Chinese Christianity Religion in Chinese Societies

Chinese Christianity Religion in Chinese Societies Edited by Kenneth Dean, McGill University Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego David Palmer, University of Hong Kong VOLUME 4 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/rics Chinese Christianity An Interplay between Global and Local Perspectives By Peter Tze Ming Ng LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chinese Christianity : an interplay between global and local perspectives / by Peter Tze Ming Ng. p. cm. — (Religion in Chinese societies ; v. 4) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-22574-9 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Christianity—China. 2. China—Religion. I. Wu, Ziming. II. Ng, Peter Tze Ming. BR1285.C527 2012 275.1’082—dc23 2011049458 ISSN 1877-6264 ISBN 978 90 04 22574 9 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 22575 6 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS Foreword ..................................................................................... vii Daniel H. Bays Foreword ..................................................................................... ix Philip Yuen Sang Leung Foreword ..................................................................................... xi Philip L. Wickeri Introduction: My Personal Journey ........................................... 1 1. From ‘Christianity in China’ to ‘Chinese Christianity’: Changing Paradigms and Changing Perspectives ................ 19 2. Some Scenarios of the Impact of Boxer Movement on Christian Education in China ............................................... 43 3. The Other Side of 1910: The Development of Chinese Indigenous Movements Before and After the Edinburgh Conference .......................................................... 67 4. Christian Higher Education in China: A Global-local View ....................................................................................... 91 5. Timothy Richard: Christian Attitude Towards Other Religions & Cultures ............................................................. 111 6. C.Y. Cheng: The Prophet of Chinese Christianity .............. 133 7. Francis C.M. Wei: Bridging National Culture and World Values ......................................................................... 143 8. T.C. Chao: Builder of Chinese Indigenous Christian Theology ................................................................................ 167 9. David Paton: Christian Mission Encounters Communism in China ................................................................................. 179 vi contents 10. Y.T. Wu: A New Understanding of ‘Three-Self’ Development in Chinese Christianity ................................. 201 11. K.H. Ting and the Three-Self Movement in China: Global Christianity and Local Contexts ............................. 221 12. Conclusion ........................................................................... 243 Index of Proper Names .............................................................. 251 FOREWORD I am so glad to write this brief foreword to another book by my long- time friend Peter Tze Ming Ng of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, whose hospitality and academic discussions I have enjoyed many times in Hong Kong. Although he was not originally trained as a China specialist or as a historian, Peter’s natural curiosity and entre- preneurial spirit led him early on to the growing field of modern Chi- nese history, especially the topics of modern China’s higher education and Chinese Christianity. More than twenty years ago Peter came to know and collaborate with Professor Zhang (Kaiyuan Zhang), distin- guished historian and former president of Central China Normal Uni- versity (Huazhong shifan daxue), just at the time of the efforts of Professor Zhang and others to push to gain recognition of this field of church history. Peter found a productive role in exploring and disseminating historical materials, and he has been very successful in promoting the field by organizing conferences and producing conference volumes; he has also been very active in finding resources to help young scholars from China and other places receive support for graduate and research work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Over the years he has also developed his own scholarship in this field of Chinese Christian- ity, sharing it at various conferences and invited lectures on several continents. This volume is an attempt to permit a wide spectrum of scholars to become familiar with these previously unpublished texts, which have largely been rewritten with notes added. Peter himself has provided in the introduction a synopsis of his intellectual journey during the last two decades which is fascinating. The eleven chapters include seven essays on individuals, two of whom are foreigners (Timothy Richard and David Paton), five of whom are important Chinese scholars and churchmen (C.Y. Cheng, Francis C.M. Wei, T.C. Chao, Y.T. Wu, and K.H. Ting), and four chapters on wider topics. Three of the studies are based on the Henry Martyn Lectures at Cambridge University for 2007, and one for the Mission Legacy Project of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Most of the chapters deal in some fash- ion with education, as could be expected; but more than that, Peter viii foreword also is willing in some of the chapters to tackle thorny issues such as ‘globalization’ and even ‘glocalization’. Professor Peter Ng is to be congratulated on the appearance of this volume, which will be wel- comed by many in the fields of comparative history of education and modern Chinese church history. Daniel H. Bays Professor of History & Director, Asian Studies Program Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan FOREWORD The history of Christianity in China is a long and complex story. From the arrival of the Nestorian missionaries in Tang China in the seventh century to the Jesuit movement in the seventeenth century and to the Protestant nation-wide expansion in the last two centuries, it has gone through many twists and turns and ups and downs. Many scholars interested in Sino-Western cultural relations and in religious history of China are fascinated by the Sino-Christian encounters in the last millennium. Peter Ng is one of them with a special interest in Prot- estantism in modern China. Being trained in religious studies and in education, Peter has practical knowledge and done extensive research in these two areas, and his passion in historical studies has grown consuming most of his intellectual energy in the last two decades. This all began with a research project on Christian higher education in China—a reconstruction of the history of Christian colleges and universities in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century China, some twenty years ago when he was a professor in the Department of Religion (now Department of Cultural and Religious Studies) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From then on he has engaged himself enthusiastically in several historical projects related to the history of Christianity in China. Some of the chapters in this volume are the results of these projects: the Boxer Movement, Francis Wei and Central China (Huazhong) University, Yaozhong Wu and the ‘Three Self’ Movement, to cite just a few. Peter’s intellectual journey is well described in his own words in the first chapter. It needs no repetition here. It is suffice to say that behind his elucidation of Chinese Christianity, Peter has a unique perspec- tive of his own. The keyword he uses to describe the development of Chinese Christianity is ‘global-local’ or ‘glocalization’. He believes Chinese Christianity has both ‘universal’ and ‘particular’ aspects, and the interplay of both local and global forces helped shape the char- acteristics of Chinese Christianity. This forms the main theme of his book, and it explains why some of the foreign missionaries such as Timothy Richard and David Paton are included in his discussion of Chinese Christianity. Scholars today are working to explore the x foreword dialogical interplay between the Global and Localized Christianities, Peter’s attempt to work out the ‘China case’ could have wider implica- tions for our modern scholarship. Philip Yuen Sang Leung Chair Professor of History & Head of Chung Chi College The Chinese University of Hong Kong FOREWORD Prof. Peter Tze Ming Ng’s personal journey is also an intellectual journey with Chinese Christianity and the development of Christian studies in China over the last three decades. The volume before you is an excellent overview of Christian studies in China, but it is more than that. In a series of carefully chosen essays, Prof. Ng not only surveys Christian studies and Christian higher education in China (Chapters 1 to 4); he also analyzes the life and thought of key missionaries,

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