Winfield Reformed Church () is a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

church founded in 1880, located in Woodside,

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The church was originally located on

Queens Boulevard Queens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Queens connecting Midtown Manhattan, via the Queensboro Bridge, to Jamaica. It is long and forms part of New York State Route 25. Queens Boulevard runs northwest to so ...

and moved to its current location in 1910. The current building was built in 1914. It is part of the

Reformed Church in America The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a Mainline Protestant, mainline Reformed tradition, Reformed Protestant Christian denomination, denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 152,317 members. From its beginning in 1628 unti ...

(RCA) denomination. It is the oldest

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

ese church established in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

History

The church was historically

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-speaking and remained a mainly white congregation until a large wave of Taiwanese immigrants came in the community in the 1960s. It became mostly Taiwanese in the late 1960s and became the first mainly Taiwanese congregation in North America in 1969. Preaching continued in both English and

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

Taiwanese activism

Winfield was a hotbed for

Taiwanese independence The Taiwan independence movement is a political movement which advocates the formal declaration of an independent and sovereign Taiwanese state, as opposed to Chinese unification or the status quo in Cross-Strait relations. Currently, Tai ...

activism outside of Taiwan for many decades. Pastors and worshipers frequently engaged in Taiwan rallies and causes. When China replaced Taiwan on the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

in 1979

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

sent reporters to interview the opinions of New York Taiwanese at Winfield.

Notable people

The church was led by many renowned Taiwanese ministers, beginning with Rev. Andrew Kuo () in the 1960s who volunteered to serve as minister while working for the

American Bible Society American Bible Society is a U.S.-based Christian nonprofit headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the American member organization of United Bible Societies, it supports global Bible translation, production, distribution, literacy, engage ...

. After Winfield, Rev. Kuo was also influential in founding another presbyterian church in New Brunswick, NJ. Acclaimed Taiwanese independence activist and pastor Dr. Wu-Tong Hwang () also served as senior pastor at Winfield from 1973 to 1978. Hwang was trained in 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 ...

and came to the United States in 1973 after being politically exiled by the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

government. Rev. Dr. Hwang died in November 1994. Rev. Dr. Martin Wang (), a former professor at Taiwan Theological Seminary, served as minister in the 1980s. He died in 2007. Dr. Wang was a translator of the Chinese Bible. Taiwanese musician and composer Michael Cheng () attended Winfield and directed the church choir before moving back to Taiwan.

References

{{Coord, 40, 44, 33.5, N, 73, 53, 51, W, display=title Chinese-American culture in New York City Churches in Queens, New York Taiwanese-American culture Taiwan independence movement Religious organizations established in 1880 19th-century Calvinist and Reformed churches Churches completed in 1914 20th-century Reformed Church in America church buildings Woodside, Queens