language’, sometimes loosely translated ‘theology in Chinese’. This idea is only
discussed by academics who are interested or engaged in Christian studies.
However, unlike the idea of cultural religions, which may have had significance
only for academics in mainland China, and unlike the debate over whether
Confucianism is a religion, which may be interesting only to the same academics
in mainland China as well as a few academics overseas, such as Tu Weiming
at Harvard and Liu Shushien in Taiwan, the idea of ‘theology in Chinese’ has
provoked debate among nearly all Chinese scholars of Christian studies in
mainland China and overseas. That has been true especially in Hong Kong,
which was for decades the theological enclave in the Chinese world and has
become a bridge between academics within Christian studies in the mainland
and abroad. In recent years, as exchanges and contacts between these groups
have become much more frequent and much closer, interest in and debate about
hanyu shenxuehas taken place mainly among academics in mainland China
and Hong Kong.
In a strict sense, the term hanyu shenxueonly denotes the linguistic character
of the theology, a theology in the Han language. Hanyuis the language of
Han people, who make up 96 percent of the population in China, while the
rest of the population, called minor nationalities, have more than fifty different
languages, from Tibetan in the southwest to Korean in the northeast. The term
hanyu shenxueis not only different from the term zhongwen(or huawenor
huayu) shenxue(theology in Chinese or Chinese theology), which removes the
Han chauvinism of hanyu shenxue, but also from the term zhongguo shenxue
(Chinese theology or theology in China), in avoiding the geographical and
political meaning, focusing just on linguistic aspects.
Although the term is not a recent invention, it did not begin to become
popular, especially in mainland China, or to arouse much interest or debate
until it appeared as a keyword in the title of a newly republished periodical in
Hong Kong, Tao Fong: Hanyu Shenxue Xuekan(Logos and Pneuma: Chinese
journal of theology, 1994– ). The idea was put forward by Liu Xiaofeng, a
scholar from the mainland, who then worked in collaboration with Daniel
Yeung, the former Vice President of Tao Fong Shan Christian Center, as dual
heads of the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies in Hong Kong, sponsored by
Areopagus, a Norwegian-based missionary organization.
Although the term can and should be understood in a broad sense as any
theology expressed in the Han language (Lai 2000), a quite popular under-
standing or misunderstanding of it also became widespread, that is, as a special
kind of Chinese theology, represented by Liu Xiaofeng, He Guanghu, and other
so-called cultural Christians, who stood within the humanities and social
sciences and expressed their individual religious faith, which thus differed not
only from other Chinese theologies but also from any church dogmatics or
‘seminary theologies’. Such a narrow understanding can be grounded in Liu’s
own writings, as he stressed the individual as opposed to the ecclesiastic nature
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1011
1
2
3111
4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
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30111
1
2
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4
35
6
7
8
9
40111
42222
3
411
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