ubuntu2004
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>12<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"3xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"4xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"5article-type="research-article"6dtd-version="1.0"7xml:lang="en">8<front>9<journal-meta>10<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">jreligion</journal-id>11<journal-id journal-id-type="ucp-id">JR</journal-id>12<journal-title-group>13<journal-title>The Journal of Religion</journal-title>14</journal-title-group>15<publisher>16<publisher-name>University of Chicago Press</publisher-name>17</publisher>18<issn pub-type="ppub">00224189</issn>19<issn pub-type="epub">15496538</issn>20<custom-meta-group/>21</journal-meta>22<article-meta>23<article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">JR1547</article-id>24<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1086/658109</article-id>25<title-group>26<article-title>Rewriting Jesus in Republican China: Religion, Literature, and Cultural Nationalism<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn65">*</xref>27</article-title>28</title-group>29<contrib-group>30<contrib contrib-type="author" rid="af1" xlink:type="simple">31<string-name>32<given-names>Zhange</given-names>33<x xml:space="preserve"> </x>34<surname>Ni</surname>35</string-name>36</contrib>37<aff id="af1">Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University</aff>38</contrib-group>39<pub-date pub-type="ppub">40<day>01</day>41<month>04</month>42<year>2011</year>43<string-date>April 2011</string-date>44</pub-date>45<volume>91</volume>46<issue>2</issue>47<issue-id>658240</issue-id>48<fpage>223</fpage>49<lpage>252</lpage>50<permissions>51<copyright-statement>© 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.</copyright-statement>52<copyright-year>2011</copyright-year>53<copyright-holder>The University of Chicago.</copyright-holder>54</permissions>55<self-uri xlink:href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658109"/>56<custom-meta-group>57<custom-meta>58<meta-name>lang</meta-name>59<meta-value>en</meta-value>60</custom-meta>61</custom-meta-group>62</article-meta>63</front>64<back>65<fn-group>66<fn id="fn65">67<label>*</label>68<p>I am grateful to Anthony Yu, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Yuhong Zhu, Huaiyu Chen, Brian Britt, and the two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this article.</p>69</fn>70<fn id="fn1">71<label>72<sup>1</sup>73</label>74<p>Cai Yuanpei, “Lun meiyu dai zongjiao” [On replacing religion with aesthetic education], <italic>Xin qingnian</italic> [New Youth] 3, no. 6 (August 1917). Quoted in Zhang Qinshi, ed., <italic>Guonei jin shinian lai zhi zongjiao sichao</italic> [Religious thoughts in the recent ten years in China] (Peking: Yanjing Huawen Xuexiao Press, 1927), 1–9.</p>75</fn>76<fn id="fn2">77<label>78<sup>2</sup>79</label>80<p>Hu Shi, “Buxiu—wo de zongjiao” [Immortality: My religion], <italic>Xin qingnian</italic> [New Youth] 6, no. 2 (February 1919). Quoted in Zhang, <italic>Guonei jin shinian lai zhi zongjiao sichao</italic>, 9–22.</p>81</fn>82<fn id="fn3">83<label>84<sup>3</sup>85</label>86<p>For instance, philosopher Liu Boming questioned the “secular” nature of Cai’s aesthetic culture if it played the social and spiritual functions once attributed to religion; see “Zongjiao wenti jiangyan zhiwu” [Lecture five on the problem of religion], <italic>Shaonian Zhongguo</italic> [Young China] 2, no. 11 (May 1921). Quoted in Zhang, <italic>Guonei jin shinian lai zhi zongjiao sichao</italic>, 136–46.</p>87</fn>88<fn id="fn4">89<label>90<sup>4</sup>91</label>92<p>Zhou Zuoren, “Zongjiao wenti” [Problem of religion], <italic>Shaonian Zhongguo</italic> [Young China] 2, no. 11 (May 1921): 6–9.</p>93</fn>94<fn id="fn5">95<label>96<sup>5</sup>97</label>98<p>Tian Han, “Shaonian zhongguo yu zongjiao wenti” [Young China and the problem of religion], <italic>Shaonian Zhongguo</italic> [Young China] 2, no. 8 (February 1921). Quoted in Zhang, <italic>Guonei jin shinian lai zhi zongjiao sichao</italic>, 51–8. In his article “Jidujiao yu zhongguoren” [Christianity and the Chinese people], Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) proclaimed that Christianity was a religion of faith and love and capable of saving the Chinese people from cruelty, darkness, and depravity; see <italic>New Youth</italic> 7, no. 3 (March 1920). Quoted in Zhang, <italic>Guonei jin shinian lai zhi zongjiao sichao</italic>, 37–51.</p>99</fn>100<fn id="fn6">101<label>102<sup>6</sup>103</label>104<p>The definitions and evaluations of religion in late Imperial and early Republican China, with real social, political, and cultural consequences, are highly controversial and beyond the limited scope of this article. When I use the term “religion” to refer to Christianity, I do not mean to subscribe to and reinscribe the Western hegemony that claims Christianity as the model of religion. I aim to emphasize that Christianity is only one particular religion and a marginalized one in China, although the hegemony of the Christian model over the non-Western world is irrefutable. Since the principal concern of my article is the confluence of Christianity and literature in modern China, I do not cover the influence of other religions (e.g., Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) on literature. However, this is not to suggest that I take Christianity as the only religion that has had its impact on modern Chinese literature.</p>105</fn>106<fn id="fn7">107<label>108<sup>7</sup>109</label>110<p>Marxist historiographies of literature identify the depoliticized aesthetic sphere as the site for new mystifications favored by the bourgeois elite. See Talal Asad, “Ethnography, Literature, and Politics: Some Readings and Uses of Salman Rushdie’s <italic>Satanic Verses</italic>,” in <italic>Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam</italic> (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Raymond Williams, <italic>Culture and Society: 1780–1950</italic> (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); and Terry Eagleton, <italic>The Idea of Culture</italic> (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).</p>111</fn>112<fn id="fn8">113<label>114<sup>8</sup>115</label>116<p>For a summary of the decline and reconstruction accounts, see William R. McKelvy, “Orthodox Narratives of Literary Sacralization,” chap. 1 in <italic>The English Cult of Literature: Devoted Readers, 1774–1880</italic> (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2007). He named M. H. Abrams, Northrop Frye, and David Jaspers as representative of reconstructionists. For a discussion of the “Religion of Art” phenomenon of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Theodore Ziolkowski, <italic>Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief</italic> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 53–82.</p>117</fn>118<fn id="fn9">119<label>120<sup>9</sup>121</label>122<p>See William R. McKelvy, <italic>The English Cult of Literature</italic>; M. Martin Guiney, <italic>Teaching the Cult of Literature in the French Third Republic</italic> (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, <italic>The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism</italic> (New York: SUNY Press, 1988); Constantin Behler, <italic>Nostalgic Teleology: Friedrich Schiller and the Schemata of Aesthetic Humanism</italic> (New York: Peter Lang, 1995); Marc Redfield, <italic>The Politics of Aesthetics: Nationalism, Gender, and Romanticism</italic> (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). William R. McKelvy studied the intertwined transformation of literary and religious authorities within the political context of the secularization of the state and argued that modern literary authority developed in dialogue with a politically reconfigured religious authority. According to M. Martin Guiney, during the French Third Republic, literary pedagogy operated to “eliminate the distance between religion and nation, Scripture and literature, not so as to discredit Scripture and the institutions that arise from it, but rather to accredit literature and the state” (8). Scholars of German Romanticism and nationalism have also revealed how the “religion within the limits of art” of the Schlegel brothers and the aesthetic education as a surrogate religion proposed by Schiller evolved to function as ideologies organizing social-political powers of the modern nation-state.</p>123</fn>124<fn id="fn10">125<label>126<sup>10</sup>127</label>128<p>Anthony D. Smith, <italic>Nationalism and Modernism</italic> (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 24.</p>129</fn>130<fn id="fn11">131<label>132<sup>11</sup>133</label>134<p>John Hutchinson, <italic>The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism</italic> (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987); David Aberbach, <italic>Jewish Cultural Nationalism: Origins and Influences</italic> (London and New York: Routledge, 2008). For a more concentrated study on the role played by artists, see John Hutchinson and David Aberbach, “The Artist as Nation-Builder: William Butler Yeats and Chaim Nachman Bialik,” <italic>Nations and Nationalism</italic> 5, no. 4 (1999): 501–22.</p>135</fn>136<fn id="fn12">137<label>138<sup>12</sup>139</label>140<p>Zhang Qinshi, ed., <italic>Jin shinian lai guonei zongjiao sichao</italic> [Religious thoughts of the recent ten years in China] (Peking: Yanjing Huawen Xuexiao Press, 1927), preface.</p>141</fn>142<fn id="fn13">143<label>144<sup>13</sup>145</label>146<p>Scholars of Chinese nationalism or nationalism in Asia have emphasized the distinction between political nationalism and cultural nationalism and produced inspiring works on the latter; see Partha Chatterjee, <italic>Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse</italic> (London: Zed, 1986); Yumiko Iida, <italic>Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan: Nationalism as Aesthetics</italic> (London and New York: Routledge, 2002); Michael Edson Robinson, <italic>Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920–1925</italic> (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988); and Rebecca E. Karl, <italic>Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century</italic> (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2002).</p>147</fn>148<fn id="fn14">149<label>150<sup>14</sup>151</label>152<p>For detailed accounts and in-depth analyses of the New Culture Movement, synonymous with the May Fourth Movement, see Chow Tse-tung, <italic>The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China</italic> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Benjamin I. Schwartz, “Themes in Intellectual History: May Fourth and After,” in <italic>Cambridge History of China, </italic>vol. 12, pt. 1: <italic>Republican China, 1912–1949</italic>, ed. John King Fairbank and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 406–504; Vera Schwarcz, <italic>The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919</italic> (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1986); Li Zehou, “Qimeng yu jiuwang de shuangchong bianze” [The dual variation of enlightenment and salvation], in <italic>Zhongguo xiandai sixiangshi lun</italic> [On modern Chinese intellectual history] (Beijing: Dongfang Press, 1987); Chen Pingyuan, <italic>Chumo lishi yu jinru wusi</italic> [Touching history and entering May-Fourth] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005).</p>153</fn>154<fn id="fn15">155<label>156<sup>15</sup>157</label>158<p>Schwarcz, <italic>The Chinese Enlightenment</italic>, 1.</p>159</fn>160<fn id="fn16">161<label>162<sup>16</sup>163</label>164<p>Only in scholarly works that dealt with the Anti-Christian Movement and Christian indigenization was the religion debate mentioned, as the intellectual prerequisite and preparation for the social movements (whether secularist or Christian) to come. See Ka-che Yip, <italic>Religion, Nationalism and Chinese Students: The Anti-Christian Movement of 1922–1927</italic> (Bellingham: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1980); Jessie Gregory Lutz, <italic>Chinese Politics and Christian Missions: The Anti-Christian Movements of 1920–28</italic> (Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publications, 1988); Yang Tianhong, <italic>Jidujiao yu minguo zhishifenzi: 1922–27nian zhongguo feijidujiao yundong yanjiu</italic> [Christianity and intellectuals of the Republican era: A study of the Chinese Anti-Christian Movement, 1922–27] (Beijing: Renmin Press, 2005); Duan Qi, <italic>Fenjin de licheng: zhongguo jidujiao de bensehua</italic> [An aspiring progress: The indigenization of Christianity in China] (Beijing: Shangwu yinsuguan, 2004). Chen His-yuan touched upon the religion debate and Anti-Christian Movement in his study of the encounter between Confucianism and the Western discourse of “religion”; see <italic>Confucianism Encounters Religion: The Formation of Religious Discourse and the Confucian Movement in China</italic> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).</p>165</fn>166<fn id="fn17">167<label>168<sup>17</sup>169</label>170<p>For their respective perspectives and positions, see Yang Tianhong, <italic>Christianity and Intellectuals of the Republican Era</italic>.</p>171</fn>172<fn id="fn18">173<label>174<sup>18</sup>175</label>176<p>For the relationship between Chinese religions and modern state formation, see Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, ed., <italic>Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation</italic> (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, ed., <italic>Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China</italic> (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009); Rebecca Nedostup, <italic>Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity</italic> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).</p>177</fn>178<fn id="fn19">179<label>180<sup>19</sup>181</label>182<p>Cai published a whole series of articles on his social ideal of aesthetic education; see <italic>Cai Yuanpei meixue wenxuan</italic> [Collected essays on aesthetics by Cai Yuanpei] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1983); and Gao Pingshu, ed., <italic>Cai Yuanpei jiaoyu wenxuan</italic> [Collected essays on education by Cai Yuanpei] (Beijing: Renminjiaoyu Press, 1980). For a summary account of his vision, as well as practice of educational reform, see Huang Zhaoheng, <italic>Yidairenshi: Cai Yuanpei zhuan</italic> [A teacher of his generation: Biography of Cai Yuanpei] (Taipei: Jindaizhongguo Press, 1982).</p>183</fn>184<fn id="fn20">185<label>186<sup>20</sup>187</label>188<p>For a biography of Tian Han, see Li Hui, <italic>Tian Han: Kuangbiao zhong luoye fanfei</italic> [Tian Han: Fallen leaves in the storm] (Zhengzhou: Daxiang Press, 2002).</p>189</fn>190<fn id="fn21">191<label>192<sup>21</sup>193</label>194<p>See Edwin M. Moseley, <italic>Pseudonyms of Christ in the Modern Novel: Motifs and Methods</italic> (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963); Theodore Ziolkowski, <italic>Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus</italic> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972); Thomas J. J. Altizer, <italic>The Contemporary Jesus</italic> (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997); Peggy Rosenthal, <italic>The Poets’ Jesus: Representations at the End of the Millennium</italic> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Paul C. Burns, ed., <italic>Jesus in Twentieth-Century Literature, Art, and Movies</italic> (New York: Continuum, 2007).</p>195</fn>196<fn id="fn22">197<label>198<sup>22</sup>199</label>200<p>201<italic>The Chinese Faces of Jesus Christ</italic>, the third volume belonging to the ongoing Monument Serica Monograph Series on the history of Christianity in China, has just begun to venture into this virgin land. Covering the first half of the twentieth century, this collection of essays and translated primary sources introduces missionary activities, Christian indigenization efforts, and Chinese literati’s views on Jesus. See Roman Malek, ed., <italic>The Chinese Faces of Jesus Christ</italic>, vol. 3a (Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica and China-Zentrum, 2005).</p>202</fn>203<fn id="fn23">204<label>205<sup>23</sup>206</label>207<p>See Wang Benchao, “The Image of Jesus in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature,” chap. 17 in <italic>Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Christian Culture</italic> [Ershi shijie zhongguo wenxue yu jidujiao wenhua] (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000); Zhu Yuhong, “Rewriting Foreign Texts,” chap. 4 in “On Rewriting as a Fictional Type in Modern China” [Lun zhongguo xiandai chongxie xing xiaoshuo] (unpublished diss., Peking University, 2008).</p>208</fn>209<fn id="fn24">210<label>211<sup>24</sup>212</label>213<p>For scholarship on the Anti-Christian Movement, see Yip 1980; Lutz 1988; Young 2005; and Ye Renchang, <italic>Wusi yihou de fandui jidujiao yundong</italic> [The Anti-Christian Movement after May-Fourth] (Taipei: Jiudawenhua, 1992). On Christian indigenization, see Duan, <italic>Fenjin de licheng: zhongguo jidujiao de bensehua</italic> [An aspiring progress: The indigenization of Christianity in China]; Lin Zhiping, <italic>Jidujiao yu zhongguo bensehua</italic> [Christianity and indigenization in China] (Taipei: Yuzhouguang, 1988), and <italic>Jidujiao yu zhongguo xiandaihua</italic> [Christianity and modernization in China] (Taipei: Yuzhouguang, 1994); Zhang Xiping and Zhuo Xinping, ed., <italic>Bense zhi tan—ershi shiji zhongguo jidujiao wenhua xueshu lunji</italic> [Explorations of indigenization—collections of scholarship on twentieth-century Chinese Christian culture] (Beijing: Guangbodianshi Press, 1999).</p>214</fn>215<fn id="fn25">216<label>217<sup>25</sup>218</label>219<p>In her dissertation “Old Tales Retold: Contemporary Chinese Fiction and Classical Tradition” (Columbia University, 2000), Ann Louise Huss studied the dynamic interaction between traditional tales and their retold versions and highlighted the importance and function of classical literature within the modern literary tradition, the central problem of which was modernization. Zhu Yuhong’s 2008 dissertation, “On Rewriting as a Fictional Type in Modern China,” argued that fictional rewriting was informed by the epistemological transformation embodied in the New Culture Movement and paid attention to the retelling of traditional tales that were of non-Chinese origin, such as Greek mythology and biblical stories.</p>220</fn>221<fn id="fn26">222<label>223<sup>26</sup>224</label>225<p>For a complete list of the publication information of “Retold Tales,” see the appendix of Zhu’s dissertation, “On Rewriting as a Fictional Type in Modern China,” 318–30.</p>226</fn>227<fn id="fn27">228<label>229<sup>27</sup>230</label>231<p>See Chen Huaiyu, “Minsu xue yu guomin xing” [Folklore studies and national identity], chap. 9 in <italic>Jindai zongjiao guanxi yu renwen sixiang</italic> [Modern religious relations and humanistic thoughts] (Shanghai: Renmin Press, forthcoming).</p>232</fn>233<fn id="fn28">234<label>235<sup>28</sup>236</label>237<p>See Xu Yanping, <italic>Hu Shi yu zhengli guogu kao lun</italic> [On Hu Shi and rearranging the national heritage] (Hefei: Anhuijiaoyu Press, 2003); Lu Yi, <italic>Zhengli guogu yu xiandai zhongguo xueshu zhuanxing</italic> [Rearranging the national heritage and the paradigm shift in modern Chinese scholarship] (Beijing: Zhongyangdangxiao Press, 2008).</p>238</fn>239<fn id="fn29">240<label>241<sup>29</sup>242</label>243<p>Benjamin I. Schwartz, “Themes in Intellectual History: May Fourth and After,” 422.</p>244</fn>245<fn id="fn30">246<label>247<sup>30</sup>248</label>249<p>See Cai Yuanpei, “Dui xinjiaoyu zhi yijian” [Suggestions regarding the principles of new education], in <italic>Cai Yuanpei Quanji</italic> [Complete works of Cai Yuanpei], ed. Gao Pingshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 130–37. Hu Shi, “Wo de xinyang” [My belief] and “Buxiu: wo de zongjiao” [Immortality: My religion], in <italic>Hu Shi wenji</italic> [Collected writings of Hu Shi], ed. Ouyang Zhesheng (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1998), 1:3–24; 2:525–32.</p>250</fn>251<fn id="fn31">252<label>253<sup>31</sup>254</label>255<p>See Leo Ou-Fan Lee, “Literary Trends I: The Quest for Modernity, 1895–1927,” in Fairbank and Twitchett, <italic>Cambridge History of China: Republican China, 1912–1949</italic>, vol. 12, pt. 1.</p>256</fn>257<fn id="fn32">258<label>259<sup>32</sup>260</label>261<p>Hu Shi, “Immortality: My Religion,” 532. All translations from the original Chinese texts in this essay are mine.</p>262</fn>263<fn id="fn33">264<label>265<sup>33</sup>266</label>267<p>Smith, <italic>Nationalism and Modernism</italic>, 98. Smith revisited and elaborated this thesis in <italic>Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach</italic> (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).</p>268</fn>269<fn id="fn34">270<label>271<sup>34</sup>272</label>273<p>Lu Xun, <italic>Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilve</italic> [A short history of Chinese fiction] (Beijing: Renminwenxue Press, 2005).</p>274</fn>275<fn id="fn35">276<label>277<sup>35</sup>278</label>279<p>The Chinese scholarly investigation into the relationship between Christianity and modern Chinese literature was initiated in the 1990s and has been producing a considerable amount of articles and monographs. Their engagement with literature is inadequate in that they have hardly ever looked beyond established literary figures or attempted to challenge accepted readings in literary history. Moreover, Christianity is more often than not reduced to either a mere cultural presence, that is, the Bible as literature, or an essentialized form of personal faith dwelling within the kernel of literature. Despite these shortcomings, they succeeded in retrieving the close contact between modern Chinese writers and Christianity and the Christian influences on modern Chinese literature. See Ma Jia, <italic>Shizijia xia de paihuai: jidu zongjiao wenhua yu zhongguo xiandai wenxue</italic> [Wandering under the cross: Christian culture and modern Chinese literature] (Beijing: Xuelin Press, 1995); Yang Jianlong, <italic>Kuanghe de hushing: zhongguo xiandai zuojia yu jidujiao wenhua</italic> [Calling in the wilderness: Modern Chinese writers and Christian culture] (Shanghai: Shanghaijiaoyu Press, 1998); Wang Benchao, <italic>Ershi shiji zhongguo wenxue yu jidujiao wenhua</italic> [Twentieth-century Chinese literature and Christian culture] (Hebei, China: Anhuijiaoyu Press, 2000); Xu Zhenglin, <italic>Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yu jidujiao</italic> [Modern Chinese literature and Christianity] (Shanghai: Shanghai University Press, 2003); Yu Tianshu, <italic>Wusi wenxue sixiang zhuliu yu jidujiao wenhua</italic> [Mainstream of May-Fourth literature and thought and Christian culture] (Beijing: Kunlun Press, 2003); Liu Lixia, <italic>Zhongguo jidujiao wenxue de lishi cunzai</italic> [The historical presence of Chinese Christian literature] (Beijing: Shekewenxian Press, 2006).</p>280</fn>281<fn id="fn36">282<label>283<sup>36</sup>284</label>285<p>For instance, writers such as Lao She (1899–1966), Bing Xin (1900–1999), Xu Dishan (1893–1941), and Su Xuelin (1897–2003) were baptized Christians, although literary scholars in the past hardly paid any attention to their Christian background. In addition to Zhou Zuoren and Tian Han, who defended religion in the name of literature, renowned New Culture writers such as Lu Xun (1881–1936), Guo Moruo (1892–1978), and Ba Jin (1904–2005) were all interested in Christianity via the mediation of Western literature.</p>286</fn>287<fn id="fn37">288<label>289<sup>37</sup>290</label>291<p>See Zhang Kaiwen, “Jiaohui yu xinsichao” [Church and new thoughts], in <italic>Zhonghua jidujiaohui nianjian</italic> [Annual report of Chinese Christian churches], vol. 6 (1921), and Xu Baoqian, “Jidujiao yu xinsichao” [Christianity and new thoughts], in <italic>Shengming yuekan</italic> [Life monthly], vol. 1 (September 1920). For summary and interpretation of the Christian response to the New Culture Movement, see Duan, “New Culture Movement, Its Impact on Christianity in China, and Influence on Christian Indigenization,” chap. 5 in <italic>Fenjin de licheng: zhongguo jidujiao de bensehua</italic> [An aspiring progress: The indigenization of Christianity in China], 151–96.</p>292</fn>293<fn id="fn38">294<label>295<sup>38</sup>296</label>297<p>This article was originally published in the special issue of <italic>Yuhua News</italic>, January 1924.</p>298</fn>299<fn id="fn39">300<label>301<sup>39</sup>302</label>303<p>The liberal and even radical position adopted by Liu and Zhao was neither marginal nor dominant in the Chinese Christian community. On the one hand, their arguments and claims were eagerly embraced and supported by a large number of Chinese Christians who were open to the social changes called for by the New Culture Movement and shared with non-Christian Chinese the concern for and devotion to their nation. On the other hand, we cannot neglect the aspirations and activities of the conservative and even fundamentalist side of Christianity in China, one that valued an orthodox Christian identity over the Chinese one.</p>304</fn>305<fn id="fn40">306<label>307<sup>40</sup>308</label>309<p>On May 4, 1919, Chinese students demonstrated to protest the insults suffered by China upon the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which placed the Shandong province under the control of the Japanese instead of the defeated Germans. This incident marked the shift from cultural activities back to political mobilization in the nationalist project. But the pursuit of culture did not die down under the new circumstance characterized by party politics. The extremely complicated relationship between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was intricately bound up with the involvement of both parties in the Anti-Christian Movement. This is the central argument of Yang Tianhong’s book <italic>Christianity and Intellectuals of the Republican Era</italic>. The May Thirtieth incident in 1925 saw the further surge of nationalism. British police killed thirteen labor demonstrators in Shanghai and incurred a nationwide tide of anti-imperialist sentiment that formalized into strikes and demonstrations. The CCP experienced rapid growth in the wake of the May Thirtieth incident. Christian indigenization, originally a response to the May Fourth incident under discussion and planning, was put into full practice at the height of nationalist fervor unleashed by May Thirtieth.</p>310</fn>311<fn id="fn41">312<label>313<sup>41</sup>314</label>315<p>For a historical survey of this literary society, see Wang Chengmian, <italic>Wenshe de shengshuai</italic> [The rise and fall of literary society] (Taipei: Yuzhouguang Press, 1993). For information on similar organizations and publications such as “Jing Society,” <italic>Life Monthly</italic>, <italic>Truth Weekly</italic>, <italic>Life and Truth</italic>, and <italic>True Light</italic>, see Duan, <italic>Fenjin de licheng: zhongguo jidujiao de bensehua</italic> [An aspiring progress: The indigenization of Christianity in China], chap. 6, “Feijidujiao yungdong yu jidujiao” [Anti-Christian Movement and Christianity], chap. 7, “Zhongguo jidujiao quanguo dahui (1922 yuan)” [The 1922 National Conference of Chinese Christianity], chap. 8, “Shouhui jiaoyu quan yu jidujiao” [Reclaiming the educational rights and Christianity], and chap. 9, “Wusa yudong yu beifa shiqi de zhongguo jidujiao” [The May Thirtieth Movement and Chinese Christianity during the Northern Expedition period].</p>316</fn>317<fn id="fn42">318<label>319<sup>42</sup>320</label>321<p>For the role played by the Social Gospel Movement in China, see Jun Xing, <italic>Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China, 1919–1937</italic> (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1996); Robert D. Schildgen, <italic>Toyohiko Kagawa: An Apostle of Love and Social Justice</italic> (Berkeley: Centenary Books, 1988); and Liu Jiafeng and Liu Li, “Jidujiao shehuizhuyi zai jindai zhongguo de chuanbo yu yingxiang” [The spread and influence of Christian socialism in modern China], <italic>Zongjiaoxue yanjiu</italic> [The study of religion] 3 (2009): 104–12. Christian socialist narratives that rewrote Jesus are W. T. Stead’s <italic>If Christ Came to Chicago</italic> (1894) and Charles Monroe Sheldon’s <italic>In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?</italic> (1896), among many others. For a literary reading of these interesting texts, see Ziolkowski’s <italic>Fictional Transfiguration of Jesus</italic>.</p>322</fn>323<fn id="fn43">324<label>325<sup>43</sup>326</label>327<p>Ziolkowski identifies five types of writing involving or inspired by Jesus, namely, the fictionalizing biography, the Jesus redivivus, the imitatio Christi, the pseudonyms of Christ, and the fictional transfiguration of Jesus. These categories, although not without considerable overlapping, are distinct in the sense that the fictionalizing biography works on the historical figure of Jesus, the Jesus redivivus refers to stories in which the historical Jesus miraculously appears in the modern world, whereas the fictional transfiguration introduces a modern hero, whose action is specifically based on the life of the historical Jesus as depicted in the Gospels. By contrast, the imitatio Christi and the pseudonyms of Christ are loosely inspired by the conception of the kerygmatic Christ as it has evolved in Christian faith. See Ziolkowski, <italic>Fictional Transfiguration of Jesus</italic>.</p>328</fn>329<fn id="fn44">330<label>331<sup>44</sup>332</label>333<p>It is interesting to note that Confucius received a less favorable treatment under the hands of fictional (re)writers. No longer revered as the sage, he was caricatured as a human being with various weaknesses and shortcomings at worst, and at best depicted as a tragic hero unable to fulfill his obligations and aspirations. This vividly attests to the iconoclastic attitude of New Culture intellectuals toward the traditional Confucian culture. However, when Christianity was critiqued in China, it was posited as in contradistinction to modern Western culture and Chinese Confucian culture, both of which were hailed for their rationality and humanism. Hence, in order to introduce Jesus to ordinary Chinese people, Christian writers portrayed him as both in the post-Enlightenment model and a perfect embodiment of Confucian virtues, even though those virtues were ruthlessly deconstructed by the New Culture mainstream. Here we have another illustration of the internal ambiguities of the New Culture Movement.</p>334</fn>335<fn id="fn45">336<label>337<sup>45</sup>338</label>339<p>Zhao Zichen, <italic>Yesu zhuan</italic> [Life of Jesus] (Shanghai: Shehuikexueyuan Chubanshe, 1988), 127.</p>340</fn>341<fn id="fn46">342<label>343<sup>46</sup>344</label>345<p>Ibid., 27.</p>346</fn>347<fn id="fn47">348<label>349<sup>47</sup>350</label>351<p>Ibid.</p>352</fn>353<fn id="fn48">354<label>355<sup>48</sup>356</label>357<p>Ibid., 85.</p>358</fn>359<fn id="fn49">360<label>361<sup>49</sup>362</label>363<p>Ibid., 67.</p>364</fn>365<fn id="fn50">366<label>367<sup>50</sup>368</label>369<p>It is to be specified that Zhao Zichen endorsed Richard Niebuhr’s Christ-above-culture model. Although he emphasized the humanity and morality of Jesus, what became increasingly prominent in his later theology was the stress on the transcendence of Jesus and its role in the ultimate redemption of human culture. See Tang Xiaofeng, <italic>Zhao Zichen shexue sixiang yanjiu</italic> [A study of Zhao Zichen’s theological thought] (Beijing: Zongjiaowenhua Press, 2006). By contrast, Zhang Shizhang the Christian socialist believed in the consummation of the Christian ideal within the human world through social revolution and sided himself with more radical theologians such as Wu Leichuan (1870–1944) and Wu Yaozong (1893–1979). However, both liberals such as Zhao and radicals stood in conflict with the fundamentalist wing of Chinese Christians. When beyond the Christian realm, New Culture writers invoked divinity only in a metaphorical sense if they resorted to it at all.</p>370</fn>371<fn id="fn51">372<label>373<sup>51</sup>374</label>375<p>“Loyalty is belief in God; forgiveness is trust in humans. There is no belief in God without loyalty; there is no trust in humans without forgiveness. The reason is that the reality of God is assured in our loyalty to God; while the goodness of humans is guaranteed in our forgiveness of humans” (Zichen, <italic>Life of Jesus</italic>, 99).</p>376</fn>377<fn id="fn52">378<label>379<sup>52</sup>380</label>381<p>Ibid., 173.</p>382</fn>383<fn id="fn53">384<label>385<sup>53</sup>386</label>387<p>This line of interpretation resonates with the anti-imperial readings of the New Testament record of the last decade. For instance, Richard A. Horsley questioned the individualistic and depoliticized depiction of Jesus and portrayed Jesus as a resistance leader who challenged the Roman empire; see <italic>Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder</italic> (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).</p>388</fn>389<fn id="fn54">390<label>391<sup>54</sup>392</label>393<p>Zhao Zichen’s theological vision claimed national salvation as its agenda but warily kept distance from nationalism or direct involvement in politics. His <italic>Life of Jesus</italic>, unlike the other texts, emphasized the transcendence of the Kingdom. However, here I am not concerned with evaluating the orthodoxy or authenticity of the Christian vision as embodied in these Jesus narratives. On the contrary, I am interested in how they attested to the very transformation and reconstruction of Christianity in China as intertwined with other discourses and movements under the overall rubric of national salvation and renaissance. This process of interaction and negotiation generated a spectrum of perspectives and positions. For instance, although these writers all strove for the vision of national salvation in their writing, some of them did harbor doubts regarding nationalism as narrowly defined, that is, to place the interest of the nation above that of the working class. In this regard, Mao Dun the Communist critiqued the rise of nationalism as a deviation from the true revolutionary cause of the oppressed classes.</p>394</fn>395<fn id="fn55">396<label>397<sup>55</sup>398</label>399<p>Zhang Shizhang, <italic>Geming de mujiang</italic> [The carpenter as a revolutionary], <italic>Zhenli yu shengming</italic> [Truth and Life] 11, nos. 6–8 (November 1938–January 1939): 1.</p>400</fn>401<fn id="fn56">402<label>403<sup>56</sup>404</label>405<p>One year later, Mao Dun rewrote the Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah in “Cansun de fuchou” [The revenge of Samson] and again intended it as a political allegory alluding to his contemporary situation. For the author’s account of the origin of his two biblical tales and a reading of them, see “Mao Dun wenji dibajuan houji” [Afterword to the eighth volume of the anthology of Mao Dun], in <italic>Mao Dun quanji</italic> (Complete works of Mao Dun), vol. 9 (Beijing: Renminwenxue Press, 1959), 432; and Lewis Stuart Robinson, <italic>Double-Edged Sword: Christianity and Twentieth Century Chinese Fiction</italic> (Hong Kong: Taofongshan Ecumenical Center, 1986).</p>406</fn>407<fn id="fn57">408<label>409<sup>57</sup>410</label>411<p>Duanmu Hongliang, “Fuhuo” [Resurrection], in <italic>Duanmu Hongliang wenji</italic> [Collected writings of Duanmu Hongliang], vol. 4 (Beijing: Beijing Press, 1998), 58.</p>412</fn>413<fn id="fn58">414<label>415<sup>58</sup>416</label>417<p>Zhu Wen, “Yuyue jie” [Passover], in <italic>Yuyue jie</italic> [Passover] (Shanghai: Wenhuashenghuo Press, 1939), 4.</p>418</fn>419<fn id="fn59">420<label>421<sup>59</sup>422</label>423<p>Jing Tsu, <italic>Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895–1937</italic> (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 15.</p>424</fn>425<fn id="fn60">426<label>427<sup>60</sup>428</label>429<p>Nie Gannu, “Shitou fen” [Grave of Stones] in <italic>Nie Gannu quanji</italic> [Complete works of Nie Gannu], vol. 6 (Wuhan: Wuhan Press, 2004), 408.</p>430</fn>431<fn id="fn61">432<label>433<sup>61</sup>434</label>435<p>Ernest Gellner, <italic>Nations and Nationalism</italic> (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Benedict Anderson, <italic>Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism</italic> (London: Verso, 1991).</p>436</fn>437<fn id="fn62">438<label>439<sup>62</sup>440</label>441<p>Chatterjee, <italic>Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World</italic>, 38.</p>442</fn>443<fn id="fn63">444<label>445<sup>63</sup>446</label>447<p>The main thrust of the ethno-symbolic school of nationalism, headed by Anthony Smith, is to dissociate nationalism from modernism and emphasize the historical connections between the modern discourse of nationalism and premodern tribes, city-states, and empires across the world, as well as the mediating role played by myths, memories, and religious institutions. It is also to be highlighted that Smith argues that nationalism in the modern world is a surrogate religion in the Durkheimian sense. See Smith, <italic>Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism</italic>.</p>448</fn>449<fn id="fn64">450<label>451<sup>64</sup>452</label>453<p>Rebecca E. Karl, <italic>Staging the World</italic>.</p>454</fn>455</fn-group>456</back>457</article>458459460