TU STUDENTS INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN FREE 8 NOVEMBER ZOOM WEBINAR ON CHRISTIANITY IN CHINESE SOCIETIES

Thammasat University students interested in China, comparative religion, sociology, anthropology, ethics, philosophy, theology, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 8 November Zoom webinar on Where Christians and Other Believers Meet: A Re-examination of Christianity in Chinese Societies.

The event, on Friday, 8 November 2024 at 2pm Bangkok time, is presented by the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Hong Kong University (HKU).

The TU Library collection includes several books about different aspects of Christianity in China.

Students are invited to register at this link:

https://asiar.hku.hk/event/where-christians-and-other-believers-meet/

For further information or with any questions, please write to

asiar@hku.hk

According to the event webpage:

ABSTRACT

It has been reported that Chinese societies (including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore) have high levels of religious diversity. It is imperative to locate Christianity in this diverse religious context in order to reexamine the role of Christianity in Chinese societies.

With reference to the ideas of common grace in Christian theologians Abraham Kuyper (Netherlands, 1837—1920) and of religious humility/relativity in Reinhold Niebuhr (USA, 1892—1971), this paper offers a theological and ethical analysis of Christians’ encounter with other believers in social and cultural life in Chinese societies.

Many Chinese Christians are wrestled with the issues of “toward the public” and “toward non-Christians.” Bearding this in mind, this paper proposes that Christians be realistic without imposition of “confessional bonds” for state and society, on the one hand, and Christians appreciate and be open to other believers’ virtues and efforts and thus work together towards progress and flourishing in various spheres of life, on the other.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Zhibin Xie received his Ph. D. from The University of Hong Kong. He is adjunct professor at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies, Hong Kong. He is a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton […]

The books by Professor Zhibin Xie are available to TU students through the TU Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.

Last year on the website of Boston University, an article was posted,What’s behind Boom of Christianity in China?

The article read in part:

Theology scholars and a global network of researchers are using big data to map religion’s history in China and explain its rapid growth

Over the past four decades, Christianity has grown faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Daryl Ireland, a Boston University School of Theology research assistant professor of mission, estimates that the Christian community there has grown from 1 million to 100 million. What led to that explosion, centuries after the first Christian missionaries arrived in China? The BU scholars behind the China Historical Christian Database aim to find out.

The project, which allows researchers to visualize the history of Christianity in modern China, links web-based visualization tools with a database packed with the names and locations of missionaries, churches, schools, hospitals, and publications. Hosted by BU’s Center for Global Christianity & Mission, the project launched in 2018 and version 2.0 of the database is scheduled for release in 2023. The new version will double the amount of data previously available, providing approximately four million data points—names, occupations, locations, dates, and more—spanning four centuries (1550–1950).

The database began as a relatively modest class project. Alex Mayfield (STH’21) charted early 20th-century Pentecostals in Hong Kong for a history class taught by Eugenio Menegon at the BU Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. When Mayfield mentioned his research to Ireland, the pair began thinking about how to expand the work—by several centuries and across China. Mayfield, Menegon, and Ireland are now the principal investigators for the China Historical Christian Database.

Ireland spoke with The Brink about how the database could help scholars understand the relationships between China and the Western world.

The Brink: What drew you to the study of Christianity in China?

Ireland: It has such a fascinating and complicated history. You can see the dynamics of Christianity and culture interacting in amazing ways. Sometimes, watching how Christianity becomes embodied in Chinese culture and society provides a mirror for reflecting on the ways in which Christianity in the United States has also shaped and been shaped by the American experience. And then I’m also fascinated that, over the last 40 years, Christianity has grown faster in China than any other place in the world. It’s gone from approximately 1 million Christians to around 100 million. This is just an incredible explosion. What set that up? That didn’t just come out of nowhere.

Why China and why Christianity—is there something about that convergence that’s conducive for a digital project?

The length of history—400 years—and the strong record keeping over that time period, both in European languages and in Chinese. We have the opportunity to view this interchange between two world systems from multiple levels, and that makes it really fascinating. We’re recording everything we can, from the relationships that missionaries developed in the 16th century to Mao Zedong and his early work for the YMCA. It’s an incredibly rich body of material and gives us a really good picture of the relationship between China and the West.

What is the data you’re collecting and where is it coming from?

Our objective is to map every Christian institution in China, whether it’s a church, school, hospital, publishing house, orphanage, or convent. Then we try to identify who worked inside them. We use all kinds of records and sources. One of the simple ones is a Protestant directory of Christian missionaries in China that was published annually in the 20th century. That gave us a rich source of names. Other times, we are looking through diaries, or the preface of a book written by a Chinese literati where he may thank the Christians who first introduced him to certain ideas. So, we draw on a wide variety of sources to put together social networks and spatial maps.

Are these sources available online or are you searching physical archives and libraries?

Both. We have been blessed to live in an age where so much has been digitized. But we’ve also had to digitize an enormous quantity of material, working with institutions around the globe to make it more accessible for our team members. While there are three project leaders, we’ve had over 100 students work on this project, and they are located on four continents.

What’s the ideal source for you?

Our dream document gives us maybe the names of people, where they were located, the years they were there, what they were doing—were they a doctor, a nurse, an evangelist?—and possibly some of the people they were connected to. Those are the five big things that we’re always searching for. We usually find about three of those five in documents, so there’s a lot of triangulation of our various data sources to build out the picture that we’re trying to make. We’ve never found the perfect document. […]

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)