China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture

by Huilin YANG, David Lyle Jeffrey (Foreword by), Zhang Jing (Editor)

Overview

Christian missionaries in China have been viewed as agents of Western imperialist values. Yang Huilin, leading scholar of Sino-Christian studies, has dedicated himself to re-evaluating the history of Christianity in China and sifting through intellectual and religious results of missionary efforts in China. Yang focuses upon local histories of Christianity to chronicle its enduring good. China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture illuminates the unexplored links between Christianity and Chinese culture, from Christianity and higher education in China to the rural acculturation of Christian ideology by indigenous communities. In a distinctly Chinese voice, Yang presents the legacy of Western missionaries in a new light, contributing greatly to now vigorous Sino-Christian theology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481300186
Publisher:	Baylor University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2014
Series:	Studies in World Christianity
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Yang Huilin is Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, and Vice-President of Renmin University of China. He is the author of many works, including Theological Hermeneutics: Word of God & Words of Man, and recently co-editor of Sino-Christian Studies in China (Cambridge, 2006). He resides in Beijing, China.

Table of Contents

Foreword by David Lyle Jeffrey

Part I: Christianity and Chinese Culture

1 Language and Missionary Universities in China

2 Three Questions in the Dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity

3 Inculturation or Contextualization: Interpretation of Christianity in the Context of Chinese Culture

4 "Ethicized" Chinese-Language Christianity and the Meaning of Christian Ethics

5 The Contemporary Significance of Theological Ethics: The True Problems Elicited by Auschwitz and the Cultural Revolution

Part II: Theology and Humanities

6 The Value of Theology in Humanities: Possible Approaches to Sino-Christian Theology

7 The Potential Value of Contemporary Theology for Literary Theories

8 Six Problem Domains in Western Marxists' Theory on Religion

9 To Reverse Our Premise with the Perverse Core: A Response to Žižek's "Theology" in Chinese Context

10 From "Difference" to "the Other": A Theological Reading of Heidegger and Derrida

Part III: Scriptural Reasoning 11 James Legge: Between Literature and Religion

12 The Possibilities and Values of "Scriptural Reasoning" between China and the West

13 Scriptural Reasoning and the Hermeneutical Circle

14 The Chinese Union Version of the Bible and Its Hermeneutical Analysis

Notes

Works Cited

Details of Previous Publications

What People are Saying About This

Yang's work is the product of a lifetime of careful retrieval and cultural assessment of the contextualization of Christian thought in China. Each essay is a jewel of erudite scholarship. I cannot recommend it highly enough for Western readers who want to understand thinking in China today.

Peter Ochs

Yang Huilin is a major new thinker on the meaning of language, translation, and Christian theology after postmodernity. His words will re-orient future discussions of religious language and meaning, from West to East.

Daniel H. Bays

Professor Yang Huilin is a significant and highly respected voice today in Sino-Western ‘Christian studies,’ that is, the intellectual cross-cultural discourse among philosophers, theologians, and public intellectuals on the future of Chinese society and the possible places where some forms of Christian ideas might fit. This collection of some of his essays from the past decade is both erudite and stimulating.

Very Rev. Professor Iain R. Torrance

Yang's work is the product of a lifetime of careful retrieval and cultural assessment of the contextualization of Christian thought in China. Each essay is a jewel of erudite scholarship. I cannot recommend it highly enough for Western readers who want to understand thinking in China today.

Editorial Reviews

China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture is a brilliant book by a leading scholar, and deserves wide readership.

Church History and Religious Culture - G. Wright Doyle

An excellent guide to study the nature and aims of Sino-Christian theological studies

Exchange - Jan A.B. Jongeneel

An excellent collection of essays whose ideas should be the starting point for conversations in many disciplines.

Fides Et Historia - John R. Stanley

A vigorous and sophisticated cross-cultural discourse against the background of history, philosophy, religion, theology and hermeneutics

International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church - Xiaoli Yang

Yang’s work offers a refreshing and insightful commentary on Christianity in China, with its changing and growing intellectual engagement.

Scottish Journal of Theology - Thomas Harvey

Yang’s essays cover a remarkable range of thinking and one can only hope that, at a time when much of the scramble to establish links between Chinese and Western universities is unseemly, hasty and unattractive, this serious and intellectual voice is clearly heard and engaged with in both universities and beyond.

Literature and Theology - David Jasper

This is a significant book for Chinese academia that boldly interprets the Christian phenomena in a new way. It reverses the traditional bias against Christianity, and may in fact inaugurate a more open discussion about religion in general among Chinese in the future. Such profound insights touch upon the very nature of the Christian faith, and bear significance for all Christians, as well as nonbelievers, to rethink their relationship with Christianity. Altogether the book provides a valuable window for understanding Chinese Christianity.

Journal of Asia Adventist Seminary - Liang Chuanshan

…this essay collection offers a useful introduction to the intellectual contours of China’s cultural Christians in the post-Tiananmen era, and should appeal to scholars interested in Chinese theology and interreligious religious dialogue

Journal of Chinese Religions - Joseph Tse-Hei Lee Joseph Tse-Hei Lee

In his book China, Christianity, and the Question of Culture, with a fine scholarship in listing Chinese learning and the main Western contemporary theological positions, the prominent mainland Chinese scholar Yang Huilin shows appreciation for the approach of enculturation of Christianity into the secular context which is dominant in China today.

Africanus Journal - Mark Chuanhang Shan

The volume serves as a fascinating snapshot of the vibrant academic discourse on Christianity in China today and provides provocative insights for researchers in missions and world Christianity.

International Bulletin of Mission Research - Alexander Chow

…this essay collection offers a useful introduction to the intellectual contours of China’s cultural Christians in the post-Tiananmen era, and should appeal to scholars interested in Chinese theology and interreligious religious dialogue

Journal of Chinese Religions - Joseph Tse-Hei Lee

"Yang's essays cover a remarkable range of thinking and one can only hope that, at a time when much of the scramble to establish links between Chinese and Western universities is unseemly, hasty and unattractive, this serious and intellectual voice is clearly heard and engaged with in both universities and beyond."
--David Jasper, Glasgow University, Literature and Theology, (28:2, 2014)

"Professor Yang Huilin is a significant and highly respected voice today in Sino-Western 'Christian studies,' that is, the intellectual cross-cultural discourse among philosophers, theologians, and public intellectuals on the future of Chinese society and the possible places where some forms of Christian ideas might fit. This collection of some of his essays from the past decade is both erudite and stimulating."
--Daniel H. Bays, Emeritus Professor of History, Calvin College

"Yang Huilin is a major new thinker on the meaning of language, translation, and Christian theology after postmodernity. His words will re-orient future discussions of religious language and meaning, from West to East."
--Peter Ochs, Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies, University of Virginia

"Yang's work is the product of a lifetime of careful retrieval and cultural assessment of the contextualization of Christian thought in China. Each essay is a jewel of erudite scholarship. I cannot recommend it highly enough for Western readers who want to understand thinking in China today."
--Very Rev. Professor Iain R. Torrance, Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, President-Emeritus of Princeton Theological Seminary, Former Moderator of the Church of Scotland

From the Publisher