Editor’s Note: This article revisits Gu Hongming’s The Spirit of the Chinese People to examine how Confucian culture and Christian faith are often compared—and at times conflated. While acknowledging areas of ethical resonance, the author carefully probes their fundamental differences and the dangers of cultural idolatry. At a moment when faith is frequently entangled with cultural and political identities, this reflection invites readers to consider how the gospel engages culture without being confined by it.
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This past summer, while reading The Spirit of the Chinese People by Gu Hongming, I was particularly struck by his comparison between Christianity and Confucianism. For many readers, Gu is remembered mainly for provocative anecdotes—such as his “one teapot, many teacups” analogy used to defend polygamy. Yet historically, Gu was a prominent modern Chinese scholar, translator, and thinker, deeply conversant with both Chinese classical learning and Western religion and philosophy.
Born in Penang in the British Straits Settlements, Gu studied at the University of Edinburgh, mastered several European languages, and later served as an aide to the late Qing statesman Zhang Zhidong. Living through a period marked by Western imperial aggression and profound cultural upheaval, he witnessed events such as the Opium Wars, the First World War, and the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance. His view of Western civilization was therefore shaped by both admiration and critique.
The Influence of Christianity on European Civilization
In The Spirit of the Chinese People, Gu does not reject Christianity outright. Rather, he situates it as a religion centered on personal salvation and closely tied to the moral foundations of European civilization.
Rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, Christianity emphasized faith in God and a hatred of injustice—elements Gu believed had once exerted a positive moral influence on Europe. Citing Jesus’ promise of peace not given by the world, Gu argued that Christianity offered humanity a sense of moral security and eternity.
At the same time, Gu observed that by the early twentieth century, Christianity in Europe was facing a crisis. Just as contemporary ideals of womanhood had drifted far from the biblical portrait in Proverbs 31, Christianity had lost its power to restrain human impulses. The devastation of the First World War, he argued, revealed that Christianity had ceased to function as a moral force, and Europe had reverted to maintaining order through violence.
Gu attributed this failure not to Christian doctrine itself, but to the practices of European Christians. He warned that in abandoning Jesus’s spirit of gentleness, compassion, and humility, Europeans had turned instead to the worship of power—culminating, in his view, in the grotesque brutality of German militarism.
A Comparison Between Christianity and Confucianism
The central aim of Gu’s book was to introduce Western readers to Chinese Confucian culture, which he regarded as “spiritually superior” to European Christian culture. While he refrained from criticizing Christian doctrine, Gu sharply criticized Christian culture and practice in order to highlight what he saw as the strengths of Confucianism.
Gu argued that Confucianism, as a “state religion” grounded in the belief that human nature is inherently good, could cultivate moral virtue from within, without reliance on external coercion. Christianity, by contrast, he viewed as rooted in an assumption of human sinfulness. Confucianism, he claimed, was a social religion that formed not only good individuals but good citizens. Christianity might satisfy the heart, he argued, but not the intellect; therefore, Gu’s conclusion was Chinese people did not need it.
At the ethical level, Gu identified numerous parallels between Confucianism and Christianity. Concepts such as the Mandate of Heaven, the way of the noble person, and Confucian ren (benevolent love) were, in his view, comparable to the Word of God, the law of the Spirit, and Christian godliness. He also noted similarities between Confucian social ethics—such as ruler–subject, parent–child, and husband–wife relationships—and biblical teachings on authority, family, and marriage.
Reconsidering the Relationship Between Christian Faith and Confucian Culture
Gu’s critique of European Christian practice contains genuine insight. Yet his confidence in Confucian culture also reveals significant blind spots. As a Chinese follower of Christ, while I do not share all of Gu’s conclusions, I believe his reflections invite deeper theological discernment regarding the relationship between Christian faith and Chinese culture.
Drawing on pastor and theologian Timothy Keller’s framework for Christian cultural engagement, three principles are especially helpful: affirming common grace, resisting idolatry, and recognizing that faith transcends culture.
1. Affirming Common Grace
Christians should not treat Confucian culture as inherently hostile or evil. God’s common grace extends to all people, and the ethical insights Gu observed within Confucianism may rightly be understood as expressions of that grace.This recognition also provides valuable cultural entry points for sharing the gospel with those shaped by Confucian thought.
At the same time, Gu’s critique of Christian fascination with power and violence remains a sobering warning. As Keller notes, the doctrine of sin means believers are never as good as they should be, while the doctrine of common grace means nonbelievers are never as bad as their false worldviews suggest.
2. Resisting Idolatry
Keller famously describes the human heart as an “idol factory.” Any cultural system that is elevated to ultimate authority becomes an idol. Gu’s portrayal of Confucianism often romanticizes its history, overlooking how it was distorted into a state ideology that justified oppression and harmful practices. By idealizing Confucian culture as a universal remedy, Gu himself risks falling into cultural idolatry.
This cautions Chinese Christians today against elevating Confucianism to a status equal to Christian faith, sliding into syncretism and diluting the gospel. Ethical similarities must not obscure essential differences. Christianity is God-centered, grounded in the gospel of Christ and oriented toward eternal life; Confucianism is human-centered, focused on moral self-cultivation within this world.
3. Faith Transcends Culture
Christian faith transcends all cultures—Chinese, Western, or American.
Gu regarded Christianity as a Western cultural product and therefore untransplantable to China. Scripture, however, proclaims a gospel prepared for all nations and peoples. As Keller observes, the gospel transcends culture because it addresses the universal human condition of lostness and restoration.
This perspective guards against both the idolization of Chinese culture and the uncritical exaltation of Western culture. In today’s polarized political climate, some churches have embraced forms of Christian nationalism in the name of cultural warfare. Such confusion between faith and culture distorts the gospel. No culture or political ideology can be equated with Christian truth. Jesus’s words—“My kingdom is not of this world”—remain a vital reminder for the church today.
The original Chinese version is published here and is translated and edited by the ChinaSource team with permission.
