NUMBER 17 uGrowing on Holy Ground" Keynote Presentations at The Eighteenth.National Catholic Ch ina Conference In November 2000 the Ricci Institute joined the US Dr. Nicolas Standaert, S.]. Catholic·Chfna Bureau for its e i~hteenth National has been a professor of Catholic China Conference entitled "Christianity (n Chinese Studies at Katholieke I / China: Growing on Holy Ground." In this issue of Un iversiteit Leuven, Belgium, Pacific Rim Report, we are including two keynote pre­ . since 1993. His philosophy sentations delivered a( the meeting by Paul Rule and and theology studies were , Nicolas Standaert, S.f .. completed at the, Centre Sevres fn Paris (1 990) and Fu fen Catholic University in Dr. Paul Rule was born and Taiwan (1994}. In the early nineties he lived and educated in Melbourne, studied in Beijing. He holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies Australia. He holds an Honors from Leiden State University in Belgium (19 94). His Degree in History from the research interests are in the history of Christianity in University.of Melbourne and China. Dr. Standaert has produced many publications a Ph.D. in Asian Studies from on Chinese-Western cultural history, including theolog­ the Australian National ical and cultural exchanges during the Ming and Qjng Un iversity. He is senior lecturer in history and form er· dynasties. A widely sought after lecturer, his recent director of the Religious Studies Program at LaTiobe edited work is entitled Handbook of Christianity in University in Melbourne, where he also teaches courses China (Brill, 2000). Dr. Standaert is also a·member of on Chinese and aboriginal religions, religious theory the Ricci Institute Scholars' Council. 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 WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE the EDS-Stewart Chair for Chinese religions, and peace and justice issues. 'He is Chinese-Western Cultural History at the USF Ricci Institute for funding this issue of Pacific Rim Report and partial sponsorship Distinguished Fellow of the EDS-Stewart Chair at the of this confere nce. · Ricci Institute (2000-200 1) and a member of the Ricci Institute Scholars' Council. {(Christianity in China: , Shandong and Fujian there was a close association between the two and the Qjng government, noting this, Growing on Holy Ground" lumped them-together in condemnation.! Paul A. Rule Reversing the gaze of the mask, let us glance briefly LaTrobe University, Australia 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, espe­ cially an 'imperialist' religion like Christianity, should be n the marvelous exhibition, "The Golden Age of dying; instead, it is flourishing, perhaps more than at Chinese Archeology," which concluded in San any time within a century.z The very material achieve­ I Francisco, there was a bronze double mask looking ments of Cbina over the past two decades have genera­ in two directions at once. This is what I feel as I try to ted not content but a new search for meaning, for a look at the past of Chinese Christianity in order to , viable spirituality: something that is ~ qually evident understand its present and to think simultaneously in Taiwan .3 about its future. The Spirituality of the 'Cpnfucian Christians' I also want to penetrate the enigmatic expression of that mask which seemed to mock me every time I saw 'Spirituality' is a much abused term today, but I use it in its technical meaning of the quality, the tone, the char­ ~ it, challenging my conviction that I, a Christian of "A spirituality European descent, could ever understand Chinese cul­ acteristic features of the religious outlook and practices of an individual or group. Spirituality is a cultural arti­ for today must be ture or Chinese spirituality. -I can only console myself With, the thought that others like me have-clearly done fact, influenced by time and place. A spirituality for a global spirituality so in the past with success, especially with the patient, today must be a global spirituality and struggle against and struggle understanding guidance native to that culture. the forces of materialism and consumerism that are equally global. But it must also accommodate the spe­ Looking Both Ways against the forces cific historical experiences of each society. Recently I have spent much of my time trying to under­ of materialism and The spirituality of tl'le seventeenth-century Chinese stand the inner lives of Chinese Christians of the seven­ Christians was, for educated Chinese at least, that of consumerism that teenth and early eighteenth' centuries. I have come to 'Confucian Christians'. A Christian Spirituality for China are equally global." the conclusion that their time was in many ways like . today must necessarily be different. Richard Madsen in our own. It saw the collapse of an old order-that of the his challenging recent study indicated that Chin .f~ Ming-and the creation of a new, superficially foreign Catholics4 see the rural Catholic ,communities that he one, the Manchu or Qjng dynasty. Many educated studied as understandably, but regrettably, self-centered Chinese suffered from divided allegiances, disgusted · and inward-looking rather than- concern~d with civil with the corrupt old regime that had failed them and the society as a-whole. l:fowever, what strikes me about people as a whole and contemptuous of the ignorant seventeenth-century Christianity is its social concern. and arrogant new rulers. The violent restoration of order by the Qjng and the return of prosperity could not There was inward.ness, certainly, an interest in satisfy their hunger for certainty and social and meditation, prayer, self-examination. But there were also spiritual equanimity. very active confraternities-engaged in charitable activi­ ties. These were not just the now somewhat notorious One reaction was a turn inwards. Christianity was groups which baptized abandoned babies, but those but one of the spiritual reactions to this crisis of civiliza­ that looked after such children. Others visited the sick tion. Buddhism revived and new syncretic religious and dying, provided basic education, and gave spiritual , sects emerged, some preaching apocalyptic futures. The support to upper-class Cpristian women, who were sectarian movements generically labeled the White largely house-bound within their own homes. Lotus flourished, often in the sam~ regions where Christianity seemed to be undergoing ~a pid growth. In )i!f'Jf}tf'{ll§tf'AB3f'Af'Jf'AF}IB3f'Af3f'AI§if'Af}lf'Af3fAf}if}if3[1Rdf.Oif'Af'-"'I§IEdf§!f'AE~f'AF'AfdfAPafAF'AE4fAf"JfHH:afAf'AE3Hf'AHfAE'AfAf'Af'Af'AE'Af'Af'AF"AE'AfApAf'Af'Af'A;ApAfAYAfYE'Af'AF3f'AfAf'AfYpAf'AH j 2 • The Ricci Institute at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim Professor Erik Zurcher of Leiden thinks seven­ Confucian moralism and popular religiosity? .And does teenth-century Christianity was "two-faced"5 (that mask this explain both the nineteenth century spread of again!) in that it presented a Confucian face to the non- Christianity and today's Christianity fever? . Christian world and that of "a living minority religion" Belief in Christ Crucified to insiders. Critics saw both faces and often deplored What were the gaps? Firstly, a belief not just in a the devotional one,6 yet I find no e~idence of tension or remote God, a Tian or Shangdi, but in an incarnate strain on the part of these Christians. They were openly God, in Jesus Christ the God-Man. This was the stick­ Christian and Chinese and, for the scholars among ing point for many otherwise attracted literati and cer­ them, also Confucian. And not just for the scholars but tainly for the contributors to the major anti-Christian for their wives, children, and servants who happily writing of the seventeenth 'century, the Poxie ji. Jiang performed domestic rituals that can be loosely labeled Dejing's preface to Book 3 of that work expresses his 'Confucian' while attending mass, saying prayers in disgust on reading Christian books to discover that common and privately, and doing good works recom­ mended to them by the_ Gospel: "They consider their Tianzhu the equivalent of the Shangdi that we Chihese worship, and I had not The Role of Difference known that they think one jesus who li ved at the Preaching Christianity through the familiar was, of time of Emperor Ai of Han to be Tianzhu."7 course, a necessary and productive missionary task. "Tianzhu-ism ," as Erik Zurcher somewhat pejorativ~ly Especially it meant for the Jesuits the use of Confucian calls it,s entailed acceptance of a Jesus as savior. Giulio concepts, and the great project of 'complementing' Aleni, S.J. early in the seventeenth century wrote a trea­ "... one of the most Confucianism with Christian revelation. I believe that tise on the incarnation.9 It was the incarnation of God the 'Confucian Christian' label is an appropriate one frequently repeated as Jesus that prove_d the final obstacle to the baptism of for the educated male-literati elite Christianized by Aleni's friend, the retired Grand Secretary, Ye Xianggao, charges against the the Jesuits. who seems otherwise to have been persuaded of the Jesuits, even today, However, most of the new Christians of the seven­ truth of Aleni's teaching.w There was, according to the is that they did not - teenth century were neither literati nor male. As I have mission historian Daniello Bartoli, "a single but insuper­ preach Christ closely examined the catalogues of collections of Jesuit able obstacle," namely that; ildid not seem to him writings in Chinese of the period, I realized that I had worthy of God to become man to redeem man."11 crucified.