Christians in China: A.D. 600 to 2000 (review)

This is a translation of Histoire des Chrétiens de Chine (Paris, 2002), which was an updated reprint (Tournai, 1992; Paris, 1992). Charbonnier's encounter with, and interest in, Chinese Christians started in Singapore, where he worked as a priest (M.E.P.) from 1959 until 1993. Dissatisfied with the books Chine et christianisme authored by René Laurentin (Paris, 1977) and Jacques Gernet (Paris, 1982), he wrote a history of China's Christians that is not one of "missed opportunities" and does not give the impression "that there were two cultures in watertight compartments that just could not communicate" (p. 10). Moreover, because he did not want to identify Christianity merely with the West, he endeavored "to describe the main lines of Christianity in China [. . . and] to tell the stories of actual Chinese Christians at every period" (p. 13).

Although the book is not a real history, the stories are arranged chronologically in thirty chapters covering five periods: "Relics from China's Past: Traces of Christianity from the 7th to the 14th Century" (chap. 1–6, pp. 19–120); "The Friendship of Wise Men: The Meeting of Catholicism and Confucianism in the 16th and 17th Centuries" (chap. 7–12, pp. 121–212); "Witnesses on the Run: The Gospel Is Preached to Poor Peasants in the 18th and 19th Centuries" (chap. 13–18, pp. 213–315); "The Colonial Period, Ambivalent Expansion: Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign Protection, 1840–1949" (chap. 19–24, pp. 317–421); and "Death and Resurrection: Communism and the Attempt to Destroy Religion, 1949–2002" (chap. 25–30, pp. 423–539). Although the eastern (or Nestorian) Church (chap. 1-4) and Protestantism (esp. chap. 21) are not absent (nor even Islam, chap. 6), the book mainly deals with Roman Catholics in China, including Hong Kong (chap.27);Taiwan (chap. 28);and the Chinese diaspora in Singapore, the Philippines, North America, and Europe (chap. 26, "Chinese Missionaries"). Charbonnier's well-written book is a passionate testimony for the existence of a Chinese Christianity. It seems well documented for the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries; for the earlier periods, there are occasional flaws, such as calling the anti-Christian Yang Guangxian (1597–1669) a eunuch and Muslim convert (pp. 183, 231), which are both erroneous statements. For these earlier periods, the translator, Maurice Couve de Murville (1929–2007), the late archbishop of Birmingham, added new material, with the approval of the author, in chapters 1–4, 10, 14, 15, 19, and 23) "for the better understanding of the narrative and of the cultures treated" (p. 15). These additions are indicated at the end of the affected chapters. In short, Charbonnier's book is an enthusiastic, alternative introduction to (Catholic) Christianity in China. At the end of the book there are useful bibliographies of publications in English (pp. 572–80), French (pp. 580–87), other Western languages (pp. 587–88), and Chinese (pp. 589–94).