Indirect dialogue between Chinese Christians and Muslim Huis: on the concept of collective transcendence deeply rooted in Chinese culture

This thesis proposes that Chinese people transcend themselves on a collective basis, named as ‘collective transcendence’ in this thesis. This cultural transcendence is a product of Confucianism that relates individual quest for eternity to the survival of a person’s clan. The notion of collective transcendence facilitates better understanding of the phenomenon of ‘belonging but not believing’ commonly observed with Chinese people. This thesis argues that the concept of collective transcendence is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and its influence is to be found in the thoughts of Chinese theologians and in popular religion in China.

This thesis also examines the interactions of Chinese Christianity and Chinese Islam with Chinese culture, using the notion of collective transcendence as a hermeneutical lens. The influence of Chinese culture on Christianity is examined through: a) the tracing of the legacy of popular religion in Chinese converts; and b) the responses of Christian intellectuals to Chinese culture in the first half of the twentieth century. The Islamic response to Chinese culture is evidenced through the study of Muslim Hui Chinese writings, Han Kitab. Both Christian and Muslim scholars find that the notion of a personal god is lacking in Chinese culture. Thus, the manifestation of collective transcendence hinges on the survival of a person’s clan. It implies a sense of cultural superiority in Chinese culture which is likely to reject foreign religions.

Dialogue between Chinese culture and Chinese Christians on the concept of collective transcendence is compared with similar dialogue with Muslim Huis. This, in turn, facilitates a kind of ‘indirect dialogue’ between Chinese Christians and Muslim Huis regarding the concept of transcendence. This indirect dialogue suggests that the focus of contextualisation of the two religions is to find the means of crossing the religious group boundary, i.e., allowing easy accessibility for Chinese people.