Christianity in Contemporary China: Socio-Cultural Perspectives ed. by Francis Khek Gee Lim (review)

theorem and proportions. Claudia von Collani gives an overview of Ricci’s scientific activities in China based on Western language secondary literature. The book closes with a contribution by Pierre Léna, an eminent French astrophysicist, who gives an account of a decade of cooperation in science education between French and Chinese scientists and teachers; the assumption underlying this enterprise is that science can function as a bridge between cultures, and provide a means to combine cultural diversity and universality. As a closure to the volume, Léna’s contribution effectively enhances the view of Ricci as a pioneer of exchanges between the two ends of the Eurasian continent. The volume has the strengths and weaknesses of any exercise in commemoration . On the one hand, the variety of approaches highlights the manifold subjects that are relevant to our understanding of Ricci’s missionary enterprise. In that respect, it is perhaps the contributions that do not focus on him, but on the world in which he lived, a world that included China but was not limited to it (Wang, Aubin, Ben-Dor Benite, Golvers, Iannaccone), and on the ways Ricci can be seen today (Meynard) that are most enlightening. On the other hand, some contributions revisit already well-researched subjects (Li, von Collani, Martzloff, Dhombres): while they must have contributed to the interest of the conference, they give the reader an impression of déjà vu, sometimes tempered by interesting insights. The two aspects are of course linked: as Wang modestly reminds us, Ricci has been so thoroughly researched that one is unlikely to uncover new material concerning him (p. 29), so that new light on him is most likely to be indirect. The book appears to contain all the papers submitted to the conference. As is not uncommon in volumes of conference proceedings, some of the contributions are minutely researched and abundantly footnoted texts, while others simply convey what is evidently the substance of an oral presentation. Finally, the book has the merit of keeping its promise: it does provide a glimpse into the state of research on Matteo Ricci: what we know, what still needs investigating. In that respect, particularly worth the attention of the readers of the Journal of Chinese Religions are the contributions that focus on the religious and intellectual trends present in East Asia both in Ricci’s time and today. CATHERINE JAMI CNRS, Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, Paris FRANCIS KHEK GEE LIM, ed., Christianity in Contemporary China: Socio-Cultural Perspectives. Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy. London & New York: Routledge, 2013. xii, 265 pp. £85, US$145 (hb). ISBN 978-0-41552846 -7 Christianity in Contemporary China is an important addition to the academic literature on contemporary Chinese Christianity with a particular focus on social and cultural perspectives of the faith in China today. The book is comprised of a selection from papers presented at the eponymous conference held in 2011 in Singapore. Its sixteen chapters are organized around four broad themes with an unequal amount of contributions to each one. The themes are ‘‘enchantment,’’ ‘‘nation and history,’’ ‘‘civil society,’’ and ‘‘negotiating boundaries.’’ Contributors range from doctoral candidates to distinguished professors from a variety of 232 BOOK REVIEWS universities from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the United States, and Europe. Methodologically the chapters employ a mix of text analysis and interviews, with predominance of the latter where studies of contemporary churches are concerned. Some chapters provide broad conceptual insights, whereas others are based around very focused case studies of particular congregations in certain localities. As the editor puts it, ‘‘[the book’s] major contribution to scholarship lies in its wide range of empirical analyses of the complex and highly diverse experience of Christianity in contemporary China’’ (p. 2). Chinese Christianity has been trying to shake off its label as a ‘‘foreign religion’’ in China, used as a ‘‘tool of influence by western imperialists.’’ Yet the influence foreign missionaries have had not only on the creation of indigenous Chinese Christian groups, but also on the discourse on religion more generally is undeniable. It was the Christian missionaries—together with reformers and revolutionaries—who first introduced the ‘‘religious’’ as a separate category...