Indigenous church as an offspring of pneumatic Christianity: A re-examination of the development of Christianity in modern China (Chinese text)

Studies of the indigenization of Chinese Christian Church have been focused on the relationship between Chinese intellectuals and Christian faith. This approach to the problem is far from adequate. On the one hand, this approach emphasizes one-sidedly on the history of Chinese Christian thought and fails to reveal the historical development of the church community in a comprehensive way. On the other hand, as aspects other than knowledge and philosophical thinking are overlooked, these studies tend to declare arbitrarily and prematurely the failure of the endeavour of indigenization. The present research proposes that in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the development of Christianity in China, especially the indigenization of Christian faith among the Chinese, we must consider the possibility of taking "Pneumatic Christianity" as a point of departure.; In term of methodology, this study adopts a China-centered viewpoint of history as well as the approaches of Phenomenology of Religion and History of Religions. With these perspectives, this research examines various illustrative examples of Chinese Pentecostalism, including Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as a Charismatic and political community, Charismatic communities of True Jesus Church and Jesus Family, as well as religious practices of individual Charismatic evangelists. Through critical studies of these cases, this research aims at showing that various forms of indigenous Chinese Pneumatic Christianity have been formed as counter-inculturation of Chinese culture vis-a-vis the Christian inculturation. In other words, indigenous Chinese Christianity, especially the Pneumatic Christianity, can be regarded as a result of such inter-culturation. This inter-culturation may not only diminish the foreignness of Christianity in the Chinese context, but also make Christianity more universal and Catholic. Accordingly, it is necessary for the study of Chinese Christianity to take serious the role of Pneumatic Christianity in the development of Chinese Christianity and to reconsider critically the adequacy of prevalent methods as well as the underlying theological presuppositions.