Missionary Approaches and Linguistics in Mainland China and Taiwan

Book excerpt: This book offers a series of attempts at analyzing the place of Christianity in traditional Chinese society from the different sociological, historical, theological and philological approaches. It is based on papers and discussions from the sixth international conference on Church activities in Qing and early Republican China (Verbiest Foundation, Leuven, 1998). Scholars like von Collani, Criveller, Walravens and Wiest established already a well-deserved reputation with a series of previous publications in the field. Their articles in this volume on the position of women in the Chinese Catholic community, the shifting Jesuit methodology, Jesuit apologetics and the direct sources of the Qiqi tushou are fine examples of fundamental research. Equally interesting are the papers of the scholars Heuschert-Laage, Kollmar-Paulenz, Pang and Stary. They throw an interesting light on the Manchu-Mongolian aspect of the history of the Chinese Catholic Church. Special attention must also be given to the studies on Taiwan by Borao, Heylen and Heyns. Taiwan is a region relatively unknown to the Western sinological public. From the Church historian's point of view however it is a highly interesting place because it was the first place in the Chines world where Protestantism and Catholicism coexisted. The historical framework of the studies in this volume is mainly the seventeenth century. Although this volume is not a comprehensive treatment of the Christian mission in Ming and Qing China, it brings together studies that illuminate the manner in which the Christian missionaries--Protestants and Catholics alike--developed different methods to realize their communal ideal of "the Kingdom of God on Earth".