Wang Ming-Dao
Chinese writer
Wang Ming-Dao (Chinese: 王明道; pinyin: Wàng Míngdào; Wade–Giles: Wang4 Ming2-Tao4, July 25, 1900 – July 28, 1991) was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980. He has been called the "Dean of the House Churches."
Name
Wang's personal name was "Yong-shung" (Chinese: 永盛; pinyin: Yǒngshèng) until 1920, when he "unconditionally submitted to God" and formally changed his name to "Ming-Dao" (Chinese: 明道; pinyin: Míngdào) which means approximately "Testify to the Way."
Biography
Childhood and conversion
Wang was born in the foreign legation quarter of Beijing in 1900 while it was under siege of the Boxers. His early life was one of extreme poverty and repeated illness; but he had an inquiring mind and did well at a London Missionary Society school. He later said his poverty had been something of a spiritual advantage because there were many sins that took money to commit. At first Wang hoped to become a great political leader, and he put a picture of Abraham Lincoln on his wall to remind himself of his goal.
Converted to Christianity at fourteen, Wang came to believe "that all kinds of sinful practices in society had their exact counterparts in the church." He decided that the church "needed a revolution" and that God had entrusted to him the mission of bringing it about. In 1919 Wang became a teacher at a Presbyterian mission school in Baoding, a hundred miles south of the capital, but was dismissed in 1920 when he insisted on being baptized by immersion. His mother and sister thought his behavior so peculiar that they believed him mentally ill, and Wang himself later admitted that the "persecution" he had received from others was in part the result of his own immaturity.
Pastor
In 1923, after a good deal of personal Bible study but no formal theological training, Wang moved towards a more mature understanding of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. In February 1925, he began holding religious meetings in his home in Peking, meetings which eventuated in the founding of the Christian Tabernacle, a church which by 1937 had its own building seating several hundred, and which was one of the largest evangelical churches in China during the 1940s.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Wang Ming-Dao” as chinese writer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as chinese writer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5254729. VIAF identifies the subject as 15700808. The Library of Congress control number is n83122292. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1991, 1955 and 1980.
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