Daniel H. Bays. A New History of Christianity in China.

Abstract

This compact volume presents a survey of the history of Christianity in China from the seventh century to the present. Over eight chapters, Daniel H. Bays traces the growth of the churches whose presence has waxed and waned over the centuries. The author is a specialist in the history of Protestant churches in China in the late Imperial and Republican periods, subjects that are treated at considerable length. Out of the confused history of rival churches, as well as the different indigenous adaptations of the Christian message, Bays offers an insightful overview with several informative personal asides. The history of Christianity in China, insofar as scholars can demonstrate, can be traced back to the Tang dynasty. Archeological evidence uncovered at Xi'an a thousand years afterward provides the starting point for this study, a historical parenthesis in which Nestorian priests were warmly received in China and founded monasteries before their presence disappeared from the historical record. Bays detects a more visible Christian presence starting in the late sixteenth century with the arrival of Jesuits, and later Franciscan and Dominican friars. Here again he brackets a period, the age of the Catholic monopoly in China, which lasted through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until a dispute between the papacy and the Qing dynasty led to the proscription of Christianity.