Search Results (10)

This article reexamines Liang Fa’s Riji Yanxing (Record of Words and Deeds, 1830) from the perspective of narrative structure rather than solely as a historical missionary document. Previous scholarship has shown that the diary was produced within the institutional framework of the London Missionary Society and functioned primarily as a record of early Protestant evangelization in China. Building on these studies, this article argues that the diary simultaneously records missionary work and narrates the formation of Christian faith. Through close readings of Liang Fa’s reflections, prayers, and recorded dialogues with potential converts, the study demonstrates how an institutional testimonial text develops a narrative configuration shaped by Christian theology. Within this framework, missionary responsibility, anxiety over divine judgment, and reflections on death and salvation form recurring cycles of crisis, repentance, and renewed commitment. Dialogues with potential converts further dramatize this theological logic by transforming doctrinal arguments into scenes of spiritual confrontation and hesitation. Although Riji Yanxing was not originally composed as a literary work, it reveals the emergence of a new mode of Christian narrative in Chinese writing. The diary thus illustrates how Christian concepts of sin, redemption, and judgment reshaped narrative consciousness in early nineteenth-century China. Full article

The 19th century Protestant missionary James Legge is acknowledged for his voluminous and Christianity-inflected translations of Chinese classics of “Three Teachings”, yet his rendition of Buddhist texts remains under-examined. This study analyzes whether a value of Western theology exists in his portrayal of the Chinese monk Fâ-hien in A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, where the pilgrim should emerge as a devout Buddhist, a pioneering explorer, and a morally sensitive figure. Legge foregrounded these facets through paratexts such as illustrations and footnotes, but also repeatedly framed Fâ-hien within a biblical interpretation by frequently drawing parallels between Christianity and Buddhism. At the textual level, he shifted the original first-person narrative to a third-person perspective, which weakened the emotional and spiritual sense of Fâ-hien’s journey. Legge’s scholarly competence in Chinese learning and his role as Oxford’s first Professor of Chinese determined his precise representation of the rich connotations of Fâ-hien’s image, balancing academic rigor with an orientation toward Great Britain’s colonial education and imperial interests. His Christo-Buddhist intervention in the paratexts, associating the primary text with Christian culture, reveals his underlying missionary purpose to evangelize China. To this end, this study reveals how religious translation served both missionary and scholarly ends, contributing to Western perceptions of Chinese religion while illustrating the broader power dynamics of Christian engagement with modern China. Full article

This study focuses on Quanti Xinlun (1851), translated and compiled by the Protestant missionary Benjamin Hobson in the late Qing dynasty, examining how the Western anatomical knowledge it introduced challenged and reshaped the traditional Chinese conception of the body grounded in Visceral Manifestation theory. The research finds that the book’s influence was achieved through multiple mechanisms, including conceptual innovation, visual representation, and the creation of terminology. Although Hobson’s original motivation for translation was rooted in Natural Theology, its scientific core was selectively appropriated by the late Qing intellectual community, becoming a tool to address indigenous academic and ideological predicaments. This study argues that Quanti Xinlun facilitated a significant paradigm shift: on the level of the conception of the body, it used the physical body to challenge the traditional perception of a functional, qi-based organism; on the epistemological level, it invoked the authority of empirical positivism to challenge the scholarly method of text-based classicism. This fundamental shift in epistemology not only spurred the medical trend of thought known as “Convergence of Chinese and Western Medicine” but also laid the cornerstone for the modernization of modern Chinese medical education and even the entire knowledge system. Full article

This study leverages emotional arc modeling along with close reading to examine the Chinese Ye Xian, Perrault’s Cendrillon, and two Grimm versions. While computational modeling suggests that Cinderella tales share similar “recognition scaffolds,” their emotional architectures reflect distinct moral universes. Story peaks and valleys vary according to individual narrative resolutions to a universal problem of virtue unrecognized. Ye Xian descends to maximum negative sentiment when sacred bonds rupture, aligning with Buddhist-Daoist ethics in which divine-human reciprocity supersedes other bonds. Perrault’s arc offers surprising asymmetry: linguistic violence (Culcendron) defines every valley, while material transformation marks every peak. The 1812 Grimm tale oscillates between degradation and elevation with peaks and valleys suggestive of a syncretism between folk magic and Protestant theology. The 1857 version flattens into a rough semblance of Perrault’s emotional architecture, but peaks and valleys reflect Protestant, rather than aristocratic, values. These many shapes of Cinderella suggest fairy tales may serve as a flexible emotional technology. Themes of good and evil are key features of these emotional architectures, but how they are expressed vary from tale to tale. Full article

This study explores the ways in which a ban on ancestral rites influenced Korean Christianity. Ancestral rites are religious ceremonies that form the most critical social basis of Joseon, a Confucian society. First, the Korean Catholic Church was the first to oppose ancestral rites. Catholics created a new social and ethical resonance in Joseon society but had to endure tremendous persecution. Second, Protestantism was introduced when Joseon society was the most confused. Protestant missionaries banned ancestral rites, and Korean Protestants accepted them. Gradually, they interpreted it and embodied it in their faith. The ban on ancestral rites contributed to the formation of Korean Christianity. This laid the foundation for Christian social ethics and Hyo (孝, Xiao (Chinese pronunciation), filiality) theology. It has expanded into various fields, such as systematic theology, biblical studies, practical theology, and liturgical practice. Thus, this study examines how the ban on ancestral rites in Korea had a profound impact on the contextualization of Korean Christianity. Full article

As a classic of Zen Buddhism, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, starting from the core concept of “self-nature and self-determination”, fully demonstrates the “Self” dimension and the “self-mastery” and “self-bearing” spiritual temperament of Master Huineng, who put forward the idea that “Buddhahood is realized within the essential-nature; do not seek for it outside yourself.” 佛向性中作，莫向身外求, and the spiritual temperament of “self-mastery” and “self-responsibility”. In contrast, Schleiermacher, as “the father of modern Protestant theology”, in his philosophical reflection on religion, grasped the notion of piety centered on “the feeling of absolute dependence” and enriched it with the substance of religious self-consciousness to establish and reveal the essence of religious faith and Christianity. This sharp contrast fully demonstrates the important difference of Buddhism and Christianity in dealing with the relationship between the “Self” and the “Other”. This essential difference reflects the fact that the Zen Buddhist classics represented by The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch are both rooted in the Buddhist tradition and based on the traditional Chinese philosophical theory of mind and nature, based on which is the faith model of seeking liberation from the nature of the “Self”. In contrast, The Christian faith, as typified by Schleiermacher’s Christian philosophy, attempts to establish a model of faith that seeks salvation through devout faith in the Absolute Supreme, and to take this point as the essence and basis of religious faith and Christian faith. Full article

Christian, especially Protestant, identity is often framed through the lens of belief, particularly belief understood as an interior orientation. Through an examination of the non-denominational Protestant group, the ‘Little Flock’, founded by Watchman Nee in the early 20th century, we trace enduring aspects of Little Flock theology in contemporary Chinese Protestant practice. In particular, we attend to conceptions of and debates surrounding belief and how to determine the quality of one’s faith—whether or not one might be considered not just a Christian, but a ‘good’ one. Full article

Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng, 1903–1972), one of the most prominent theologians in Republican China (1911–1949), developed a “spiritual theology” that is concentrated on the work of the Holy Spirit. This theological perspective shares parallels with Pentecostal-Charismatic theology. This paper examines Nee’s attitude toward Pentecostalism and the charismatic experience. First, based on his teaching of the three-stage work of the Holy Spirit, Nee argued that the inner guidance of the Holy Spirit was more important than any external manifestation and that the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” in the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement was not a personal experience that Christians should pursue. Second, in terms of subjective experience, Nee’s trichotomous view of human nature as consisting of spirit, soul, and body suggested that many charismatic experiences originate in the soul and need to be overcome. Third, concerning the spiritual world, Nee regarded as the work of evil spirits those charismatic experiences that occur in irrational and unconscious situations. Nee’s negative stance towards Pentecostalism and the charismatic experience serves as a means of distinguishing his spiritual theology from Pentecostalist-Charismatic movements. Both Nee’s theology and his church practices reveal a strong elitist element, in stark contrast to Pentecostalism. Full article

Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Chinese evangelicals have rarely interacted. Even if it seems that Eastern Orthodox Christianity and its theology have hardly influenced Chinese evangelicals in the past, this article demonstrates the possibility that Orthodox theology can still indirectly transform Confucian-influenced Chinese evangelicals. Moltmann, a great contemporary Protestant theologian, is influenced deeply by Stăniloae, a great modern Eastern Orthodox theologian, particularly in the development of social trinitarian theology in Eastern Orthodox heritage. Moltmann argues that social trinitarian anthropology can prevent the social and individual problems appeared in the societies shaped by either individualism or collectivism. Selfhood is one academic language used to discuss this relationship between the self and society. Despite modernization and westernization, contemporary Chinese people are still deeply influenced by Confucian models of relational selfhood. Even for Chinese evangelicals who had converted years ago, their way of thinking and behavior might be as much Confucian as biblical. The Confucian-influenced collectivist mindset may lead to problematic selfhood and more challenging interpersonal relationships. This article uses Orthodox theology via Moltmann’s social trinitarian, Stăniloae-inspired approach to develop an alternative relational selfhood for contemporary Chinese Christians. Full article

Over the last one hundred years, the Chinese Union Version of the Bible (CUV)—translated by Western Protestant missionaries—has enjoyed an unparalleled status as the Chinese Bible or the “Authorized Version” of the Chinese Bible. However, despite such towering significance, no scholarly works to date have systematically examined the influences of Protestant missionary theology on the translation of the CUV and, in turn, on Chinese Christianity. As an introductory attempt to explore this question, this paper first highlights this gap in current scholarship and the importance of filling this gap. Then, it presents four factors and two limitations in examining the theology of the CUV and conducts a case study on the theological topic of dichotomy versus trichotomy in the translation of the CUV along with four other Chinese Bible translations. After examining how the translators’ theology might have influenced these translations, it suggests how such influence through the translation of the CUV might have shaped Chinese Christianity both past and present, thereby demonstrating how the understanding of Chinese Christianity can be deepened by examining the relationships between missionaries’ theology, their Bible translations, and the development of Chinese Christianity. Full article