Musing with Confucius and Paul: Toward a Chinese Christian Theology

by Khiok-Khng Yeo

Yeo's intriguing volume is an apologia for Chinese Christians. It articulates how a Chinese identity and a Christian identity can coexist without capitulating to some Western or other cultural model of Christian identity. To be a Chinese Christian is to adopt a distinctive, unique identity that owes much to both traditions but is sui generis. Providing great resources for the construction of a Chinese Christian theology, Confucius and Paul converge across a surprisingly broad front. Yet, the Christ of the Cross completes or extends what is merely implicit or absent in Confucius; and Confucius amplifies various elements of Christian faith (e.g., community) often under played in Western Christianity. The Christ of God as found in Paul's Letter to the Galatians brings Confucian ethics in The Analects to its fulfillment while simultaneously protecting the church from the aberrations of Chinese history and protecting China against the aberrations of Christian history in the West. China can develop a distinctive vision of Christianity, and will fulfill its global mission if it can find its own authentic identity. The Confucian tradition within that identity will revitalize global Christianity. "This brilliant book confronts two fundamental challenges for culture and faith in the globalizing world of the twenty-first how can the Chinese honor their rich Confucian heritage yet be transformed by Jesus Christ? And how can the church universal be reformed through its encounter with a Chinese Christian theology? Yeo's creative juxtaposition of core Confucian concepts with key Christian elements persuade us that Chinese Christians must not jettison their Chineseness. His sociological sensibility infuses the entire volume, engaging the most vexing social problems, offering nuanced theological reflections on the self, trust, civil society, social harmony, inequality, and political domination." -- TERENCE C. HALLIDAY, Co-Director, Center on Law and Globalization K.K. YEO is Harry R. Kendall Professor of New Testament at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, an advisory faculty member of the Graduate School of Northwestern University, and a Visiting Professor of Peking University. He is the author of 'Rhetorical Interaction in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10', 'What Has Jerusalem to Do with Beijing?' , and 'Chairman Mao Meets the Apostle Paul' and editor of 'Navigating Romans through Cultures'.

Table of Contents

Foreword by William J. Abraham; Acknowledgments; Saint Phoebe; Mysticism; The Via Negativa; Altar Theology and the Shorter Way; Conclusion; Bibliography.

506 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008