Paul C.H. Szto

1924 - 2019
Paul Szto, Pioneering Chinese-American Public Theologian, Pastor, and Sinologist, Passes at 95

Rev. Dr. Paul Szto passed away on Oct. 22, 2019 at the age of 95 in New York. Originally from China, he developed a groundbreaking Christian public theology, while pastoring the first Chinese church in Queens, New York City, and advising local and world movements.

Dr. Szto's creative theology drew from Chinese yin-yang, Western Reformational thought, and progressive philosophy. He examined in depth the ontological and economic Trinity; Christ, the first-born over creation; and the covenant of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. He applied this rigorously to sinology and many other disciplines, amassing a 15,000-volume library. He handwrote hundreds of extensive diagrams, which his son John referred to as theolograms.

Dr. Szto was born in Kaiping County, Guangdong, China, on October 1, 1924 and raised in Hong Kong. He attended Pui Ying Middle School and graduated from Zhejiang University in 1946. He represented China at the 1947 Oslo World Christian Youth Conference.

He studied at Westminster Seminary (1947-1952) under Cornelius Van Til, and Union Seminary (1950-1956) under Richard Kroner and Paul Tillich. In 1950 he married Clarice Huang, a doctor from Guangxi, China. While at Union, he pioneered a Chinese student ministry on the Upper West Side, before becoming ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1955, and later earning his Doctor of Ministry from Westminster.

In 1956 he founded the Queens Christian Reformed Church, the first Chinese congregation in Queens and to build its own facility. It was a global ministry. With Clarice's help, he tirelessly drove, housed, fed, and taught over two thousand Chinese and other students, refugees, and immigrants in the church parsonage.

He wrote seminal articles such as "The Chinese Communist Mind" (Christianity Today, 4/14/72), taught Chinese history at Queens and Nyack Colleges, classes at the China Institute, Westminster and other seminaries. After 1978 he regularly lectured at Chinese universities.

Dr. Szto was a precious trusted advisor. He helped establish Chinese Christian Reformed congregations in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He advised founders of the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, and mediated between established leaders and young activists in Chinatown who started the Chinatown Health Fair. He was also Chaplain to the Chinatown Lion's Club and Gouverneur Hospital in Manhattan.

Szto co-founded the Tonggonghui, a Chinese pastors' association, and the Reformed Pastors Fellowship. He was Board Chair of the New York Divinity School and Flushing Christian School. He was interim pastor at the Chinese Community Church in Washington, D.C.

He is missed dearly by his sister in Guangzhou, sons John and Peter (Yan), daughter Mary (Urs Lauchli), and grandchildren Ruth Bakker, Matthew Bakker (Clarene), Reuben Bakker (Amanda), David Bakker, and Carissa Johnson (Chris), Dorothy Szto, Yan Iu, eight great-grandchildren, and six nieces. His beloved Clarice passed in 2007, and daughter Irene (Bernie Bakker) in 2012.

In Dr. Szto's honor, and to God's glory, donations may be made to the Queens Christian Reformed Church by Paypal to qcrcny@gmail.com with donor information.