NUMBER 17

uGrowing on Holy Ground" Keynote Presentations at The Eighteenth. National Catholic China Conference

In November 2000 the Ricci Institute joined the US

Catholic· Chfna Bureau for its ei~hteenth National

Catholic China Conference entitled "Christianity (n

/ China: Growing on Holy Ground." In this issue of

Pacific Rim Report, we are including two keynote pre­

sentations delivered a( the meeting by Paul Rule and

Nicolas Standaert, S.f ..

Dr. Paul Rule was born and

educated in Melbourne,

Australia. He holds an Honors

Degree in History from the

University.of Melbourne and

a Ph.D. in Asian Studies from

the Australian National

Un iversity. He is senior lecturer in history and former ·

director of the Religious Studies Program at LaTiobe

University in Melbourne, where he also teaches courses

on Chinese and aboriginal religions, religious theory

and modern Catholicism. Dr. Rule's research and publi­

cations are in the areas of Confucianism and

Catholicism, the history of Christianity in China, other

Chinese religions, and peace and justice issues. 'He is

Distinguished Fellow of the EDS-Stewart Chair at the

Ricci Institute (2000-2001) and a member of the Ricci

Institute Scholars' Council.

Dr. Nicolas Standaert, S.].

has been a professor of

Chinese Studies at Katholieke I

Universiteit Leuven, Belgium,

. since 1993. His philosophy

and theology studies were ,

completed at the, Centre Sevres

fn Paris (1 990) and Fu fen Catholic University in

Taiwan (1994}. In the early nineties he lived and

studied in Beijing. He holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies

from Leiden State University in Belgium (1994). His

research interests are in the history of Christianity in

China. Dr. Standaert has produced many publications

on Chinese-Western cultural history, including theolog­

ical and cultural exchanges during the Ming and Qjng

dynasties. A widely sought after lecturer, his recent

edited work is entitled Handbook of Christianity in

China (Brill, 2000). Dr. Standaert is also a·member of

the Ricci Institute Scholars' Council.

••••

WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE the EDS-Stewart Chair for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the USF Ricci Institute for funding this issue of Pacific Rim Report and partial sponsorship of this conference. ·

"A spirituality for today must be

a global spirituality and struggle against the forces of materialism and

consumerism that are equally global."

{(Christianity in China: ,

Growing on Holy Ground" Paul A. Rule

LaTrobe University, Australia

I n the marvelous exhibition, "The Golden Age of Chinese Archeology," which concluded in San Francisco, there was a bronze double mask looking

in two directions at once. This is what I feel as I try to look at the past of Chinese Christianity in order to , understand its present and to think simultaneously about its future.

I also want to penetrate the enigmatic expression of that mask which seemed to mock me every time I saw

~ it, challenging my conviction that I, a Christian of European descent, could ever understand Chinese cul­ture or Chinese spirituality. -I can only console myself With, the thought that others like me have-clearly done so in the past with success, especially with the patient, understanding guidance native to that culture.

Looking Both Ways

Recently I have spent much of my time trying to under­stand the inner lives of Chinese Christians of the seven­teenth and early eighteenth' centuries. I have come to the conclusion that their time was in many ways like . our own. It saw the collapse of an old order-that of the Ming-and the creation of a new, superficially foreign one, the Manchu or Qjng dynasty. Many educated Chinese suffered from divided allegiances, disgusted · with the corrupt old regime that had failed them and the people as a whole and contemptuous of the ignorant and arrogant new rulers. The violent restoration of order by the Qjng and the return of prosperity could not satisfy their hunger for certainty and social and spiritual equanimity.

One reaction was a turn inwards. Christianity was but one of the spiritual reactions to this crisis of civiliza­tion. Buddhism revived and new syncretic religious sects emerged, some preaching apocalyptic futures. The sectarian movements generically labeled the White Lotus flourished, often in the sam~ regions where Christianity seemed to be undergoing ~apid growth. In

Shandong and Fujian there was a close association between the two and the Qjng government, noting this, lumped them-together in condemnation.!

Reversing the gaze of the mask, let us glance briefly at the present situation of religion in China. We have what the government calls, in bewilderment, a state of "Christianity fever." According to .Marx, religion, espe­cially an 'imperialist' religion like Christianity, should be dying; instead, it is flourishing, perhaps more than at any time within a century.z The very material achieve­ments of Cbina over the past two decades have genera­ted not content but a new search for meaning, for a viable spirituality: something that is ~qually evident in Taiwan.3

The Spirituality of the 'Cpnfucian Christians'

'Spirituality' is a much abused term today, but I use it in its technical meaning of the quality, the tone, the char­acteristic features of the religious outlook and practices of an individual or group. Spirituality is a cultural arti­fact, influenced by time and place. A spirituality for today must be a global spirituality and struggle against the forces of materialism and consumerism that are equally global. But it must also accommodate the spe­cific historical experiences of each society.

The spirituality of tl'le seventeenth-century Chinese Christians was, for educated Chinese at least, that of 'Confucian Christians'. A Christian Spirituality for China today must necessarily be different. Richard Madsen in his challenging recent study indicated that Chin.f~ Catholics4 see the rural Catholic ,communities that he studied as understandably, but regrettably, self-centered and inward-looking rather than-concern~d with civil society as a-whole. l:fowever, what strikes me about seventeenth-century Christianity is its social concern.

There was inward.ness, certainly, an interest in meditation, prayer, self-examination. But there were also very active confraternities-engaged in charitable activi­ties. These were not just the now somewhat notorious groups which baptized abandoned babies, but those that looked after such children. Others visited the sick and dying, provided basic education, and gave spiritual , support to upper-class Cpristian women, who were largely house-bound within their own homes.

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2 • The Ricci Institute at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim

Professor Erik Zurcher of Leiden thinks seven­teenth-century Christianity was "two-faced"5 (that mask again!) in that it presented a Confucian face to the non-

. Christian world and that of "a living minority religion" to insiders. Critics saw both faces and often deplored the devotional one,6 yet I find no e~idence of tension or strain on the part of these Christians. They were openly Christian and Chinese and, for the scholars among them, also Confucian. And not just for the scholars but for their wives, children, and servants who happily performed domestic rituals that can be loosely labeled 'Confucian' while attending mass, saying prayers in common and privately, and doing good works recom­mended to them by the_ Gospel:

The Role of Difference

Preaching Christianity through the familiar was, of course, a necessary and productive missionary task. Especially it meant for the Jesuits the use of Confucian concepts, and the great project of 'complementing' Confucianism with Christian revelation. I believe that the 'Confucian Christian' label is an appropriate one for the educated male-literati elite Christianized by the Jesuits.

However, most of the new Christians of the seven­teenth century were neither literati nor male. As I have closely examined the catalogues of collections of Jesuit writings in Chinese of the period, I realized that I had been skipping over the vast bulk of such publications. These ·were neither works of apologetics based on Confucian texts nor polemics against Buddhism, although these, of c~urse, exist; but works of devotion. Some are translations of standard European devotional

. work5-{)n the mass, the rosary, litanies to the saints, treatises on prayer, lives of Jesus. Others, especially later in the seventeenth century, seem to be specifically written to meet the spiritual needs of ordi_nary literate but not scholarly C~ristians, including women.

There is little if any attempt in such works to use the language of either Confucianism or popular Chinese religion. This is post-Tridentine European devotional Catholicism, although beginning to develop towards a new and interesting Chinese synthesis of practices and -sensibility. Could it be, I thought, that what was attract­ing many Chinese was not similarity but difference? Was Christianity offering something missing in both

Confucian moralism and popular religiosity? .And does this explain both the nineteenth century spread of Christianity and today's Christianity fever?

Belief in Christ Crucified

What were the gaps? Firstly, a belief not just in a remote God, a Tian or Shangdi, but in an incarnate God, in Jesus Christ the God-Man. This was the stick­ing point for many otherwise attracted literati and cer­tainly for the contributors to the major anti-Christian writing of the seventeenth 'century, the Poxie ji. Jiang Dejing's preface to Book 3 of that work expresses his disgust on reading Christian books to discover that

"They consider their Tianzhu the equivalent of the Shangdi that we Chihese worship, and I had not known that they think one jesus who lived at the time of Emperor Ai of Han to be Tianzhu."7

"Tianzhu-ism ," as Erik Zurcher somewhat pejorativ~ly calls it,s entailed acceptance of a Jesus as savior. Giulio Aleni, S.J. early in the seventeenth century wrote a trea­tise on the incarnation.9 It was the incarnation of God as Jesus that prove_d the final obstacle to the baptism of Aleni's friend, the retired Grand Secretary, Ye Xianggao, who seems otherwise to have been persuaded of the truth of Aleni's teaching.w There was, according to the mission historian Daniello Bartoli, "a single but insuper­able obstacle," namely that; ildid not seem to him worthy of God to become man to redeem man."11

Even more scandalous was that Tianzhu incarnate had been crucified. Yang Guangxian, in his bitter anti­Christian polemic, the Budeyi, which was to lead to mass imprisonments and some executions of Christians in the late 1660s, makes much of the ignominious death of Jesus.l2 But the Christians themselves made it central to their religious practices. The most influential Ming dynasty convert, Xu <;uangqi, wrote a moving meditation on the crucifixion,l3 as early as 1615. Aleni's life of Jesus, which ran th~ough several editions, 14

included powerful and realistic engravings based on European mo$1els of the passion and death of Jesus. One of the most popular early Christian confraternities was in honor of ~he passion of Jesus. It is ironic, then, that one of the most frequently repeated charges against the Jesuits, even today, is that they did not preach Christ crucified.

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February 2001 • 3

" ... one of the most frequently repeated charges against the Jesuits, even today, is that they did not -

preach Christ crucified."

" ... although . conforming to many features of the traditional Chinese social structure, Christianity was challenging others, however gently and gradually ... "

Jesus Christ crucified was, then, the "stumbling­block,"IS and many seventeenth-century Chinese over­came it to become Christians just as many who were confronted by Him did not. The Confucian Christians were like the Platonist Christian Fathers of the Church, or medieval European Aristotelean Christians, not the less Christian for expressing their faith in the categories of a specific system _of though'r. In their religious life, though, they shared the practices of their less intellectu­al Christian brothers and sisters and believed in an unfashionable and ultimately incredible faith.

Christianity as an Alternative Community

Secondly, in addition to a.ccepting Jesus as savior, there was a sense of a church, a living faith community. A cohesive organized body that was not part of the top­down structur~ of ·chinese autocracy; one that owed allegiance to foreign priests and a shadowy religious ruler, a ]iao-huang (the 'Emperor of the Religion', i.e. the Pope): this was a direct challenge to an all-powerful state. They had a God who was their ultimate 'Father and Mother' ((umu) rather than the Emperor. The Kangxi emperor of the late seventeenth and early eigh­teenth centuries was confident enough of his power and tr~sting enough of his Jesuit advisers to reject the con­stant warnings of his Boa~:,d of Rites, but later emperors were happy to draw no fine distinctions between the Lord of Heaven Religion and the White Lotus Society. -Andcthey had good reasons. The Christians did have a . "-king ot~er than Caesar, and they were expected to fol-low him on those rare occasions when allegiances clashed, even if they were not seditious in the terms often alleged. The same holds true today.

Socially Subversive?

Thirdly, although conforming to many features of the traditional Chinese social structure, Christianity was challenging others, however gently and gradually: the position of women (at least in its rejection of poly­gamy), the low value given to human life, (as seen in infant abandonment), conscription for war, harsh legal , and judicial regimes, the inequalities and injustices of Chinese society. The Confucians might proclaim that "within the four seas all men are brothers," but they scarcely acted as if this were so, and certainly did not include women in the phrase.

In my view, when anti-Christian officials claimed . that the new religion was subversive they were right. Few in the seventeenth centuiy seriously believed in invasions from Manila or Goa, but they rightly saw a challenge to the existing order even more fundamental

_than that posed by millenarian Buddhist and Daoist sects. Although in the nineteenth century the outside

./

threat was real and Christianity inextricably linked to it, I agree with Paul Cohen that the anti-Christia.n move­ment was mainly a gentry~ led reaction against a chal­lenge to their privileges and pretensions.J6

Difference as an Attraction

At this point, I would like to raise the question of whether the very foreignness of Christianity was not and is not one of its attractions. It is striking that today in the West some forms ofreligion proving enormously popular are those most alien to the Western religious and cultural traditions-I am thinking of Tibetan Buddhi~m. the Society for Krishna Consciousness, and many forms of New Age religion. Could this explain 'Christianity fever' among the young in China today? And did it play a role in the seventeenth century? My tentative conclusion is that it is a factor today in an age of globalization, but was less important, although pre­sent, until recently.

I agree that Chinese scholars were fascinated by the technology and new ideas brought by the Jesuits and !hat they sometimes indiscriminately lumped together · astronomy and Christianity as Tianxue ('Heavenly Teaching'). But to join the Tianzhu ]iao ('The Lord of Heaven Religion') involved a religious commitment, a serious one that necessarily caused some painful differ- · entiation from -their own society. It was embraced not for the sake of novelty but out of conviction. When that commitment demanded radica) separation after the Vatican decision in the Chinese Rites controversy, it· proved too much for many gentry families. Those who remained were essentially those outside the social and ritual parameters of respectability.

However, whatever the attractions of foreignness, I strongly reject that they included a political dimension. To call such patriots as Xu Guangqi or Han Lin "lack­eys of imperialism" is ludicrous, and the charge was untenable even in the nineteenth century. People do

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not offer their lives for imperialism. but for what they believe to be true and all important, more Important than life itself.

, The Inner Life of Seventeenth-Century Christians

But to turn back to the inner life which sustained such steadfastness. Whc;~t was that 'hallowed ground' out of which Chinese Christianity grew?

Many practiced meditation. There are a consider­able number of Je~uit and other seventeenth-century works in Chine~ explaining various methods of medita­tion. Some involved reflections on the life of Jesus, some involved the use of rosaries, some came close tQ Buddhist song nian, 'reciting sacred texts'. We must assume there was a demand for such books, that they ' were used, even if we have little in the way of personal writings on the subject.

There are some few books of personal reflections. For example, in the Jesuit Archives in Rome there is a manuscript treatise by the Fujian Christian Li Jiugong entitled Shensi Lu (A Record of Night Thoughts)'? in which the old man during sleepless nights meditates on his relationships with others and on the moral dilemmas of his society. And there is a published work from 1635,18 the S~engjiao yuanliu (The Origin and Progress of the Holy Teaching) by one Zhu Yupo, claim­ing to be related to the ruling Ming house.I9 It gives minute details of Christian practices and is written in vernacular style.

Confraternities abounded among these seventeenth­century Christians.zo The Sodality of Our Lady was founded in 1609 in Beijing, on the initiative of one Luke Li, according to Matteo Ricci,Z I buf as Ricci himself had been a meinber of the qrchetypal Prima Primaria Sodality in Rome, he probably played a major part. By 1664, according to the historian of the Jesuit sodalities, Delplace, there were 400 such sodalities in China.zz In 1611, Alfonso Vagnoni founded-a sodality of the Holy Angels for women in Nanjing, putting it in the charge of the Chinese Brother, Zhong Mingren, who presum~bly was thought to be sufficiently advanced in age to serve in that capacity.23 Others were for special groups such as catechists, scholars, children,24 or midwives; or for special purposes: baptizing the moribund, feeding the hungry, burying those without family.zs Some, like the Holy Water Society (Shengshui Hui) founded in

Huangzhou by Yang Tingyun and the Humanitarian Society (Renhui) founded by Wang Zheng in Xi'an, seem to have served a combination of functions, mutu­al help in the faith, and good work.s. One person partic­ular-ly active in founding such groups was Candida Xu, Xu Guangqi's granddaughter.26

Mention of Candida Xu is a reminder that, as usual, the women tend to be forgotten in this story. I recently came across a 1686 report by Antoine Thomas, S.J. writing from Beijing on the state of Christianity in that cjty, whith gives some interesting details on the lives of Christian women. Women, says Thomas, cannot with­out -scandal attend church with men, nor assemble together except with extreme caution. So, another church dedicated to the Virgin MarY has been erected near the principal church and the women are accus­tomed to come there twice ~ y~ar, in spring and autumn, in small groups throughout the month. They are' informed of the day, picked up in a carriage and are given instruction, have their confessions heard and receive the eucharist. If ti~e allows th~ service finishes with a brief sermon. On Sundays and feasts they gather in domestic chapels for prayers and instruction "by a Vice-prefect or other important Christian" and they are giveq catechisms. "So it happens that often the women and girls of a young age are better instructed in the Christian faith than the men."27

Conclusion: The Test of Love

It is my hope that, at last, we are on the threshold of a new two-way sharing of the treasures old and new that Christianity in its many cultural forms has for us.

We in the West have much to learn from the resis­tance offered by our Chinese Christian brothers and sisters to an all-po'(Verful state and its formidable machinery of conformity, just as we have things to give ­them derived from our experience of being Christian in pluralist and democratic societies. We also have, as Father Benoit Vermander has recently reminded us, a Christian tradition of activism for justice and peace

-which is desperately needed in a China (or better, Chinas, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) with a history of so much recent violence and such gross social injustices.zs

There is one last lesson to be learned from those earlier Christians in China. Great distress, scandal, and

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February 2001 • 5

-7"We are on the ­

threshold of. a new ' two-way sharing of the treasures old

and new that Christianity in its

many cultural forms has for us."

"If the test of Christianity is love, does the church in China, and do we its supporters, always meet it?"

even final alienation was caused from the Church by quarrels among pastors over questions of principle and church_ discipline. Most ordinary Christians were unable to follow the issues involved-the liceity of ancestor and other rituals, the authority of Portuguese bishops and French Vicars Apostolic, or incomprehensi­ble decrees from far off Rome. Others took sides and became embittered. In the nineteenth century, a similar division occurred among Chinese Protestants over the question of 'terms', one still reflected in modern Bible translations.

I do not want to enter into the details of those quar­rels, or to draw the dbvious parallels with the present day disputes between 'open' and 'underground' Chris­tians, except to note theirtragic consequences and their flagrant contradiction of the teaching of the Gospel of Love. The .First Epistle of John warns us, "in these last days," against antichrists,29 but it also insists that love comes first:

"Anyone who says, 'I love Gqd', And hates his brother, 1s a liar, Since a man who does not love the brother that he

can see Cannot love God whom he. has never seen. So this is the commandment that he has given us,

· That anyone who loves .. God must also love his brother."3°

If the test of Christianity is love, does the church in China, and do we its supporters, always meet it?

• • • ENDNOTES

l. R.G. Tiedemann, "Christi<lnity and Chinese 'Heterodox Sects', Mass Conversion and Syncretism in Shandong Province in the Early Eighteenth Century," in Monumenta Serica 4!1 (1996), pp. 339-382.

2. P. Rule, "The Strange Death of Religion in China" (Charles Strong Memorial Lecture, 1996), Adelaide: Charles Strong Memorial Trust, 2000.

3. B. Vermander, S.J., "Christianity and the Development of China's Civil Society: A Comparative and Prospective Analysis," Inter-Religion 37 (Summer 2000), pp. 3-15.

4. R. Madsen, China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

5. E. Zurcher "Conclusion: The Two Faces of Late Ming Christianity in Confucian and Christian Religiosity in Late Ming China," Catholic Historical Review 83.4 (October 1997), pp. 649-50.

6., The virulently anti-Christian Poxie ji which is the main · source for Jacques Gernet's equally virulent attack on seven­

teenth century Chinese Christianity in his China and the Christian Impact: A Confiict of Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

7. Shengchao Poxie ji, Hong Kong: China ~lliance Press, 1996, p. 139.

8 . . E. Zurcher, "Jesuit Accommodation and the Chinese Cultural Imperative" in D.E.Mungello (ed.), The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History aud Meaning, (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXXIII) , Nettetal: Steyier Verlag, 1994, p. 50.

9. The Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi, Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu (ARSJ): JS I. ??a

10. The dialogue between Aleni, Ye Xianggao, and Cao Xuequan, is published as the Sanshan lunxue ji in the Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian, Taibel: Xuesheng Shuju, 1966, vol. I, pp.419-493.

11. Quoted in Fonti Ricciane, II, p. 43, note from Daniello Bartoli's LaCina, 1663.

12. Budeyi, pp. lllS-1117 in Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian.

13. Zaowuzhu chuixiang lueshuo, in Tianzhu jiao dongchuan wenxian sanbian, Taibei: Xuesheng Shuju, -1972, vol. II,

pp. 549-563.

14. The Tianzhu jiangsheng jilue, and the Tianzhu jiangsheng Chu xiang jingjie, ARSJ: JS I. 58/187.

15. 1 Cor. 1:23

16. P. A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeign ism, 1860-1870, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.

17. In ARSJ: JS I. 34/37, l.

18. Copies in ARSf JS1.142 and BN, Courant 6882, 6883. Pfister attributes the worJ< t9 Rodrigo Figueiredo S,J. and says it was printed in Kaifeng "sous le nom d'un celebre mandarin". (1:160). But an examination both of title pages_and contents makes it clear that it was written (zhuan) and caused to be engraved (luzi) by Zhu after the teaching of an unnamed mis­sionary, presumably Figueiredo.

19. The cover note on the ARSJ copy reads; "Auctor videtur ex familia praecedenti imperatoria." He identifies himself on the cover page as "of the ruling family of the Zhou country" (Zhou guo zong xing) arid his seal identifies him as a "Christian sinner" (Tianxue guren).

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20. D. de Gossart, S.J., "Esquisse historique sur les congrega­tions de Ia Sainte Vierge dans l'ancienne mission de Chine (1609-1664)," in Col/ectanea Commissionis Synodalis (Peking), 8 (1935), pp. 34--41. '

21. P.M. D'Elia, ed., Fonti Ricciane, II, Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1949, N. 906, p. 4827

22. De Gossart, p. 34

23. De Gossart, p. 37

24. For example, writing from Changzhou in 1679, the newly arrived missionary Juan de Yrigoyen, S.]. Clescribes three congregations flourishing the~e . They were Tianshen Hui (Angels Society) for children, the Ren Hui (Humanitarian Society) for scholars,. and the largest, the Xu Hui (Condolence Society). which organized devotions to Christ crucified. See the letter of Juan de Yrigon S.]. in Spanish to ]uan Andres Palavicino, Provincial of the Philippines, Chamxo (Changzhou), 14 Sept. 1679, in The Far Eastern Catholic Mission, 1663-1 711, Tokyo: Tenri Central Library, 1975, vol. III , n. 83, p. 209. See also partial translation in Maggs Brothers Cat. 455 , Bibliotheca Asiatica, Part II , #1336, p. 124. (The Maggs translator mistranslates "Ju11ta de Anxelitos" as "Meeting of the LitTle Loves").

25. G. King, "Christian Charity in Seventeenth-Century China," in Sino-Western Cultural Relations ]ournal22 (2000), pp. 13-30.

26. Phillipe CoupletS.]. Histoire d'une dame Chn!tienne de Ia Chine. Ou Par occasion les usages de ces peuples, l'etablissment de Ia Religion, les maximes des missionnciires et les exercises de piete des nouveaux chretiens sont expliquez. Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1688; and Gail King "Candida Xu and the Growth of Christianity in China in the Seventeenth Century," Monumenta Serica 46 (1998), pp. 49-66.

27. Antoine Thomas, "Annotationes, seu commentarii rertim praecipuorum ad propagationem fidei in Sina, et Tartaria spec­tantium, quae gestae sunt a mense Septemri anni 1686 ad mensem ]unium anni 1687, scripti a R.P. Antonio Thomas Societatis ]esu Missionario in Curia Pekinensi. Qui per­venerunt Romam 31. Decemb. an. 1689," ARS]: ]S150, ff. 135v-! 36r (photocopy in Ricci Institute, San Francisco).

28. Op. cit. , pp.l2-15.

29. I John 2:18-27.

30. 1 John 4:20-21. mru

uWisdom for the Journey: Historical Perspectives on Inculturation of Christiani-ty in China" Nicolas Standaert, 5.]. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

W. ith this presentation I would like to

achieve two goals: 1) to show how the process of inculturation ts rooted m the

history of the local church; and 2) to show that our opinions are influenced by the perspective of historical events. I will take Christianity in China in the seven­teenth and eighteenth centuries as a 'reference point and mainly concentrate on its social, rather than theo­logical, aspects. I hope it will become apparent that the experience of Chinese Christians in the past has rele­vance for understanding their experience today.

What is Inculturation?

It may be helpful to explain the difference between ~o terms used in mission theology: 'accommodation' (or 'adaptation') and 'inculturation'. They may be distin­guished with regard to primary ageiJcy' and goals.'

The term accommodation was very common in mis­sion theology, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. In the accommodation method, the primary agents with responsibility for initiative and actions are the pro­claimers of the Gospel; the missionaries. They are asked to adapt themselves to the culture of the country where they were sent. Acc~mmodation means adapting to local language an'f customs. Missionaries should not imp6se their culture but adapt to the new. The goal of accommodation is a local church that is an extension of the Universal Church. Using this method, the Gospel as such is not subject to adaptation. Unchangeable and universal, it may be made more understandable or acceptable to non-Christians through translation and use of images or texts.

In the inculturation process, a term originating in the 1970s, the chief actor is not the missionary but the people belonging to the culture in which the Gospel takes root. Only people who are fully formed in th~ir

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February 2001 • 7

"Accommodation means adapting to locql language and customs. Missionaries should not impose their culture but adapt to the new."

"Until recently, Christianity in China in the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was often associated with calendar reform, the

· Astronomical

Bureau in Beijing, or Jesuit painters at court,

while numerically speaking, these aspects occupied a limited place in the whole of the mission."

own culture can give it new form. The goal of-incultura­tion is the incarnation of evangelical life in a particular cultural context in such a way that the Christian experi­ence is expressed not only in terms of that culture (that would be simple accommodation), but in becoming a source of inspiration, direction, and unification, trans­forming and remaking it so as to bring about 'a new cre­ation' , which enriche~ not only the.specific culture but the Universal Church.2

· Inculturation takes pla~e at all levels of religious expression; 1) thought or theology (e.g., God as great­father-mother): 2) activity or action, including cetemoni-

. al action (liturgy; e.g., ceremonies of ancestor worship) and social behavior (ways of social sharing and solidari­ty; e.g., burying the dead); and 3) structure, organ~zation and various services and charisms (e.g., charitable orga­nizations, lay community leaders). It is the latter that is the focus of this present~tion.

Inculturation is the result of a complex process of interpretation in which at least four factors are involved: 1) the cultural roots, of a given society (e.g., Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist); 2) the socio-economic and political context of present-day Chinese Christians; 3) Christian scripture; and 4) the Christian memory and the commu­nion of churches. Christian memory involves the tradi­tions ,and history not only of the Universal Church but also of the local Church. Our focus will be the latter: Chinese Christian theologians of the seventeenth century, and the history of the Chinese Church.3

Statistics

Until recently, Christianity in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was often associated with cal­endar reform, the Astronomical Bureau in Beijing, or Jesuit painters at court, while numerically speaking; these aspects occupied a limited place in the whole of the mission.

Between 1582-1800 the total number of missionar­ies in China at one time never exceeded 140. No more than twenty were p~marily occupied with 'scientific activities' at ~ourt, while all of the others were involved in missionary and pastoral activities outside the capital in cities and villages. A second relevant statistic is the number of Chinese priests. In 1800, they numbered about fifty, two-thirds of the total number of priests in China at that time. In terms of local leadership, then,

Christianity was, in majority, Chinese. Finally, while the number of Chinese Christians reached 200,000 by 1700, by 1800 there were probably only about 135,000.

This was after all a very small number compared with . the total population of 150 to 200 million inhabitants.4 Degree-holders within this group are estimated at less than one percent of the entire Christian population for the late Ming period. During the Qjng their number was further reduced. ·For the entir~ period from the late Ming until the end of the Kangxi reign (1722) only sixty-eight Christian degree holders have been identified by name. While these numbers may approximate at certain moments the percentage of degree-holders in reference to the total population, it is clear that "Christianity in China was not at all the elite Church-which eXists in our imagination. In short, our attention went to less than one percent of Chinese Christians and to the activities of a tiny minority of missionaries and priests.

Christianity as a Marginal Religion

One way of looking at Christianitywithin broader Chinese society is to consider it a 'marginal religion'. Such a point of view is proposed by Erik Zurcher who, as a historian of religions in China, approaches the cen­tral issues of Christianity as part of a special phenome­non in late imperial Chinese culture. He examines the way in which sinicized marginal religions of foreign origin adapted to the central ide6lolr>:' of Confucianism. The two pivotal concepts proposed by Zurcher are 'marginal religion' and 'cultural imperative·.s Marginal religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and in an earlier period Buddhism, shared the patterns of adapta­tion intrinsic to the same "deep structure in Chinese religious life" in late imperial China: congruity, complec mentarity, historical precedent, reductionism. Just like , other foreigli religions, the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century were faced with a 'cultural impera­tive': "no marginal religion penetrating from the outside could expect to take root in China (at least at that social level) .unless it conformed to that pattern which in late imperial times was more clearly defined than e_ver. Confucianism represented what is zheng, 'orthodox' in a religious, ritual, social and'politital sense; in order not ~ to be branded xie, 'heterodox' and thus to be treated as a subversive sect, a marginal religion had to prove that it was on the side of zheng."6

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8 • The Riq:i Institute at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim

Zurcher points out that the survival of Christianity

largely depended on the attitude of local authorities anp -gentry toward Christian beliefs and practices and their

compatibility with Confucian norms and values. Under

such circumstances Christianity lost some of its mono­polistic character. It could 9evelop into a small but not

negligible religious mov~ment by grafting itself onto tre dominant Confucian tradition, which it claimed to 'com­

plement' (bu ru) , or even to restore to its original purity.

In his studies of writings of Chinese converts, Zurcher shows how this dialogue between Chinese and mission­

aries produced a sophisticated and highly original

hybrid: a monotheistic and purist version of Confucian­ism, strongly opposed to Buddhism, Taoism, and popu­l<Jr 'superstition'.

Th~ notion of marginality also contains another dimension. Zurcher shows that from a Chinese perspec­tive, 'seventeenth century Christianity contained two ori­entations that were mutually incompatible. On the one hand, Christianity attempted to associate itself with elit­ist Confucianism, a rather rational doctrine, without a

concept of a personal God, without precise ideas of

afterllfe, retribution, without priests or miracles. On the other hand, Christianity was forced, by its own nature,·

to proclaim a doctrine full of 'mysteries of faith ', funda­mentally irrational, focused around a personal Master of Heaven, who was a supreme Judge, punishing and

rewarding, and directly intervening in history. It was composed of very precise and detailed ideas on the nature of the soul and after life. It·was a doctrine full of

miracles and supernatural events propagated by per­sons who, despite their efforts to identify themselves

with the class of literati, could never dissociate them­selves from their religious profession. Christianity was

not just an i~tellectual construct but a living minority religion, a complex of beliefs, rituals, prayer, magic,

icons, private piety, and communal celebrations. In that

who!~ sphere of religious practice Christianity was by no means a semi-Confucian hybrid. In fact, in most

cases it came much closer to devotional Buddhism than to Confucianism. Thus Christianity fulfilled two roles­as il doctrine and as a religion-that were incompatible in the Chinese system. -

Ultimately, Zurcher is of the opinion that it is this internal contradiction, rather than external circum-

stances, such as the hostility of certain officials or the

Rites Controversy, that prevented Christianity from becoming more than a 'marginal' phenomenon in pre­

modern China. Christianity "could not confine itself to

one of those spheres as Confucianism and Buddhism . did; true to its nature as a monopolistic Mediterranean

religion, it had·to encompass both .. The two faces of

early Chinese Christianity constituted an internal con­tradiction that was never solved, and that no doubt has

contributed to its final breakdoWn in the early eigh­teenth century."7 This approach, then, insists on some

particular aspects of the encounter between Christianity

and China, and reveals _peculiarities of both actors . .

Communities of Effective Rituals

Instead of looking at inculturation at the level of the elite, one can also try to look at inculturation at the

lower l~vels of society. One of the. major characteristics of Christianity as revealed by its imbedding at the local level is the establishment of 'communities of effectiv~ rituals'. By this I mean that people are brought together

and united in a group whose life is rhythmed around certain rituals (mass, feasts, confession, etc.). These rit­

uals are founded in faith and doctrine and are orga­nized by a liturgical calendar. They are 'effective' both

in the sense that they build a group and that they are

considered by the members of the group as bringing

meaning and salvation.

The most obvious examples are the communities of . Chinese Christians. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Christians were not organized in parishes, i.e.

geographical units around a church building, but in hui

(associations), often according to age, sex, and social

background, with lay p~ople as responsibles (huizhang).

In the late Ming, several of these communities were pat­

terned on Confucian or Buddhist models, some with an

explicit charitable purpose: In the early Qjng they were

a mixture of European inspired congregations and a Chinese type of social brganization.s

Effective rituals formed the basis of these communi­ties.9 'one of the characteristics of religion in China is ·

that it proves its worth by the immediate efficacy of its

rituals. In most .cases, the proven efficacy of these ritu­als, the happy discovery that "they work," appears to be

a primary motive for conversion.w These were commu­

nities of mutual support in the general fight against all

February 2001 • 9

" ... the survival of

Christianity largely depended on the attitude of local authorities and gentry toward Christian beliefs and practices, and their compatibility with Confucian norms and values."

"It seems that just in the same way as Chinese popular devotions and rituals shaped the life of common people, Christian practices also provided inspiring ceremonies which mediated Heaven's salvation in the daily struggle for survival."

kinds of fear (disease, death, demons, natural disas­ters). The regular intervention of the supernatural (by way of miraculous healing, 'rescue from disaster, appear­ance of auspicious objects, revival from temporary · death, etc.) in such a community constituted the way in which the efficacy of the faith was sustained. There are sufficient indications that the elite was not less-suscepti­ble to these interventions. The difference-between elite and common society in appropriation II ofthese super­natural interventions is that they were basic to the for­mation of the~e communities among the common peo­ple, while the elite had looser and more individualized relationships with-the priests, partly because they had higher potential mobility.

Rituals "\'ere patterned according to the Christian liturgical calendar. Thus, by introducing a new calendar in China, the missionaries did not just accommodate some technical aspects of a neutral divisi,on of time. They consciously or unconsciously challenged what was the basis of ritual life: the transformation of cultural time itself. The introduction of a 'Sunday' and of

.Christian1religious feasts made people live according to a time rhythm different from the one practiced in Buddhist or Taoist communities of effective rituals. These practices may not-have been introduced effective­ly at all places, but it is at this ritual revel that itinerant­missionaries most strongly competed with Buddhist monks, Taoist priests, or local shamans and that they often inflated their differences.

There are different ways of evaluating these Christian comml;lnities. Anyone acquainted with the Chinese context is struck by the similarity with other communities of effective rituals existing in China, espe­cially in the Buddhist and Taoist traditions. As a result of this resemblance, Christian communities seem to reveal ~orne essential characteristics of Chinese religios­ity: communities which are very much lay-oriented and which have lay responsibles; the important role of women as the transmitters of rituals and traditions with­in the nei-sphere of the family; 12 a service-oriented con­cept of priesthood (priests who travel and are present only at important feasts or celebrations); a simple doc­trine (recitative prayers, simple and clear moral princi­ples, a pastoral of fear supplem~nted by relief through confession); a belief in the transformatfve power of ritu­als (patterned by a liturgical calendar with feasts and

yearly gatherings; the regular intervention of miraculous events): It seems that just in the same way as Chinese popular devotions and rituals shaped the life of com­mon people, Christian practices also provided inspiring ceremonies which mediated Heaven's salvation in the daily struggle for survival.

While there are good reasons to approve of this concept of Chinese folk religion, there are also reasons to assume that this type of religio~ity is characteristic of . Christianity. This conclusion can be reached by com­parison with Christianity in medieval and renaissance. Europe (in the study of which a similar downward _ move has taken place).I3 Taking into acc~unt that mis­sionaries tend to reproduce in the mission areas the type ofreligiosity they have known at home, popular

. Christi~nity in China may also be a reflection 'of popular Christianity in Europe in which ritual-took an equally important plat:e.

A good way to describe the purpose of the mission- _ aries who went to China in the seventeenth century is to say that they aimed at the installation of christianitas

(Christendom). This term, which medieval writers applied to themselves and their civilization, is in my eyes fully appropriate not only for the activities of the Jesuits, but also for what happened with Christianity in China.I4 As John Van Engen has pointed out, in the broad sense of the wor,d christianitas referred to a com­mon religious observance (cultus) overseen and enforced by the king together with his lords and bishops. It referred not only to religious faith but also to practice. "Christianitas is the rite and/or propriety by which people are called Christians." IS The case of Christianity in China seems to corroborate that ritual life was at the heart of Christian life in medieval and renaissance Europe. In line with this research, the "real measure of Christian religious culture on a broad scale must be the degree to which time, space, and ritual opservances came to be defined and grasped essentially in terms of the Christian liturgical year."I6 The existence of Christian communities of effective rituals in China ' are confirmation of 'Christian' imbedding in China.

The communities of effective rituals seem to be · characteristic of both Chinese and Christian folk tradi­tions, and likely of religion as such. Yet therejs an important question that is still subject to further

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research. Did the Christian communities in China show the charact~ristics of an exclusive group that is clearly identified by the members therjlselves and that seems to be typical of the East-Mediterranean religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)?

The reason for this assumption is rhe research on religious belonging in Chinese society conducted by Joel Thoraval. Thoraval analyzed two surveys that had been conducted in Hong Kong (in 1881 and 1911)_17 The sta­tistics led to some astonishing results: more than half (in 1881) or three-quarters (in 1911) of the population

, declare themselves Confucians (fujia), while one third are lay (sujia; in 1881) or animists (in ~ 911). Even more significant is that while Chin.a is considered the country of 'three religions' the total number of Taoists and Buddhists does not represent one percent of the total population. Finally, Chinese Christians, who can be clearly distinguished according to their denomination, exceed the number of Taoists and Buddhists. While sta­tistical analysis based on a Western concept of religion leads to debatable results in the analysis of the phe- , nomenon of 'religion' in China, it stiJI may reveal-some aspects of"how people identify their religious belonging with regard to ~Western' and 'Chinese' religions. ·

Here Thoraval's distinction between the status of the lay people and the religious 'professionals' may be very useful. In the modern West, people who claim to h;:we a religious belo.nging can be divided into commu­nities or churches that can be easily distinguished. Each of these communities has its own priests, its own place of cult, its own creed and-own - rituals~ They tend to be an exclusive belonging, which unites both the believers and the religious specialists (priests, rabbis, pastors, imams), who are exclusively at their service. Except for special circumstances, a Methodist would not appeal to an Anglican p;iest, a Catholic would not pray in a Protestant c.hurch, and a Baptist would not use a CatholiC Bible, etc.

In China the situation tends to be quite different, . since a stronger distinction can be made between the 'lay' community and the religious specialists (Buddhist monk, Taoist master, or female shaman) to whom one may appeal at any time. It is important to point out, in principle, the undivided character of the lay community, as opposed to the multiple worlds of the religious

'

specialists. At the level of the latter (together with some very active lay people) one has an exclusive doctrinal

· or ritual distinction and identification (the difference _ between a Buddhist monk and Taoist priest) which

resembles the Western situation.

What is important for our subject is that, although_ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was only one Christian denomination in China, Christianity appears to contain· characteristics that are expressed in this analysis of the Hong Kong surveys. Indeed, when Eastern-Mediterranean religions came to settle in China, they tended _to reproduce their exclusive com­munities which unite both lay people and specialists around ritual and doctrine. Unlike Buddhist monks who would hardly intervene in the private lives of the faith­ful , Western missionaries applied the European model, which implied an interference in and guidance of the private lives of the converts. As a result, lay people seem to have beeri much more dependent on priests than in Buddhism. This also explains why Chinese belonging to an originally Western religion easily distin­guish themselves from other Chinese, whether lay people or specialists.

Conclusion

This presentation has probably raised more questions than it answers. Questions.were raised about our way of looking at Christianity in. China: Do we consider if a failure or success? Do we look at the missionary or at the local chorch? Do we focus on the elite ~ron the popular levels of society? Other questions originate from the historic~! experience of Christianity in China. Since Christianity has. the experience o~ a minority religion, will it remain a marginal religion? If it has to adapt to a cultural imperative, to what extent can Christianity remain subject to an official orthodoxy? It also has the experience of lay-oriented communities of effective ritu­als, which resemble Chinese folk religions but also con­tain characteristics of exclusivity. To what extent wilt these communities survive in modern society?

No matter how many questions we raise, the most important fact is that the histoi)' of e hristianity in China is not only the history of ideas, structures, or organiza­ti-ons, but the history of an encounter between living ,..

beings. The center of this history is the experi.ence of a personal encounter with the living Christ

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February 2000 • 11

"No matter how many questions we rats~, the most important fact is that the history , of Christianity · in China is not only the history of ideas, structures, or

. organizations, but the history of an encounter between living beings."

ENDNOTES

I. L. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures, Mal)'knoll: Orbis, 1988, esp. pp. 80-83. See also N. Standaert, Inculturation: The Gospel and Cultures, trans. A. Bruggeman and R. Murray, Manila: Saint Paul Publications, 1994.

2. P. Arrupe, "Letter and Working Paper on Inculturation," Acta Romana Societatis lesu XVII. 2 (1978), pp. 256-281.

3. See for' example Agnes Kim Mi-jeung, "La theologie du peche pour une societe de l'harrnonie" (Paris: Centre Sevres), Th.D., 2000.

4. Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One (635-1800) , Leiden: Brill, 2000: "2.1.1. General Character­istics: Number of Missionaries;", 2.5.1. General Character­istics: Number of Chris(ians; Social Stratification."

5. These ideas are developed in E. Zurch.er, "Guilio Aleni et ses relations dans le milieu des lettres chinois au XVIIe siecle," in L. Lanciotti (ed.), Venezia e /'Oriente , Firenze: Olschki, 1987, p. 107-135 .' See also "A Complement to Confucianism: Christianity and Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China," in Chun-Chieh Huang & Erik Zurcher (eds.), Norms and the State in China, Leiden: Brill, 1993, pp. 71- 92; "Jesuit Accommodation a!Jd the Chinese Cultural Imperative," in David E. Mungello (ed.), The Chinese Rjtes Controversy: Its History and Meaning, (Monumenta Serica Monograph

' Series XXXIII) , Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994, pp. 31-64. See also "Confucian and Christian Religiosity in Late Ming China," Catholic Historical Review 83,4 (1997), pp. 614-653;

"4.1.3. Key theological issues: General Reception" in Handbook of Christianity in China.

6. E. Zurcher: "Jesuit Accommodation and the Chinese Cultural Impe;ative," in David E. Mungello (ed.), The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its tfistory and Meaning, (Monu­menta Serica Monograph Series XXXIII) , Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994, pp. 40-41.

7. E. Zurcher, "Confucian and Christian Religiosity in Late Ming China," Catholic Historical Review 83,4 (1997) , p. 653.

8. Handbook of Christianity in China: "2.5.6. Social organi­zation of the Church: Associations for la~ peop~e."

9. Handbook of Christianity in China: "2.5.2. Well-known Individuals;" Eugenio Menegon, "De 'l'histoire des mis sions' a 'l'histoire des chretiens chinois' ," in B. Vermander (ed.), Le Christ chinois: Heritages et esperance, Paris: Desclee · de Brouwer, 1998, pp. 99-119; E. Zurcher, "The Jesuit Mission in Fujian in Late Ming Times: Levels of ~esponse,"

in E. B. Vermeer (ed.), Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the Seventeenth and Eig/>lteenth Centuries, Leiden: Brill, 1990, pp. 41 7--45 7.

10. E. Zurcher, "The Lord of Heaven and the Demons: Strange Stories from a Late Ming Christian Manuscript," in G. Naundorf & K.-H. Pohl & H.-H. Schmidt (eds.),

Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien; Festschrift fiir H. Steiniger, Wur.zburg: Konigshausen & Neumann, 1985,

p. 3 71.

II . See also Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modem France, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 6-7.

12. In the final decades of the eighteenth centul)', there are cases where Christianity is transmitted as a kind of family cult without any intervention of a missional)' or priest. See

. for example, studies on the emergence of popula·r Christiani­ty in Northern China (eighteenth centul)') by Lars Peter Laamann (SOAS).

13. For a good synthesis see Isabelle Brian and Jean-Marie Le Gall , La vie religieuse en France: XVle-XVIIle siecle, Paris: Sedes, 1999.

14. Seventeenth-centul)' texts by Jesuits prefer this term "Christian" to "Catholic." See "Trent, Jesuits and All That: Fifty Years Tl)'ing to Name It," in John O'Malley, et al, The jesuits, Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540-1 773 , Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Christianitas is the word

. and reality retrieved by John Van Engen in his article "The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem," in American Historical Review 91, 3 (1986), pp. 519-552.

15. J. Van Engen, op.cit. , pp. 540-541.

16. J. Van Engen, op.cit. , p. 543.

17. Joel Thoraval, "Pourquoi les 'religions .chinoises' ne peu vent-elles apparaltre dans les statistiques occidentales?" Perspectives chinoises I (1992), pp. 37--44: ~

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February 2001 • 12