Of course, these publications included many hasty and crude works, and
sometimes authors simply copied from one another. Nevertheless, taken
together, these works and achievements demonstrate that, as a whole, Chinese
academics in the field had progressed from a one-sided, antagonistic viewpoint
to a relatively objective and balanced attitude towards religion. Of course, some
scholars still held negative and hostile views towards religion, while others
were positive and sympathetic. But generally speaking, the trend was from the
former to the latter. It is worth noting that the turn was, to a great degree, an
outcome of increasing exchange of scholars and ideas between China and the
West during the period, through international visits and conferences, and
Chinese translations of important Western works in the field by authors such
as Peter Berger (1991), Christopher Dawson (1989), John Hick (1988), Paul
Tillich (1999), Arnold Toynbee (1990), Hans Küng, F. Max Müller, Rudolf
Otto, Ninian Smart, W. C. Smith, Rodney Stark, as well as of works in the
anthropology, phenomenology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology of
religion.
Some scholars who were sympathetic to or interested in Christian religion
but were not members of any Church contributed so much to the public
understanding of Christianity through their writing, translating, editing
and other cultural activities, that by the mid 1990s they began to be called
‘cultural Christians’ (Wenhua Jidutu). Recently a similar name, ‘cultural
Buddhists’ (Wenhua Fojiaotu), has begun to be applied to scholars with similar
standing and contributions in regard to Buddhism. The appearance of such
terms was a striking sign that the spread of some religions was not the result
of the efforts of the clergy and sangha so much as of the cultural activities of
scholars. As a result of such efforts, ‘religious culture fever’ (a term with which
some scholars described the rapid increase in the popular interest in religious
books, images, doctrines and practices in the 1990s) even appeared at this time.
However, as most Christians would decline to call a person who has not
been baptized a ‘Christian’, and as many Buddhists would refuse to apply the
title ‘Buddhist’ to those who observe none of the five precepts (pañcas¥la) or
are not vegetarians, I prefer to use the phrase, ‘Cultural Religions’ (Wenhua
Zongjiao), in describing such a phenomenon. This term refers to many religious
phenomena which are the result of all kinds of cultural activities or are
expressed in various cultural ways. For example, a large part of the urban
membership, especially among the young, of the new church, including the so-
called ‘underground church’, ‘house church’, or ‘meeting point’, developed an
interest in Christianity through reading Chinese books about it. In the
circumstances of contemporary China, many religious developments are indeed
brought into being by or through cultural activities, among which the study
of religions plays the leading role.
Major ideas and problems, thinkers and texts. (a) Phrases such as ‘cultural
Christians/Buddhists’ and ‘cultural religions’ and the common expression168
HE GUANGHU, CHUNG CHIN-HONG, AND LEE CHANG-YICK