Abstract
This introduction sets the stage for the volume. It offers a historical overview from the nineteenth century to present, looking at Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christianity in mainland China and beyond. The chapter highlights factors which have brought shape to the ecclesial diversity and theology of Chinese Christianity.
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Notes
- 1.
Sebastian Brock has strongly argued that the so-called Nestorian Church has, in antiquity, preferred to self-describe itself as the “Church of the East.” He explains, “The association between the Church of the East and Nestorius is of a very tenuous nature, and to continue to call that church ‘Nestorian’ is, from a historical point of view, totally misleading and incorrect.” Sebastian P. Brock, “The ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer,” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 78, no. 3 (1996): 35.
- 2.
Li Zhizao 李之藻, “Du ‘Jingjiao bei’ shuhou” 讀《景教碑》書後 [Postscript to the “Church of the East Stele”], in Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu: Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun lunjiao wenji 明末天主教三柱石文箋注: 徐光啟, 李之藻, 楊廷筠論教文集 [Catholic Documents of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun: An Exposition of Three Great Ming Thinkers in China], edited by Li Tiangang 李天綱 (Hong Kong: Logos and Pneuma, 2007), 188–92.
- 3.
Christopher Daily, Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 132–140.
- 4.
James Legge, The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits: With an Examination of the Defense of an Essay, on the Proper Rendering of the Words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese Language (Hongkong: Hongkong Register, 1852), 129–39.
- 5.
Jean-Paul Wiest, “Roman Catholic Perceptions of British and American Protestant Missionaries (1807–1920),” Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia 6 (2015): 22.
- 6.
It is informative that the conventional translation of “Christianity” into Chinese is Jidu jiao—the term for Protestantism. An alternative term for Protestantism is Xin jiao 新教 (“New teaching”), but this is rarely used unless one is distinguishing Protestantism from Catholicism. Some scholars have attempted to introduce a new term, Jidu zongjiao 基督宗教 (“Christ religion”) as a generic term for Christianity, but this has not yet been taken up at the popular level.
- 7.
Andrew F. Walls, “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 3–15.
- 8.
Some of what follows is related to a previously published article, but significantly expanded from its Protestant focus and adapted for the purposes of this volume. See Alexander Chow, “Protestant Ecumenism and Theology in China Since Edinburgh 1910,” Missiology: An International Review 42, no. 2 (2014): 167–80.
- 9.
For a discussion of how this has shaped China’s national consciousness, see Wang Zheng, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
- 10.
Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 47–8.
- 11.
In Canton, the Thirteen Factories was the sole legal site for Western trade prior to the Opium Wars. During that time, the few Protestant missionaries in Canton were beneficiaries of various trading companies. Along with Morrison, another notable missionary based in Canton was the American Congregationalist Elijah C. Bridgman, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, arriving in 1830 with the support of the American trading company, Olyphant & Co. See Michael C. Lazich, E. C. Bridgman (1801–1861), American’s First Missionary to China (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2000).
- 12.
Alexander Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume Two, 1800 to the Present, edited by R. G. Tiedemann (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 201.
- 13.
See Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963); Thoralf Klein, “The Missionary as Devil: Anti-Missionary Demonology in China, 1860–1930,” in Europe as the Other: External Perspectives on European Christianity, edited by Judith Becker and Brian Stanley (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014), 119–148.
- 14.
See Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987); Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 69–95.
- 15.
World Missionary Conference, Report of Commission VIII: Cooperation and the Promotion of Unity (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1910), 196.
- 16.
The “term question” remained unresolved when the Mandarin Union Version of the Bible was published in 1919, which had two editions: the Shangdi edition and the shen edition, differing only by the term used for God in the text. The shen edition added an extra space beside the single-character term shen , to accommodate for the typesetting difference with the two-character term Shangdi .
- 17.
Daniel H. Bays, “The growth of independent Christianity in China, 1900–1937,” in Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, edited by Daniel H. Bays (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 308.
The three-self formula was a Protestant missiological strategy promoted in the nineteenth century by Henry Venn (1796–1873) of the Church Missionary Society and Rufus Anderson (1796–1880) of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. See Wilbert R. Shenk, “Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn: A Special Relationship?” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 5, no. 4 (October 1981): 168–172.
- 18.
Bays, “The growth of independent Christianity in China, 1900–1937,” 307–16. Daniel H. Bays, “Leading Protestant Individuals,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 620–5.
- 19.
Bays, A New History of Christianity in China, 97.
- 20.
Alexander Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 558–61. For a broader discussion of the Russian Orthodox diaspora after the Bolshevik Revolution, see Ciprian Burlacioiu, “Russian Orthodox Diaspora as a Global Religion after 1918,” Studies in World Christianity 24, no. 1 (April 2018): 4–24.
- 21.
Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” 560.
- 22.
For much of this history, see Ernest P. Young, Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
- 23.
Chen Songchuan. “Shame on You! Competing Narratives of the Nation in the Laoxikai Incident and the Tianjin Anti-French Campaign, 1916–1917,” Twentieth-Century China 37, no. 2 (2012): 121–38.
- 24.
Benedict XV, “Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XV to the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic World on the Propagation of the Faith Throughout the World,” November 30, 1919, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_ben-xv_apl_19191130_maximum-illud.html.
As Ernest Young notes, “Though China was not singled out, it was evident to those who had been following developments that China was the primary case in mind.” Young, Ecclesiastical Colony, 200.
- 25.
See Bays, A New History of Christianity in China, Ch. 5.
- 26.
The full name of the document was the “Direction of Endeavor for Chinese Christianity in the Construction of New China.” An English translation of the document can be found in Wallace C. Merwin and Francis P. Jones, eds., Documents of the Three-Self Movement: Source Materials for the Study of the Protestant Church in Communist China (New York: NCC USA, 1963), 19–20.
- 27.
Philip L. Wickeri, Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 130.
- 28.
Wang Mingdao, “We, Because of Faith,” in Documents of the Three-Self Movement, 99–106.
- 29.
K. H. Ting, No Longer Strangers: Selected Writings of K. H. Ting, edited by Raymond L. Whitehead (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989), 145.
- 30.
Ironically, a number of the TSPM leaders like Jia Yuming (賈玉銘, 1880–1964) and Marcus Cheng (Chen Chonggui 陳崇桂, 1884–1964) were theological conservatives.
- 31.
First published in a Xinhua News Agency dispatch, an English translation can be found in “Manifesto on Independence and Reform,” China Missionary Bulletin 3, no. 4 (February 1951): 149–50.
- 32.
See John Tong, “The Church from 1949 to 1990,” in The Catholic Church in Modern China: Perspectives, edited by Edmond Tang and Jean-Paul Wiest (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 7–27.
It should be noted that Catholic secondary sources tend to speak of the “three autonomies” as opposed to the “three-self,” even though the Chinese phrase (sanzi 三自) was the same. See Paul P. Mariani, Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 241, fn. 66.
- 33.
“Manifesto on Independence and Reform,” 150.
- 34.
“The Chunking ‘Manifesto,’” China Missionary Bulletin 3, no. 4 (February 1951): 150.
- 35.
Pius XII, “Lettera Apostolica Cupimus Imprimis: La Chiesa Cattolica in Cina” [Apostolic Letter Cupimus Imprimis: The Catholic Church in China], January 18, 1952, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-xii_apl_19520118_cupimus-imprimis.html; Pius XII, “Ad Sinarum Gentem: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Supranationality of the Church to the Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Local Ordinaries and other Members of the Clergy and People of China in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See,” October 7, 1954, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_07101954_ad-sinarum-gentem.html. While the first document was officially produced in Italian and Latin, the second included an official English version. Both can also be found in English in Elmer Wurth and Betty Ann Maheu, eds., Papal Documents Related to China 1937–2005 (Hong Kong: Holy Spirit Study Centre, 2006).
- 36.
Pius XII, “Ad Sinarum Gentem.”
- 37.
Zhang Boda became the first Catholic martyr of this period, dying within a few months of his imprisonment, reportedly as a consequence of torture.
- 38.
Alexander Lomanov, “Chinese Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 829.
- 39.
The former term is mainly used for Protestants, whereas the latter term is mainly used for Catholics.
- 40.
Donald MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 8–26.
It is often said that Chinese law protects “freedom of religion” (zongjiao ziyou 宗教自由). Instead, the Chinese legal system of the People’s Republic protects “freedom of religious belief” (zongjiao xinyang ziyou 宗教信仰自由).
- 41.
Orthodoxy has not been offered the same legal recognition, likely due to its small size.
- 42.
Lai Pan-Chiu, “Typology and Prospect of Sino-Christian Theology,” Ching Feng, n. s. 6, no. 2 (2005): 211–30.
- 43.
In 2018, the latter organization was absorbed into the United Front Work Department.
- 44.
Tan Xing 譚興 (pseudonym of Liu Xiaofeng 劉小楓), “Guanyu dangdai Zhongguo dalu ‘wenhua’ Jidutu de shenxue pingzhu” 關於當代中國大 陸“文化”基督徒的神學評註 [Theological Commentary about ‘Cultural’ Christians in Contemporary Mainland China], Tripod no. 6 (1990): 7. For further details, see Alexander Chow, Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 74–5.
- 45.
It is often debated whether these scholars can be described as “theologians” and their work as “theology” if they are not Christians or have chosen not to identify as Christians.
- 46.
Choong Chee Pang, “Studying Christianity and doing theology extra ecclesiam in China,” in Christian Theology in Asia, edited by Sebastian C. H. Kim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 102.
- 47.
Sun Mingyi 孫明義, “Renshi Zhongguo chengshi jiating jiaohui” 認識中國城市家庭教會 [Urban House Church in China], Jumu 舉目 [Behold] 26 (May 2007): 12–17; Yang Fenggang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44, no. 4 (2005): 435–37.
- 48.
Yang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s,” 431–35.
- 49.
Chen Yaqian 陳涯倩, “Xueyuan yu jiaohui: Jidutu xueren jiqi kunhuo” 學園與教會: 基督徒學人及其困惑 [The Academy and the Church: Christian Scholars and Their Perplexities], Jidujiao sixiang pinglun 基督教思想評論 [Regent Review of Christian Thoughts] 5 (2007): 215–26.
- 50.
These individuals have been instrumental in developing so-called urban intellectual churches. For more information, see Chow, Chinese Public Theology, 92–130.
- 51.
See Alexander Chow, “Jonathan Chao and ‘Return Mission’: The Case of the Calvinist Revival in China,” Mission Studies 36, no. 3 (October 2019): 442–57.
- 52.
Even the September 2018 agreement between the Holy See and China does not seem to have yet fully addressed this matter within the Chinese Catholic church. See Richard Madsen, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Between Rome and Beijing and Sinicization from Above and Below,” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 6, no. 1 (April 2019): 5–23.
- 53.
In 2016, the tenth annual conference of Ecclesiological Investigations was held in Hong Kong. This volume includes a selection of papers from that conference, along with a few independent papers, whereas a second volume is being prepared which focuses more around themes of interreligious learning in Asia. For details about the conference, see http://hongkong2016.ei-research.net.
- 54.
At present, there is a growing shift among scholars in this field to speak about Chinese Christianities in the plural, as opposed to the singular. This can be seen in the Chinese Christianities Unit of the American Academy of Religion, as well as the Liu Institute Series in Chinese Christianities of the University of Notre Dame Press. Also see Richard Madsen, “Epilogue: Multiple Sinicizations of Multiple Christianities,” in Sinicizing Christianity, edited by Zheng Yangwen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 319–26.
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Chow, A. (2021). Introduction: Ecclesial Diversity and Theology in Chinese Christianity. In: Chow, A., Law, E. (eds) Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_1
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