answered by hundreds of posters, each providing its own explanation of how to rescue China and create a modern nation. Christians participated vigorously in this poster war. They developed a theological vision of Christ as the true hope for a new China. Their posters were later destroyed or buried in scattered archives, but the recent rediscovery of almost 800 different Chinese Christian posters offers an excellent opportunity to see how Christians pictured the intersection of theology and modernity in China’s public life.

 

Dr. Sebastian Kim

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: Sebastian Kim is the Robert Wiley Professor of Renewal in Public Life and the

Academic Dean of the Korean Studies Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, founding editor of the International Journal of Public Theology, and former chair of the Global Network for Public Theology (2023–2025). Kim is the author and co-author of five books, including In Search of Identity: Debates on Religious Conversion in India (OUP, 2003), Theology in the Public Sphere (SCM Press, 2011), and Christianity as a World Religion (Bloomsbury, 2025), as well as 21 edited volumes and various articles on public theology, world Christianity, and peace and reconciliation.

Presentation Title: 

Christian Art: Popular and Minjung as Contextualizing Theology in South Korea

Abstract:

Justin Ukpong argues that there are two major types of contextual theology: the

indigenization (cultural) model and the socio-economic and political model. Adapting these two contextualizing models, this paper examines contextualizing theology through Christian visual art—popular and minjung—in South Korea.

Through selected examples of visual art, the presentation shows how the socio-political

contexts of the 1960s and 1970s shaped Korean Christians’ contextualizing efforts:

forging cultural identity as part of indigenizing Christianity, and standing up for dignity and freedom amid political oppression and injustice by the military-backed government, on the other. The two types of theologizing either complemented each other or sharply criticized the other approach. This presentation will argue that these two seemingly very different art forms helped to form modern Korean Christianity by providing creative and critical theological insights.

 

Dr. Evelyna Liang

Bio: Evelyna Liang Kan is an artist, art consultant, art educator, and community art

facilitator. Over the past 40 years, she has promoted community art initiatives to support underprivileged communities in Hong Kong and internationally. In the 1980s, she founded the “Art in the Camp” project, bringing art education to the Vietnamese camp community. In the early 1990s, she launched “Art in Hospital,” transforming hospital walls into joyful, colorful murals. In 2002, she founded “Art for All,” a program that uses art to empower individuals and foster a more harmonious society. Liang has conducted workshops on art and well-being across Asia and has been a featured speaker on the topic at international conferences. She has exhibited widely in Hong Kong and throughout Asia. Her practice uses art to build connections—with nature, with diverse communities, and within the self—advancing the idea of “Healing through Art,” and encouraging reflection on relationships between countries and among people. Known to some as “Crazy Granny Evelyna” (2-woo porpor), she has worked in arts education across Hong Kong, China, and Asian communities for more than four decades, promoting holistic arts, coexistence, sharing, and the building of fair and just communities through a playful and unconventional approach.

Presentation Title: 

Can You See? Do You Hear? — The Path, My Vocation

Abstract:

My work –I am a person call by God to create and voice out…. For the past 40 some years, being a community artist base in Hong Kong , I explore art as an ethical and theological form of resistance to injustice. Through reflective, long-form account of creative practice, I trace the path from early, instinctive responses—anger at unfair treatment and a natural urge to protest—toward a more disciplined posture of

humility and stillness. Rather than treating silence as surrender, I use the language of art to frame silence as a different kind of opposition. It becomes a way to reorient perception and attention, so that injustice can be confronted through critique and renewed ways of seeing and listening.

Art is not presented as decoration, but as a practical tool for nurturing imagination and

rebuilding community in contexts shaped by grief, disappointment, and social breakdown.

At the heart of this argument is a pedagogical and participatory invitation: “Seeing, do you see? Hearing, do you hear?” (Matthew 13:13-15) It calls us to awaken awareness of a divine summons toward justice. In the settings of interstate and political violence, creative practice becomes a narrative instrument—helping communities express meaning, sustain moral conviction, and work toward forward movement.

 

Dr. Ping-cheung “PC” Lo

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: Ping-cheung “PC” Lo is a scholar in Christian ethics and Sino-Christian studies and serves as the Dean and Rebecca Stephan Professor of Chinese Studies Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. With Ph.D. degrees in Western philosophy and religious ethics, he has extensive experience in academic leadership, including more than 30 years at Hong Kong Baptist University, where he founded the Center for Sino-Christian Studies. He has authored 20 books, including Christian Ethics: Principles and Applications. His research spans Christian ethics, Confucian-Christian dialogue, and Chinese just war theory. He has also contributed to public policy in Hong Kong and performed as a vocalist.

Dr. Shannon Sigler

Affiliation: Fuller Theological Seminary

Bio: Shannon Sigler serves as the Executive Director for Fuller’s Brehm Center for

Worship, Theology, and the Arts. Her art and research explore a Wesleyan paradigm for

the visual arts and practices that support the spiritual health of artists. She previously

served as Associate Director for CIVA | Christians in the Visual Arts. She lives in Seattle with her husband, Matt, and son, Elijah.

Yuerong Wu

Affiliation: Founder, TCG Nordica Art Center

Bio: Yuerong Wu is an intercultural education practitioner and arts facilitator, and a Knight

of the Order of the Polar Star conferred by the King of Sweden. She is the founder of TCG Nordica International Arts Center. Her work centers on composing, facilitating, and

leading interdisciplinary projects that integrate theology, contemporary art, and

intercultural dialogue across diverse artistic forms. Her representative works include

Contemporary Art and Liturgy, The Wind Blows, and Matter Matters. Through cross-

cultural collaboration and artistic practice, she seeks to foster deeper understanding and engagement among faith, culture, and society.

Dr. Changping Zha

Affiliation: Sichuan University

Bio: Changping Zha is a critic, Biblical scholar, Chief Editor of Journal for Humanities and Art (RENWEN YISHU), and a professor of New Testament studies, contemporary Chinese art, philosophy at Institute of Daoism and Religious Culture’s Center for Christianity Studies of Sichuan University in Chengdu, PRC. His research areas are the biblical studies, art criticism, and world-picture-logic. He is the author of The Logic of Japanese History (1995), History and Logic: An Introduction of Logic-history (Chengdu, 2007; Xinbei, revised 2022), The Cultural Logic of Humanitology: A Comparison among Metaphysics, Art, Religion, and Aesthetics (Chengdu, 2007; Xinbei, revised 2021), The Humane Thinking of Contemporary Arts (2 vols, 2008), Introduction to the Logic of World-

picture of the New Testament (2011), and A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary

Chinese Art (2 vols, 2017), Humanist Criticism of Contemporary Art (2019), Ecological Art in Humanist Criticism (2021), A History of Ideas in Pioneering Art: Forming Logic of Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art (Editor, 2024).

Presentation Title: 

“World Relational Aesthetics ” (世界关系美学) in Contemporary Chinese Art

Abstract:

Since the theory of World Relational Aesthetics was suggested by me about in 2007, some discusses on it have come into being in the academic circle of theology and

contemporary Chinese art both in China and abroad. This essay will introduce the theory

including its content, sources, foundation and embodiment in contemporary Chinese

artworks and some simple reflections on it.

1. The Content of the World Relational Aesthetics

2. The Sources of the World Relational Aesthetics

3. The Foundation of the World Relational Aesthetics

4. The Embodiment of the World Relational Aesthetics in Contemporary Chinese Art

5. Some Reflections on the Theory

Jiuyang Zhu

Bio: Zhu Jiuyang is a contemporary Chinese artist whose practice spans painting,

installation, and live performance art. A graduate of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts (1992), he has lived and worked in Beijing since 2001, primarily in the Songzhuang Art District. His work engages Chinese social realities while moving between local and international contexts, focusing on the exploration and creation of spiritual art. Drawing on Christian theology and religious art, Zhu develops a contextualized visual language that addresses faith, human suffering, and transcendence in a secular age. He has exhibited widely in China, Europe, and the United States, including shows at Purdue University, the Mainz

Biennale, and major art institutions in Beijing. His representative series include Lost

Memories, Lost Lamb, and Blood Clothes.

Presentation Title: 

From the Individual to Society: An Artist’s Inner Journey

Abstract : 

From the Individual to Society draws on artist Zhu Jiuyang’s decades of artistic

practice shaped by Christian faith and pastoral ministry. His work traces a movement from explorations of individual spiritual experience and personal transformation toward sustained engagement with community life, social realities, and cultural contexts. In this presentation, Zhu will review the development of his practice through a three-stage framework, highlighting key shifts in his artistic language and the theological questions that informed each phase. He will show how these transitions reflect an expanding understanding of faith, the church, and the challenges of contemporary life..