Philip L. Wickeri - Christian Encounters with Chinese Culture: Essays on Anglican and Episcopal History in China

Written by a team of internationally recognized scholars, Christian Encounters with Chinese Culture focuses on a church tradition that has never been very large in China but that has had considerable social and religious influence. Themes of the book include questions of church, society and education, the Prayer Book in Chinese, parish histories, and theology. Taken together, the nine chapters and the introduction offer a comprehensive assessment of the Anglican experience in China and its missionary background.

Historical topics range from macro to micro levels, beginning with an introductory overview of the Anglican and Episcopal tradition in China. Topics include how the church became embedded in Chinese social and cultural life, the many ways womens contributions to education built the foundations for strong parishes, and Bishop R. O. Halls attentiveness to culture for the life of the church in Hong Kong. Two chapters explore how broader historical themes played out at the parish levelSt. Peters Church in Shanghai during the War against Japan and St. Marys Church in Hong Kong during its first three decades. Chapters looking at the Chinese Prayer Book bring an innovative theological perspective to the discussion, especially how the inability to produce a single prayer book affected the development of the Chinese church. Finally, the tension between theological thought and Chinese culture in the work of Francis C. M. Wei and T. C. Chao is examined.

Philip L. Wickeri is advisor to the archbishop on theological and historical studies, professor of the history of Christianity at Ming Hua Theological College, and archivist for the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui.

This is one of the finest books on Christianity and Chinese culture to have emerged in recent years. Philip Wickeri has done the almost-impossible, and assembled an outstanding, world-class team of scholars to write on Anglican and Episcopal history in China, with essays focusing on education, liturgy, ministry, ecclesiology and theology. This is a timely, important bookand one that will re-shape the way we understand the place of Anglican and Episcopal churches in the past, present and future.

Martyn Percy, dean of Christ Church, Oxford, UK

This pioneering study provides new knowledge of local parishes, translation of liturgy, as well as mission and theology of Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui. Comprehensive in scope and original in using new resources, it will stimulate new scholarship in the study of Christianity in China.

Kwok Pui-lan, author of Chinese Women and Christianity, 18601927

The essays included in this important volume offer a refreshingly realistic image of the Christian missionary enterprise and its interaction with Chinese culture and society. The contributors present new angles of interpretation, with more informed and nuanced accounts of the complexities and contradictions that shaped the encounter of one particular strand of Western Christianity and Chinese culture during a turbulent century of change.

R. G. Tiedemann, professor of Chinese history, Shandong University, China

Sheng Kung Hui: Historical Studies of Anglican Christianity in China

Series Editor: Philip L. Wickeri

The Anglican (and Episcopal) tradition has been present in China for almost two hundred years. The purpose of this series is to publish scholarly, well-researched, and authoritative volumes on the history of the Sheng Kung Hui (Holy Catholic Church), with an emphasis on its life and work in Chinese society. Sponsored by the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, separate volumes in this series will include studies of particular people and institutions, as well as studies of the broader intellectual and social significance of Anglican involvement in Chinese history.

Also in the series:

Imperial to International: A History of St. Johns Cathedral, Hong Kong

Stuart Wolfendale

Hong Kong University Press

The University of Hong Kong

Pokfulam Road

Hong Kong

www.hkupress.org

2015 Hong Kong University Press

ISBN 978-988-8208-38-8 (Hardback)

ISBN 978-988-8313-29-7 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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