STUDENT MAILBOX: 85

CANADIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

A RESEARCH PAPER: TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CHINESE CULTURE

SUBMITTED TO

PROFESSOR RAYMOND ALDRED

FOR THE GRADUATE COURSE

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE TH711

BY

ZUHONG WU

CALGARY, ALBERTA

APRIL 4, 2008

Introduction

The field of Chinese culture is always a neglected aspect of theological research.

Although in academic community sporadically there are some studies on some specific

themes of theology about Chinese culture, most of the studies are not systematic, and are

limited only to provide for application tools for the Western missionaries in evangelical

ministry1. On the other hand, the ministers of Chinese origin in the front line of Christian

ministry are busy in learning the systematic theology derived from the Western culture

and applying it directly to the Chinese communities, thus causing a spiritual dilemma for

Chinese Christians losing their Chinese identity completely soon after being converted to

become Christians2. As a seminary student as well as a Christian minister of Chinese

origin, I am interested in this dilemma, and am trying to figure out a way out of it in my

ministry praxis. My purpose is not to “speed up”, but to “slow down” the current trend of

pragmatic approach in Christian ministry in Chinese communities through a

systematically theological understanding of Chinese culture, so that we may be more

successful in Christian ministry by bringing out more Chinese Christians with strong faith

and clear culture identity. On the other hand, I am trying to avoid argument, and my

discussion and statement are personal and practical as well. I just try to form a

systematic theology of Chinese culture that fits me best in my ministry praxis and that

1 Ho, Daniel (1990) A Chinese evaluation of the western missionaries' penetration of China : how they responded to China's problems from 1582 to 1937. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI. p.1-5.2 Sih, Paul Kwang Tsien (1952) From Confucius to Christ. New York : Sheed & Ward. p.49-61.

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may provide some useful insights of lasting value to other ministers who share the same

interest with me in Chinese ministry.

Methodology

As implied above, the mainstream of research used to focus on two ordinary approaches

toward a theology of Chinese culture: (a) To study some classics of Chinese dominant

culture, such as those of Confucianism, Taoism, Communism etc., and then try to draw

some theological implications from the study3; (b) To study the history of the Western

missionary in China, and then conclude with a theology based on the successful biblical

principles and doctrines modified or improved by the successful missionaries in Chinese

ministry4. Although there may be some advantages in the two approaches mentioned

above, they have their own fatal weaknesses. For example, the study of the Chinese

classics needs a skillful grasp of the Chinese ancient language and literature, as well as

the “official philosophy” of ancient China. As a result, it is difficult to relate the theology

derived from this kind of study to the praxis of contemporary Christian ministry; On the

other hand, a successful theology from the Western missionary, despite of its strong

biblical foundation and Christian faith, is not necessary applicable to a minister of

Chinese origin, especially to the one with clearly Chinese identity. The methodology

employed in my research, however, is a little different from the above two approaches.

3 Sherley-Price, Lionel Digby (1951) Confucius and Christ : a Christian estimate of Confucius. New York : Philosophical Library.p.11-31.4 Gates, Alan Frederick (1979) Think China : a study book on China Pasadena, Calif. : William Carey Library. p.63-86.

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My research starts from an essential part of Chinese folk culture, Chinese mythology,

from which I am trying to form a theology of Chinese culture through an analysis of

the image of God and His relation to Human beings in the minds of ordinary Chinese.

Then I’ll move to two branches of “official philosophy” in ancient China (i.e.,

Confucianism and Taoism.). I consider this part of Chinese culture to be some successful

application cases (i.e., establishing some practical themes of theology) of the doctrines of

creation and salvation hidden behind Chinese mythology mentioned above. Finally, I’ll

try to conclude with an evaluation the proposed theology of Chinese culture, as well as

their applications in Christian ministry in Chinese community.

From Chinese mythology toward a theology of Chinese culture

Mythology is an in separated part, and perhaps the oldest part of human culture. On the

other hand, it is a kind of folk culture that describes the systematic worldview or deep

understanding of human reality. For example, Bultmann emphasized that mythology

plays an important role in theology in that it describes an existential reality of human

beings that requires interpretation of “demythologized”, as he described “Mythology is

the use of imagery to express the other-worldly in terms of this world and the divine in

terms of human life, the other side in terms of this side……It expresses man’s

understanding of himself in the world in which he lives……” 5; While Brevard

emphasized that the reality of which the Bible speaks took from within the life of

historical Israel, a “New Israel” with obedience and faithfulness to God’s initiative for

5 Benedikt Otzen, Hans Gottlieb, and Knud Jeppesen. (1980) Myths in the Old Testament. London :SCM Press. p.3.

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redemption as her new existence6. In light of these, It is also an assumption of this

research paper that mythology in the ancient China expressed not only the existential

experiences of God (or gods) in Chinese communities in general, but also a kind of

“New Chinese” reality with some divine features in the cultural tradition of Chinese in

her long history of about five thousand years.

In Chinese mythology, Pangu (pan means “coil up”, and gu means “antiquity”) was the

creator of the universe, the first divine being (a male god) who was miraculously born

within the cosmos egg. It was Pangu who separates heaven and earth, and when he died,

his body transformed into the universe. Chinese mythology recorded the creation

(emergence) of the universe in this way: “In the beginning, heaven and earth were in

chaotic formlessness like a chicken’s egg, Within this chaos Pangu was born. Pangu

could not bear to be confined to the darkness and stuffiness in the cosmic egg, so he

shattered the egg into pieces. The egg white was light so it became heaven whereas the

yolk was heavy was heavy so it became the earth……when Pangu was dying, his body

began to transform. His breath became the winds and clouds, his voice became the

thunder, his left eye became the sun, his right eye became the moon, his four limbs and

truck became the four extremes of the earth and the Five Mountains, his blood became

the rivers, his veins became the earth’s arteries, his flesh became fields and soil, his hair

and beard became the stars, his skin and body hair became plants, his teeth and bones

6 Childs, Brevard S.(1960) Myth and reality in the Old Testament. Naperville, Ill. : A. R. Allenson. p.95-106

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became various metals and rocks, his semen and marrow became pearls and jade, his

sweat became the rain and the dew……”7.

From this mythological record, we can conclude with the following theological insights:

(1) The similarity to the biblical record of the creation of the universe in Genesis,

which include: (a) “In the beginning, heaven and earth were in chaotic

formlessness like a chicken’s egg.” is similar to “ In the beginning God created

the heaven and the earth. Now the earth was formless……” (Genesis 1:1-2); (b)

“……the darkness and stuffiness in the cosmic egg “ is similar to “ Now the earth

was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep……”(Genesis

1:2); (c) Pangu separated the heaven from earth by shattering the cosmos egg is

similar to God actively separated the light from the darkness, “day” from “night”,

water above ( “sky”) from water below, “land” from “seas” , etc.. (Genesis 1: 3-

10).

(2) This mythology implies the doctrine of incarnation, although it is a kind of mystic

& “natural” incarnation: Pangu was the creator of the universe at the very

beginning [(“In the beginning was the Word (logos)……through him all things

were created; without him nothings was made that has been made……” (John 1:1,

3)]). However, Pangu was born into the universe as a human being. When he is

dying, his whole body became parts of our living circumstance that our life

depends on, thus in some sense we are living under his glory, truth and grace

7 Yang, Lihui (2005) Handbook of Chinese mythology. Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO.p.63-66

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[“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his

glory……full of grace and truth.” (Genesis 1:14)].

(3) This mythology also implies the doctrine of sacrifice: When Pangu was dying, he

“donated” his body in order for a living and eternal universe. This was an

embryonic form of sacrificial worship which was expanded and repeatedly

appeared in the ritual or worship practice of Chinese culture including

Confucianism and Taoism [“……to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy

and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1)]; A

record of sacrificial creation similar to that of Pangu can also be found in Job 41,

although there God Yahveh did not die as a sacrificial action.]

(4) This mythology also implies a scientific mechanism of creation of the universe:

The “revolutionary” act of Pangu’s “shattered the egg into pieces” reminds us of

the “big bang” mechanism of the origin of the universe, although here it expresses

in a metaphoric way; Again “. The egg white was light so it became heaven

whereas the yolk was heavy was heavy so it became the earth.” and the

metaphoric formation of other parts of the universe from different parts of

Pangu’s body are also in accordance with scientific principle.

According to Chinese mythology, the creation of human beings was related to the

first divine female (goddess), Nüwa (nü means “female”, wa means “emperor”): “

……when heaven and earth had been created, no humans yet existed. So Nüwa

created human beings by molding them from yellow earth with her hands. The work

drained her strength and took a lot of time, so after she had molded many humans she

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took a cord and pulled it through the mud, then lifted the cord and shook it. All of the

sludge that fell down from the cord became man and women……rich and noble

people were those made by Nüwa’s hands whereas poor and lowly people were those

made by Nüwa dragging a cord through the mud.”8.

From this mythological record, we can also conclude with the following theological

insights:

(1) The similarity to the biblical record of the creation of human beings in Genesis,

mainly in that human beings were created from mud or ground [“…the Lord God

formed the man from the dust of the ground……” (Genesis 2:7)].

(2) More importantly, there are more differences than similarities in this mythological

record, as compared with the biblical record of the creation of human beings in

Genesis: (a) The creation of the universe and human beings were not done by the

same Trinity God; rather, they were separately done by a god (male Pangu) and a

goddess (female Nüwa). This is no necessarily implying a Binity God in the

creation record of Chinese culture (and of course, no Spirit was recorded in

Chinese mythology), rather, it may imply monotheism tradition of ancient

Chinese, because later on it became clear that Chinese regarded the preexisting

“Heaven” (or “Heaven and earth”) as their God. However, This dualism is

important in that it is the creation version of Yin-Yang worldview, which is also

the philosophical foundation of Chinese medicine and history; (b)Opposite to the

biblical record where God created one man and one woman with different

8 Yang, Lihui (2005) Handbook of Chinese mythology. Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO. p.68.

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materials (Genesis 2) and then let them “Be fruitful and increase in number……”

(Genesis 1:28), in Chinese mythology, men and women were created at the same

time and with the same material. On the other hand, the Chinese mythology

emphasizes that different people with different social status were created

differently by different skills of the same goddess. This is also important in

understanding Chinese culture which focuses on society and politics more than

other cultures, as well as the atmosphere of fatalism hidden behind Confucianism

and Taoism.

It is interesting that in Chinese mythology, following the record of Nüwa’s creation

of human beings, there was a record of the fall of the universe, as well as its repair

(or restoration) by the same Nüwa: “In remote antiquity, (because of a cosmic

disorder caused by a war between the gods Gonggong and Zhuanxu) the four poles

supporting the sky collapsed, and the land of the nine divisions of ancient China

broke up. The sky could not completely cover the earth, and the earth could not

totally carry the world. Fires raged fiercely and did not go out. Floodwater ran

everywhere and did not subside. The fierce beasts devoured kind people, and violent

birds seized the old and the weak. Nüwa then melt stones of five colors to patch the

sky, cut the legs off a huge tortoise and set them up to support the four extremities of

the sky, slaughtered the Black Drogan to save the people, and collected ashes of reeds

to stop the flood. After that the sky got renewed, the four sky pillar were set up again,

the flood was stopped, and the nine divisions become peaceful.”9

9 Yang, Lihui (2005) Handbook of Chinese mythology. Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO.p. 11.

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From this mythological record, we can also conclude with the following theological

insights:

(1) In Chinese mythology, the disaster on earth (including fires, floodwater, fierce

beasts etc. ) was caused by the conflicts between different spiritual beings of gods

or angels, rather than the sins of human beings.

(2) As the Creator of human beings, from the very beginning of the fall of the

universe, Nüwa was trying to save the life and the circumstance of human beings

by repairing the sky, killing the wild beasts, stopping the flood etc.

(3) Just like the creation of human beings, the repairing the sky (or the salvation of

human beings) is also a difficult work for Nüwa. These two great projects give us

a sense of suffering love of Nüwa towards human beings, a doctrine that

frequently appearing in Taoism as well. Theology based on Chinese mythology is

thus destined to be sentimental.

The theological themes of Confucianism

Confucianism in this paper means a school of philosophy established by Confucius

and his disciples. Confucius(551-479 BC) was originally a teacher (he was in fact the

founder and the first teacher of private school in the world). He became the greatest

of all the philosophers, in my opinion, was due to his proposal of the difference

between petty men and gentlemen (chün-tzu), as well as his effort to become a real

gentleman in his personal life. A chün-tzu is the ideal or perfect man (or saint) of

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moral philosophy of Confucius, and it usually appeared in contrast with a petty man

in the classic of Confucianism of Analects of Confucius. For example, “Gentlemen

unite in steady of conspiring; petty men conspire in stead of uniting.” ;”The

gentleman sees righteousness; The petty man sees profit.”; “ A gentleman is always

broad-minded while a petty man is always full of anxiety.”; “ A gentleman sets strict

demands on himself while a petty man sets strict demands on others.”10, etc..

However, the most important characteristic of a gentleman is love (ren), which is

central to Confucius’ moral philosophy. Ren in the original Chinese character means

two persons in relation. This basic human-relatedness is defined specifically as love,

which contains at least two semiotic foci: (1)a tender aspect of human feelings; (2) an

altruistic concern for others11. The above two semiotic foci, putting together, forms an

essential part of self-cultivation as a gentleman. From self-cultivation, Confucius

expanded his ren to community life such as Family-regulation, Country-managing,

and World-pacifying12. Therefore, we can see that Confucius in fact proposed a kind

of love similar to the biblical agape expressed in the Gospel. On the other hand,

Confucius put into practice ren as the essence of self-cultivation by establishing a

ritual system of Li, which emphasizes a respect or worship system in the sequence of

Heaven, Earth, Emperor, Ancestors or Parents, and Teachers. This sequence of

10 Sinolingua (1994) Analects of Confucius. Beijing: Beijing Foreign Language Printing House. p.20, 55, 126, 295.11,13 Chung, Sung Wook (2005) Christ the one and only : a global affirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Academic. p.204-22212 Confucius (1971) Confucian analects : The great learning, and Thedoctrine of the mean. New York : Dover Publications.p.258- 259

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Chinese ritual system implies the priority of worshiping God (heaven and earth or

heaven alone) in the life of an ancient gentleman13.

The theological themes of Taoism

Taoism in this paper means a school of philosophy established by Lao tzu

and his disciples around 600 BC. Lao tzu was originally a royal librarian. He later

withdrew from the worldly life and became a hermit, leaving to the world a 4000-

words small book of Tao Te Ching, which expresses, in a mystic way, the Tao and its

application to the moral life of human beings as his personal pursuit. Lao tzu and his

Tao Te Ching are always a mystery to the scholars, and thus different people express

Taoism in different. For example, Legge emphasized that Taoism was ordinarily

rationalism, and that Tao was not a person, but a concept or idea14; Covell, however,

tended to equate Tao (Dao) with the true God or God’s eternal Logos manifesting in

the incarnate Christ.15In my opinion, Tao was a method, or attitude the hermit Lao tzu

proposed toward the world, which was complementary to that of Confucianism, as

Yin to Yang in the principle of Chinese medicine or history, in order to live a balance

or harmonious life as a gentleman in ancient China. However, things are not so

simple, and there indeed exists a mystery hidden behind Tao expressed in Tao Te

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14 Legge, James (1978) The religions of China : Confucianism and Tâoism described and compared with Christianity. Philadelphia : R. West. P. 160.15 Covell, Ralph R. (1986) Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ : a history of the Gospel in Chinese. Maryknoll, N.Y. : Orbis Books.p.49,122.

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Ching. That mystery made it possible for Chinese culture to open a new avenue for

theological questioning and religion tolerance. For example, we can discover some

similarity between the first verses of Tao Te Ching (“The Tao that can be told of is

not an universal Tao; The names that can be named are not universal names. It was

from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; The named is but the mother that

rears the creation. ”16and those of the book of John (“In the beginning was the Logos,

and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was with God in the

beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that

has been made.” (John 1:1-3) in terms of the pre-existence of Tao or Logos and its

function in creation. On the other hand, the moral emphasis of humility and

nothingness is also similar to Christian humble attitude toward the world and toward

each other. One example of these can also be found in the similarity between the

verses in Tao Te Ching (“The highest goodness is like water, because water excels in

benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none

would like to be, it comes close to Tao “) and those in the Bible [“For everyone who

exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. “(Luke

14:11)]17

Conclusions

16 Laozi (1982) Tao te ching. Hong Kong : The Chinese University Press.p.2-3.17 Legge, James (1978) The religions of China : Confucianism and Tâoism described and compared with Christianity. Philadelphia : R. West.p.158.

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Some evaluations about the theological insights mentioned above, as well as their

applications in Christian ministry among Chinese communities may be concluded in

the following way:

(1) There are some embryonic forms of biblical themes and doctrines in the ancient

Chinese culture, which may be the starting point of evangelical ministry among

Chinese community.

(2) Chinese culture is opening to theological questioning in some mystic (such as in

Taoism) and humanistic way (such as in Confucianism), which may provide the

main reason for some Chinese initial or continuing interests in Christianity.

(3) It is implied in Chinese culture that human beings are fundamentally good, which

may make it difficult for sin conviction in Chinese evangelical ministry. However,

Chinese culture also implies that progress or civilization requires suffering and

love, which may provide for mature Christians or church for Chinese community

once after Chinese become Christians.

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References

Benedikt Otzen, Hans Gottlieb, and Knud Jeppesen. (1980) Myths in the Old Testament. London :SCM Press. Childs, Brevard S.(1960) Myth and reality in the Old Testament. Naperville, Ill. : A. R. Allenson.Chung, Sung Wook (2005) Christ the one and only : a global affirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Academic.Confucius (1971) Confucian analects : The great learning, and The doctrine of the mean. New York : Dover Publications.Covell, Ralph R. (1986) Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ : a history of the Gospel in Chinese. Maryknoll, N.Y. : Orbis Books.Gates, Alan Frederick (1979) Think China : a study book on China Pasadena, Calif. : William Carey Library.Ho, Daniel (1990) A Chinese evaluation of the western missionaries' penetration of China : how they responded to China's problems from 1582 to 1937. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMILegge, James (1978) The religions of China : Confucianism and Tâoism described and compared with Christianity. Philadelphia : R. West.Laozi (1982) Tao te ching. Hong Kong : The Chinese University Press.Sherley-Price, Lionel Digby (1951) Confucius and Christ : a Christian estimate of Confucius. New York : Philosophical Library.Sih, Paul Kwang Tsien (1952) From Confucius to Christ. New York : Sheed & Ward.Sinolingua (1994) Analects of Confucius. Beijing: Beijing Foreign Language Printing House.Yang, Lihui (2005) Handbook of Chinese mythology. Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO.

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