Living-in-Between: Rethinking "Dual Belonging" and a Confucian Christian's Struggle in Late Ming China

Abstract

In adopting Christianity, a foreign religion, the pre-twentieth-century Asian Christian converts needed to interiorize the new faith and reconcile varied traditions. At times they needed to negotiate the tension between conflicting claims. Their "dual belonging" is usually ignored in their home traditions, since Asians do not render it problematic, whereas present scholarly discourse on "dual belonging" in the West tends to focus on European missionaries in Asia. By the study of Wang Zheng, a Confucian Christian in the seventeenth century, and a brief comparison between Wang and a Hindu convert, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, I propose that these converts are also pioneers of "dual belonging." The tensions and struggles in their lives and thoughts provide particular resources and insights for current research, thereby illuminating the phenomenon of dual belonging.