A Father of the Faith

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Dr. Bong Rin Ro ’62

2025 Wheaton College Alumnus of the Year for Distinguished Service to Society

Every night for 16 weeks, a young Bong Rin Ro ’62 pushed through the crowds to find his spot in the stands of Madison Square Garden. It was the summer of 1957, and thousands were gathered to hear from the renowned American evangelist Billy Graham ’43. One hundred sessions over 110 days, attended by more than 2 million. Ro was at every single service.

Despite having only arrived in the United States from Korea a year prior, and despite still learning English, at those services Ro was realizing a call to spread the gospel that would shape his life and change the landscape of theological education in East and Southeast Asia. Although most of his life would be spent closer to where it began, that formative summer in New York City led Ro to Wheaton College and planted seeds of fervor for the gospel that he sowed and reaped throughout his life.

Born in 1935 in northwestern Korea, Ro was raised in a second-generation Christian family. They faced tragedy in Ro’s early years, moving to South Korea when he was five only to have his father’s shoe store burned down in the Korean War, losing their family livelihood. Ro’s father then died at the age of 49.

“The Korean War gave me a tremendously shocking experience,” said Ro. “I lost my father. We were living in poverty. But the Lord spoke to me during that time, and God helped me rededicate my life to Christ. I decided to become a pastor.”

In 1956, when the American government began offering scholarships for Korean students to study in America, Ro was one of the first to come. With 50 dollars in his pocket, he arrived in Seattle on March 23, 1956, by boat from Busan. Not knowing how great a distance he had to travel to get to his destination—Columbia Bible College in South Carolina (now Columbia International University)—he hopped on a Greyhound bus and rode east. It would be the start of many journeys: his time in America, his immersion in English, and when he arrived at Columbia, his theological education.

While pursuing his B.A. in Bible at Columbia Bible College, Ro heard of Graham’s New York City crusade. He spent his second summer in America working nights so he could attend every service and hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s prayers, George Beverley Shea’s and Ethel Waters’ singing, and— most importantly to Ro—Graham’s preaching.

“God really spoke to me through Billy Graham,” Ro remembered. “So I decided to follow his educational path. He had gone to a Bible college, and so had I. Then, because Billy Graham went to Wheaton College, I decided to go too.”

At Wheaton, Ro met the woman who would become his wife and lifelong ministry partner, Alma Lai ’62, who was studying Christian education while Ro studied history. He and Alma caught a vision for global evangelism, inspired by the lives of Jim Elliot ’49, Nate Saint ’50, Ed McCully ’49, and so many others with a fervor for missions that characterized the couple’s years at Wheaton.

“At the time I attended, Wheaton College was bursting for missions,” Ro said. “Many Wheaton graduates went into the field.”

After completing his degree at Wheaton, studying for three years at Covenant Theological Seminary, and earning a Th.D. in historical theology from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, he and Alma were ready to move to Asia in 1969. As it turned out, the missionary organization they wanted to partner with, Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), had just started a seminary in Singapore and was in need of a trained theologian. This position was to begin many decades of Ro’s deep and committed ministry in Southeast and East Asia.

As Ro rose in leadership across various contexts in theological education, church scholarship, and missions, he began to see two trends. First, he observed the theological “brain drain to the West.” Churches throughout the entire continent of Asia were rapidly growing, but there weren’t enough trained Christian pastors to go around because the region had historically relied on Western seminaries to train Christian leaders. In order for these churches to grow sustainably, Ro and peer leaders realized they needed to establish more theological education opportunities in Asia.

At the same time, Ro noticed theological movements that were counter to the Christian gospel he saw recorded in Scripture. These new theologies recast Christ within all religions, resisting claims of the supremacy or exclusivity of Christ in favor of syncretism—and “all under the name of Asian theology.”

One response to both of these challenges? In Ro’s words, “Train Asians in Asia.” That’s why the Asian Theological Association was born, of which Ro would serve as executive secretary from 1970–90 while maintaining his commitments with OMF part-time. Over these decades, ATA would develop an infrastructure for theological education that could nurture strong Asian theologians to keep Christ at the center of the church.

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Dr. Ro at home in Hawaii.

Under Ro’s leadership, ATA grew and flourished as it remained nimble in meeting emerging needs of the church. Ro and his team developed the ATA News publication that would be regularly distributed to hundreds of seminaries, creating a centralized source for relevant theological resources and news. They launched an accreditation program in 1978, today the largest accrediting body in Asia and one that spurred the growth of many evangelical seminaries. And in 1984, ATA founded the Asia Graduate School of Theology with multiple locations. Ro was closely involved in all this work, serving as dean of the Asia Graduate School of Theology and as accreditation director, personally visiting all 80 seminaries across Asia whose accreditation he oversaw. Today, ATA has accredited more than 380 seminaries and has 396 member institutions from 33 nations across Asia, South Pacific, West Asia (Middle East), and beyond.

“God used me to develop the evangelical theological education movement in Asia by strengthening the Asia Theological Association,” said Ro. “In 1970, ATA was just a name. Today, it is the largest Asian evangelical theological association. God used me in my period. In another period, he has used others. God has done it.”

“Wheaton College is humbled to honor Dr. Bong Rin Ro as a distinguished scholar, preacher, evangelist, missiologist, historian, and theologian,” said President Philip Ryken ’88. “Dr. Ro’s wide-ranging ministry has touched many lives in Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and far beyond. Indeed, his influence for the gospel of Jesus Christ is felt across Asia, where he is revered as one of the church’s fathers in the faith.”

Throughout Ro’s three-decade ministry in Asia, he maintained connections with Wheaton College. Although the Ro family lived primarily in Singapore (1970–74), Taiwan (1975–89), and Korea (1990–2000), every fourth year from 1975–89 they used their sabbatical to return to Wheaton. Ro taught Asian Theology & Missions in the Wheaton College Graduate School for four years in total, equipping future leaders to carry on God’s work in Asia. And when he took another position as director of the World Evangelical Alliance Theological Commission from 1990–96, he oversaw an international theological consultation at Wheaton in 1990.

Even when Bong and Alma moved to Hawaii in 2000 to support Alma’s parents, their ministry didn’t stop. Ro continues to teach in Hawaii, and he recently released his eleventh book about theology and the church in Asian contexts. Their three children all graduated from Wheaton and now also carry the torch that God lit so brightly in Alma and Bong. One of their twin sons, David ’89, is executive director of the Arise Asia movement and has been a missionary with OMF for 20 years, currently living in Bangkok, Thailand. Jonathan ’89 is directly carrying on the good work his father started, serving as accreditation secretary at ATA and living in Hong Kong. And their daughter, Robyn Ro Ahn ’93, is strengthening her local educational context as principal of a Christian school in Honolulu. Perhaps there is no better testimony of Ro’s faithfulness than the Christ-centered lives his and Alma’s children now lead.

Yet the evidence is undeniable no matter where you look: Ro’s focused and faithful ministry has made a lasting impact on scholarship, missions, and theological education across Asian contexts. Most importantly, it has touched innumerable lives. Trying to count the number of people who have heard the gospel and been changed by Ro’s ministry would be an impossible task.

Throughout Ro’s ministry, he held up his origins at Wheaton College as a banner of credibility. “Whenever I traveled over Asia, I introduced myself as Bong Rin Ro, alumnus of Wheaton College,” he said. “When people see that, they immediately accept me. So it’s really an honor and I am amazed that Wheaton College has offered me this award.”

“Dr. Ro is a remarkable ambassador for the kingdom and a wonderful representation of Wheaton,” said Jim Black ’94, M.A. ’99, board member of the Wheaton College Alumni Association and head of the committee that selected Ro for this award. “We have been stunned by his faithfulness, his output, his legacy, his impact, the way he represents the kingdom, and the way he represents Wheaton.”

Ro insists that all the chances he was given to further God’s kingdom were gifts from above, evidence of the Lord working through him. He often quotes Paul’s self-description in the opening of Ephesians: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God . . .” Ro has always seen himself as similarly guided by the will of God, and his job has been simply to follow this guidance one step at a time. His faithful obedience over his 90 years of life has led him to the place of deep contentment he is in now, looking with gratitude upon his growing family of grandchildren, the legacy of his work at ATA, and the lasting impact he has made on churches throughout Southeast and East Asia. He could hardly have imagined it when he stepped off the boat in Seattle, or even when he found his place in the stands at Madison Square Garden to hear Graham speak. Every moment, he insists, has been shaped according to God’s plan.

“Bong Rin Ro, theological educator, by the will of God,” he said with a well-earned smile.