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The Christian Faith in Chinese Culture

Confucius, the Buddha, and Christ by Ralph R. Covell
and
Confronting Confucian Understandings of the Christian Doctrine of Salvation: A Systematic Theological Analysis of the Basic Problems in the Confucian-Christian Dialogue by Paulos Huang
Reviewed by G. Wright Doyle

Covell traces the history of the gospel in China from the Nestorians up to about 1980 and ways in which foreign missionaries, and then Chinese Christians, tried to express the gospel in terms which were, or were not, readily accessible to the people they hoped to reach. Huang's aim is to explain how different types of Confucianists have understood, and responded to the Christian doctrine of salvation.

Measures, Counter-measures, and Filial Piety

The Chinese have a saying: "shang you zhengce, xia you duice." A fairly literal translation is "the top adopts measures and the bottom adopts counter-measures. A more colloquial way of putting it is "the leaders make the policies and the people find a way around them."

 

 

China’s New Confucianism

Daniel A. Bell, China's New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-691-13690-5; hardcover; 340 pages, including two appendices, notes, and bibliography.

Reviewed by G. Wright Doyle

Convergence or Divergence?

Japanese-American scholar Fukuyama introduced the notion of "the end of history," proporting that the world was now one and history should come to an end. Others have claimed that globalization has "leveled the playing field." And yet others view globalization quite differently. The real question is how we should view the changes in China's culture and its influence in light of the globalization of the economy during the last thirty years.