Rethinking the Writing of the General History of Chinese Christianity
Author: CHIN Ken Pa, Professor, School of Philosophy, Fu Jen Catholic University
Abstract:
A writing of general history represents a kind of delineation and evaluation of the development of history, interrogating what kinds of understanding and explanation are inevitably reflecting what kind of thought or political presumption of their time. The dissemination history of Christianity in China raises not only the problem of periodization, but also the phenomenon of distinct writing by Catholics and Protestants.
Undoubtedly, those works written in Chinese represent not only a kind of self-understanding, but also reflect the problems that existed within the historical record and how they were addressed, argued, and reevaluated. This paper investigates the problem of general historical writing on the history of Chinese Christianity and evaluates the different stances on Christianity in China by Catholic and Protestant writers. It focuses on histories of Christianity in China written by, or from, the perspective of Protestants, comments on their ideas of dissemination history and how they assess the beginning of Christianity in China, which relate to how we deal with and evaluate Catholic development in China.
Keywords:
Anti-Christian, Political Criticism, Christian Mission, Catholic and Protestant in China
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