Cheng Jingyi

Cheng Jingyi (誠靜怡, 1881–1939) was an articulate pastor of an independent church in Beijing who came to hold every high office in the mainstream Sino-foreign Protestant establishment in the 1920s and 1930s. He was also the founder of the Church of Christ in China. Cheng was born in a Christian family of Manchu descent in Beijing, 1881. His father was a pastor of the London Missionary Society congregation in China. Since his early childhood, Cheng had received conventional educational and later studied at the Anglo-Chinese Institute, formed by the London Missionary Society in Beijing. After graduating in 1896, Cheng attended the Theological institute held in Tianjin, fully graduating by 1900.

In 1903 Cheng Jingyi assisted the London Missionary Society pastor George Owen in his efforts to revise and proofread the Chinese New Testament. Due to health reasons, pastor Owen needed to return to Britain to continue his translation work and he also invited Cheng Jingyi to go along with him. Cheng stayed in Britain for five years and, apart from the fact that his English skills had improved, the missionary couple Mr. and Mrs. Eliot Curwin left a profound impact on his faith. In 1906, after having completed the revision of the Bible translations, he took a theological course at the Glasgow Bible College. Upon graduating in 1908, Cheng returned to Beijing's Hutong church and was formally ordained as a pastor at the age of twenty seven. Soon, he eanabled the local church congregation in which he was pastoring to be self-supporting and refused to accept any foreign funds from overseas Christians.

Shortly thereafter, Cheng was to play an important role in Chinese Protestant history. During the 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Cheng Jingyi was one of the three delegates representing the Chinese church and delivered a proposal which advocated for the creation of a totally independent and ecumenical Chinese church body which transcends all interdenominational labels. His speech left a deep impression on all the attendants present and at the conclusion of the conference, he was elected as one of the members of the newly established Continuation Committee.

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Name	Jingyi, Cheng
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Date of birth	1881
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Date of death	1939
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