The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ (review)

This is the fourth book of the series titled The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ, though its title designates it a sequel to the third volume. Its approach draws upon the Chinese face of Jesus and Christian influence upon Chinese culture after the Communists took power in 1949. It also probes Christian life in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities. Following the editorial arrangement of the previous volumes, it is divided into two sections: the first is a collection of articles and the second is an anthology of primary sources.

Altogether, fourteen scholarly articles were selected to cover the Chinese image of Jesus over the past five decades. Without a doubt, many articles verify the authors' solid research, and some could be appraised as new accomplishments on the evolution of Chinese assessment of Jesus. Because the Chinese had been brainwashed by the Marxist doctrine, people more or less were familiar with the official perspective regarding religion as spiritual opium. According to Wang Xiaochao's article, the image of Jesus has changed a number of times. At first, Jesus was viewed as an object of superstitious worship, or spiritual opium, between 1949 and 1976. However, in the decade after the Cultural Revolution, Jesus was regarded as an object of the Christian faith. In the current decade, more mainlanders objectively assess Jesus as the founder of Christianity. The Marxist image of Jesus, as in Marian Galik's article on Zhu Weizhi, a Chinese biographer of Jesus, reveals the Communist comparative analysis of historical figures. Zhu lived under Communism and, henceforth, his approach is to "redden" Jesus as a proto-Communist. He admires Jesus as a brave fighter who opposed the Roman Empire, a conscientious proletarian who only owned a strong faith, and a caring protector who championed the masses. Galik argues that Zhu "added a new one to the different Chinese faces of Jesus Christ and his book is certainly a historical document" (p. 1,351).

The image of Jesus has been deeply etched into the traditional Chinese syncretic religious practice, as Philip Clart's article reveals. Clart narrows down his discourse to two popular sects, the Daoyuan and the Yiguandao, which originated in Shandong and spread into many provinces. The two sects mythologized Jesus and deliberately framed him into traditional rituals. This syncretism persists even after the Cultural Revolution, as spiritual and religious practices have triumphantly been revived after the protracted and suppressive policies. Kristin Kupfer probes the Jesus-inspired spiritual movements in China after 1978. She studies several "churches," such as "the Eastern Lightning" and "the Society of Disciples" that also mix the teachings of Jesus with Chinese beliefs. To them, Jesus' images are multiple, some emphasizing his divinity as a savior while others stressing his human nature as a healer. Many of these groups are not officially registered, and their teachings are often considered by the government as heresy, for which they have endured discrimination and harassment.

The image of Jesus and traditional Chinese culture, as other articles show, are intertwined. Benoit Vermander discusses the Catholics in Hong Kong and Taiwan and their assuming Chinese elements. Jonathan Tan Yun-ka coins the phrase "Confucian Christology" to highlight Jesus as a crucified and risen sage. Even famous Chinese Christian theologians, such as T. C. Chao, Y. T. Wu, and K. H. Ting, as shown in Edmond Tang's article, could not discard the Chinese way of thinking. For this, Liu Xiaofeng bluntly states that "an individual Chinese person might experience existential bewilderment (crisis) brought about by the Christian Trinitarian faith, and, through this crisis, may encounter the Trinitarian God" (p. 1,575). The "crisis" suggests the existing cultures of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism first clashing with Christian theology but eventually merging with it. In other words, even if a person converts to Christianity, he could never get rid of his own Chineseness. Joseph H. Wong's study of Fang Tung-mei...