of faith and theology (Lai 2000, Liu 1995). Many scholars from the mainland,
Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even the US took part in the controversy about this
idea (Yeung 2000), and some of them are still very critical of it.
The present author is considered one of the representatives of hanyu shenxue,
but in fact his idea is quite different from that of Liu (He 1996a, 1996b). For
reasons mentioned above, He supports the idea, but unlike Liu, he does not
make any dualist division between the theologies of seminary and university,
of clergy and academia, of individual and Church, and so on. He defines hanyu
shenxuesimply as one of the ‘mother-tongue theologies’, which takes the
theologian’s mother-tongue as its vehicle, makes the existential experience and
cultural resources expressed in the language its material, and serves the users
of the language. He also put forward his proposal for the development of hanyu
shenxue, including its methodological principles and special approaches, as a
result of a critical evaluation of the historical theology in the Han language,
as well as from observing the specific social and cultural characteristics of China
today (He 1996a, 1996b).
(d) The sociology of religion in China began with the Chinese translation
of Western works such as Peter Berger’s (1991) The Sacred Canopyin the
early 1990s. In recent years, some Chinese scholars have been conducting
fieldwork and publishing their results (Gao 2005; Liang L. 2004; Chen 2005;
Li 2005; Ng et al. 2005; Wu 2001; Kang forthcoming). Worth noting is the
fieldwork directed by Yang Fenggang. Yang was trained in sociology of religion
in the US and is familiar with the theories of Rodney Stark and others. He
has been able to apply sociological methodology and theory to his fieldwork.
This is just what the sociology of religion in China needs.
(e) The psychology and anthropology of religion have not yet gone beyond
the stage of translating or introducing Western works and theories. Recently
a few scholars have made their own ventures within these areas, but their work
can also be classified as sociology of religion. Examples include the works of
Gao, Liang, and Wu mentioned above.
(f) The philosophy of religion in the modern sense also began in China with
the translation of Western works, such as John Hick (1988) and Paul Tillich
(1999). Books by Chinese scholars include Zhao (1994), Fang (2000), and Lu
Guolong (1997). Zhang Zhigang’s (2003)Study of Philosophy of Religionis
a general introduction to and criticism of modern Western philosophy
of religion. He Guanghu’s (1991) Pluralized Ideas of God gives a survey of
Western religious thought during the twentieth century, employing a common
working framework that He proposed for the discipline. He has also attempted
to put forward a global religious philosophy as the common ground for inter-
religious dialogue, especially based upon his study of the compatibility of Judeo-
Christian and Chinese religions. Wang Zhicheng (2005) is another scholar who
pays much attention to the relationship of inter-religious dialogue to the
philosophy of religion.172
HE GUANGHU, CHUNG CHIN-HONG, AND LEE CHANG-YICK