Christianity and Confucianism: Culture, Faith and Politics - Book Review

Christopher Hancock, Christianity and Confucianism: Culture, Faith and Politics. T&T Clark, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2021. ISBN 978-5676-5760-0. 682 pages, including bibliography and index.

With the publication of Christianity and Confucianism, Dr. Hancock has presented the reading public with a masterpiece of cultural, intellectual, religious, and cross-cultural history.

First, and most obviously, this is a big book. The text runs to 500 pages, followed by a bibliography of 134 pages and an index of 50 pages.

But it is big in other ways. Just as the announcer on the classical music station will sometimes say, “And now, for our big piece of the day, here is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” so this treatise is long and wide, deep and high, rich and complex, with a vast range of topics and a temporal, conceptual, and imaginative scope that one very seldom finds even in multivolume works.

At first, I was almost tempted to think that between these two widely-separated covers we find not one, but two books, and perhaps more. The title announces the foundation of the argument, namely, a very careful and detailed comparison and contrast of Christ and Confucius, introduced in the first two chapters and developed as the conclusion of each of the following chapters. His treatment of these two men runs altogether to about 150 pages, and could be published as a stand-alone volume. For what it is worth, I shall say that, based on my limited knowledge, the author has accurately and powerfully set Confucius and Christ before us.

Summary

Part I

Chapter 1, “Confucius, ‘the Master,’ and Cultural Decay” reviews the life and legacy of Confucius, including the sources and the growth of the Confucian tradition. Not for the first time, Hancock displays his mastery of the most important literature on this huge subject.

Chapter 2, “Jesus, ‘The Christ,’ and Spiritual Renewal” likewise canvasses both the ancient history of the “many comings of Christianity” in China and – briefly but succinctly – the history of the doctrine of Christ in the Christian church. A lengthy section on the New Testament evidence for Jesus lays the groundwork for his later studies of what the four Gospels have to say about the founder of Western Christendom.

Part II

The subtitle, “Culture, Faith, and Politics,” hints at the wealth of subjects discussed in the remaining chapters. According to the author, this is the heart of the book, where he expounds his thesis at great length in in much detail. “Chapters 3 to 8 visit select instances – historical snapshots, if you like – when the dialogue between China and the West, and thence Christianity and Confucianism, intensified. My argument is that both China and the West have been indelibly affected by this exchange; indeed, affected to a degree that we do not, perhaps, cannot, maybe even will not, appreciate” (xiii. Emphasis original).

He goes on, “In keeping with a new genre of ‘One World’ literature, this volume tells the story of East-West cultural exchange through comparative analysis of Christianity and Confucianism. It offers a multi-disciplinary read on historic East-West relations, with a view to recalibrating contemporary culture studies and diplomacy” (xiv).

Here the author declares his basic assumption: We now live in one world, inseparably joined to each other by a shared cultural history and common human experiences. The nature of the book: It is a story of the often-conflicted relationship between China and the West. The purpose of this story is to “recalibrate” both contemporary culture studies and diplomacy.

Chapter 3, “Heaven, Earth, and ‘Harmony,’” looks at the monumental achievement of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who arrived in China in the 16th century and sought to win a hearing through his mastery of Confucian literature and etiquette and of the latest Western science. The Jesuits introduced the new discipline of sinology to Europe, which was more than ready to receive a new, more secularized, cosmology. It concludes with a fascinating comparison of what the Analects and the Gospels have to say about “heaven and earth.”

Ricci’s controversial use of the Chinese term “heaven” provoked a debate that continues today – that is, what is the best Chinese translation of the biblical words for God? (For my views on this subject, see (99+) (DOC) Names for God in Chinese | Wright Doyle - Academia.edu.) Hancock shows that, despite some similarities, such as a common belief in a fundamental “harmony” in the universe and a common desire to realize that harmony on earth, Confucian and Christian views of Heaven and Earth differ greatly. Jesus taught that God was the creator of the universe as well as the only one who can empower us to become morally better.

Chapter 4, “Humanity, Society, and the Search for Worth,” traces the cross-cultural engagement of China and the West from the last decades of the 17th century to about 1750. Josiah Wedgewood and his wildly successful manufacture of porcelain provides what the author calls a “global archetype”: “In the discovery, beauty, subtlety, ambition, and oppression of porcelain, human life, character, progress, and community are laid bare” (130). By the way, that sentence is typical of hundreds like it in a book of extraordinary subtlety and complexity unified by a common theme.

Europe not only adapted porcelain to its own uses, but Chinese humanistic, rationalistic anthropology, as Hancock shows through portraits of Leibnitz, Spinoza, and others who birthed the European Enlightenment. A section on “Voltaire, Diderot, and the Culture of Encyclopedias” traces the Francophone counterpart of other European thinkers, followed by a survey of “Britain and the Birth of Anthropology, 1650-1750.”

This chapter concludes with a comparison of Confucian and biblical anthropology. We see that the “Analects’ hesitant metaphysic contrasts starkly with the clear theological ontology of the Gospels; humanity finds itself in God through Christ” (179). In the Gospels, “life on earth is seen as subject to God as creator, and to Jesus as saviour or recreator. This is different from the Analects, where humanity is cast in functional, relational and moral terms. . . The [biblical] emphasis is consistently on humanity being transformed and energized by the ‘life-giving’ work of the Spirit” (180).

Finally, while “the Analects teach respect in key relationships, the gospels command an egalitarian, inclusive love for all” (182).

Chapter 5, “Character, Purpose, and Morality: China and Enlightenment Habits and Values” traces the interchanges between China and the West from about 1750 to 1820. In the West, an “Age of Respect” for China changes into the “Age of Contempt.” “Adolescent Europe meets adult China. They fail to understand one another; the generational, cultural gap is immense” (183).

Here, tea is the global cultural archetype. “The consumption, trade, social profile, and literary invocation of tea offers an accessible motif to access key features of the evolution of ethical thought” during this period, as “[c]hinoiserie takes liquid form in tea,” even as Europeans begin to feel a “solid antipathy” for China (185). “Life, values, morality, taste, sentiment, character, and virtue are richly illustrated in the long history of . . . tea” (189).

Hancock traces the evolution of ethical and cultural “turn to the self” in Europe through Kant, Beethoven, the romantic poets, thinkers like Burke and Paine during an age of revolution, and then the pivotal roles played by Rousseau, Herder, Hegel, and Schleiermacher in the creation of the modern age.

As a counterpoint to this story, the author introduces us to the first Protestant missionary who worked in China, Robert Morrison (of whom he wrote what is now the standard biography), and Morrison’s huge impact upon both the West and China. His translation of the Bible into Chinese and his multi-volume dictionaries introduced a powerful new literature into China and laid the foundation of English sinology. Over the next two hundred years, Protestant missionaries would have an enormous influence, not only upon China but also on the West.

Hancock’s detailed and nuanced exposition of Confucian ethical teachings is matched by a brief section on the ethics of Jesus. He sees a remarkable similarity between the “negative” form of the Golden Rule in Confucius and the positive statement by Jesus, but also fundamental differences in their ethical systems. Christian virtue and character, especially agape love comes from God and finds its incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. “Specifically, the gift of the promised Holy Spirit empowers Christians to keep God’s law and live ‘holy’ lives” (256-257).

Part III

The last three chapters of the book examine “three related themes that assume particular prominence for different reasons between c. 1820 and the end of the Cultural Revolution in China in 1976”: truth, memory, and death.

Chapter 6, “Truth and Truthfulness: The 19th-Century Crisis in China and the West,” “addresses the heart of historic Sino-Western relations. Its theme is truth, and its associate truthfulness. Trust is fed by truthfulness. Suspicion flourishes when truth per se is compromised” (263). During this period, mistrust between China and the West grew to awful proportions.

“Now the pressing issues are money, power, and empire,” as the two sides clashed again and again (264).

In these turbulent years, “Western philosophy, art, literature, politics, religion music and aesthetics, all bear witness to ongoing, increasingly complex, Sino-Western relations. The nature of truth, and the obligation of truthfulness, are both implicated” (265).

The chapter is filled with surprises, at least for me. Shakespeare knows about China, and he becomes increasingly read and respected there. Darwin’s works are translated into Chinese. The novelist Mary Anne Evans (aka George Eliot) was “sensitive to China and its culture heritage,” and reflected some aspects of Confucianism in her writings (279).

Others enter this cross-cultural exchange: Charles Dickens; the scholar-missionary James Legge, who translated the Confucian Classics into English; Richard Wagner; Ludwig Feuerbach; Friedrich Nietzsche; skeptical biblical scholars seeking to write a credible “Life of Jesus.” “The seeds of 20th-century ‘deconstructionism’ are sown in the late 19th century” (330).

In light of this unravelling of traditional ideas of truth, the author looks at Confucius and Christ.

Though “truth” as a concept does not figure in Confucius’s teachings, he does insist the people be honest, sincere, and trustworthy. Words must reflect the reality of the situation. “Still, Confucian morality is rightly seen as pragmatic, integrated, and dynamic. It is also conditional and situational. Indeed, it is more akin to postmodern ‘situational ethics’ than the normative absolutism of traditional biblical ethics” (338).

In contrast to the Confucian Classics, “the gospels establish an unequivocal connection between God and truth. . . God [is] true, pure, trustworthy and truthful. He is faithful” (339). We are to respond to this God with faith, trust in his love for us, and actions of love that flow from our conviction that in Jesus Christ truth was – and is – embodied. “Secondly, biblical truth has a practical, moral, existential, spiritual character. It is not easily confined to modern categories” (340).

Though human relationships must be taken into consideration in the Gospels as with Confucius, in contrast to the Analects, “in the Bible a theological basis for truth is essential” (341). In particular, the Bible is true, and its words are trustworthy. Confidence in that belief eroded rapidly in the 20th century, of course, as the ideas canvassed in this chapter began to impact theology and the church.

Chapter 7, “Memory, Rite and Tradition,” deals with modernism in China and the West. The seeds were sown in the 19th century: “Romanticism’s disavowal of bourgeois values, Enlightenment confidence in Kantian idealism, Marxist criticism of capitalist oppression, and various expressions of Darwinian evolutionism, all create a proto-Modernist confidence in humanity’s creative endeavour and power to overcome” (347).

There’s more: “If these are the roots of proto-Modernism, Modernism per se is to scholars more probably, and dramatically, anticipated in the severe existentialism of Kierkegaard and in the horny pessimism of Schopenhauer.” After quickly mentioning famous figures in literature, art, psychiatry, music, and architecture, Hancock concludes, “When Modernism reached its apogee in 1939, no form or tradition remained untouched, no process or principle to construct reality was put out of bounds.” (348).

He moves on to look at T.S. Eliot, Vincent Van Gogh, Edmund Husserl “and his heirs,” Igor Stravinsky, Marcel Proust, Niels Bohr and Quantum theory, and Ezra Pound, most of whom were heavily influenced by Chinese philosophy and literature, and all of whom made a deep and lasting imprint upon Chinese intellectuals. Throughout, the author probes how these culture-shapers saw memory, rite, and tradition.

Finally, turning to the Analects and the Gospels, we come to what, for me, was a high point in the book.

In both sources, memory, rite, and tradition play a crucial role, but this similarity “cloaks intellectual, epistemological, and moral distinctives. Christianity and Confucianism agree memory is inseparable from ritual, liturgical acts, and oral traditions, but they differ over the focus, agency, effect and core purpose of memory” (395).

After emphasizing the profound legacy of Augustine’s view of memory, Hancock reverses the usual order and discusses “the Judeo-Christian Anamnestic Tradition,” where memory and tradition . . . recall dynamically God’s activity in the past and his saving power in the present. The effect of this psychological and practical operation is the (re-)engagement of believers, and the challenging of doubters with the presence, power, and sovereign will of God” (397).

He surveys the material in the Old Testament and the New Testament before focusing on the central place of the Lord’s Supper. “Christianity’s appeal to memory is theologically potent and practically relevant. When this past is recalled, the present is transfigured and the future confidently projected” (401).

Centered upon the Confucian Classics, “memory functions in classical Confucianism as a guardian of the past and a guide to the present” (402).

Some points of contrast: “In contrast to the pedagogical and moral focus of the Chinese Classics, biblical interests are spiritual and eternal. Memory serves God’s spiritual purposes and humanity’s deepest needs” (407). In the Bible, “God and humanity are co-agents in remembering. . . The lack of an unequivocal, transcendent agent in classical Confucianism restricts memory to humanity” (408).

“Christianity . . . ascribes to memory the power of rendering the past ‘really present’ and God dynamically active in and through spiritual re-birth and the sacramental rituals of baptism and Holy Communion” (408).

Chapter 8 turns to “Sickness, Death and the Afterlife: On Making Sense of Everything and Nothing.” In light of the horrors of the 20th century, and the changing attitudes toward death and the afterlife, Hancock asserts that a “‘One World’ perspective builds confidently on the universality of humanity in its capacity to empathize with those in pain, loss, and grief, and to wreak vengeance and destruction on even those who are near and dear. East-West cultural and political relations make more sense if we are ready to accept that we are, as humans, less different than culture, history, and politics may suggest.” Further, the “visceral, intellectual, spiritual issues of sickness, death and the ‘afterlife’ in the Analects and Gospels take us to the heart of our common humanity and of Christian faith and Confucian philosophy” (421).

Once again, we can only hint at the richness of this wide-ranging study. The two major developments dealt with are the rise of atheism and of existentialism, both of which dramatically altered our perception or, and response to, common human suffering.

A mere list of leading characters will have to suffice: Nietzsche, Sartre, Dostoyevsky, Heidegger, Husserl (again), Unamuno, Buber, Marcel, Jaspers, Camus, Wiesel, Ernst Bloch, Eberhard Jungel, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Protest Atheism: and “Post Holocaust Theology”, Liberation Theology, Berdyaev, Bultmann, Tillich, Macquarrie, Wittgenstein, Ricoeur, Foucault and Derrida, Habermas. Some receive more attention, some less, but the cumulative impact of this chapter is powerful: We live in a world where suffering and death can no longer be seen in traditional terms.

As the pain and associated angst continue to increase, we sense the author’s deep compassion; clearly, he is no disinterested observer, but a passionate participant in this “sad” world.

Finally, we return to Confucius and Christ. “We encounter these old texts with a new sense of our pain-filled shared humanity and common quest for existential truth” (482).

“Suffering and death assume symbolic and ritual forms in early Confucianism” (483). His discussion of these practices seemed quite insightful to me. After reading Hancock’s section on the integral meaning and function of rites of veneration to ancestors, I felt that for the first time in forty-five years of dealing with Chinese people, I finally began to understand why these rituals are so important to them.

His explanation of the “cult of Confucius” also makes sense. “As he had taught, in death Confucius lives in the prayers, praises, rituals and lives of others” (490).

As we would expect, we find numerous points of comparison and contrast between the Analects and the Gospels. I will mention only a few:

In contrast to the Analects, “suffering, death and are interpreted theologically in the gospels; that is . . . human life, suffering, death, and hope of an afterlife, are represented as contingent on God’s creation, love, grace, and sovereign purpose” (492).

For the Christian, “Life and death are now redefined in relationship to a personal, loving, righteous heavenly Father.” This assumption finds no “direct counterpart in the practical wisdom, or moral anthropocentrism, of the Analects” (493).  Furthermore, contrast “with the Analects is even clearer when we see suffering, death and the afterlife interpreted christologically in the Gospels,” where “the crucifixion is also a natural, physical event (that reflects his mortality), a unique historical crucifixion . . . and a representative offering on behalf of human sin’ (493).

That means that “[a]cceptance or rejection of the benefits of Jesus’s atoning sacrifice determine a person’s present and future experience of life and death” (493). Because of the resurrection of Christ and his promised return the “‘eschatological orientation’ of the Gospels represents one of the clearest points of contrast with classical Confucianism. This is the basis for Christian hope. It is rooted in Jesus’s resurrection and celebrated in Christian existentialism. This has no counterpart in the Analects of Confucius’s life, message or death. Filial piety does not raise the dead, however well it honours them” (494).

Evaluation

Aside from being very big as this brief summary indicates, the book is also beautiful – from the cover to the printed page, from the elegant style to the eminently humane and generous portrayal of people, events, and ideas that have often clashed – the author treats us to an aesthetic banquet of rare delights.

Christianity and Confucianism deserves the often-hackneyed adjective “good.” Truly, it is a good book. Yes, Dr. Hancock presents us with new information – I learned something new on every page - arranged with artful balance, a clear progression, and almost overwhelming lushness of literary and thematic elaboration.

It is good in the more important sense of being morally challenging and uplifting. Both our dignity and our depravity as humans are portrayed in a way that builds us up and prods us toward greater love for “the other.” In particular, the ethical teachings of Christ and Confucius summon us out of our provincial, often bigoted, and usually selfish ways to the kind of moral character that would inspire others to emulate.

Christianity and Confucianism, indeed, is written with passion – a passion for world peace. Hancock hopes fervently that his book will help us to understand each other and then to get along with each other, conscious of our common humanity, and despite our differences. That hope ties the book together.

Going back to my initial impression that we actually have two books in this one volume, I have changed my mind

In this story, Confucius and Christ are treated as equals, in that they both founded “dynasties” of thought, culture, and civilization.

Thus, we should not look here for an explicit demonstration of the superiority of Christ and of true Christianity over Confucius and Confucianism, but for an understanding of how Chinese influenced by Confucius and Westerners influenced by Christ have related to, and shaped, each other.

On the other hand, after reading his comparisons and contrasts of Confucius and Christ, I realized that, though Hancock has not penned an explicitly evangelistic tract, his depiction of Jesus Christ in the Gospels and in authentic Christian tradition and life would lead any careful reader to ask the question, How can I not believe in, and follow, this Man? A man who is also God, and who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?

In short, I believe that Hancock is driven by a passion to see people reconciled to God and to each other through faith in Jesus Christ. This volume is one book, and it is a brilliant work of apologetics, theology, and evangelism.

Questions

 I do have some questions, however.

Did missionaries “overstate the spiritual and physical plight of the Chinese, and the lack of ‘light’ in China’s ancient Confucian culture” (252)? 

The descriptions of China before 1950 found in both the biographies and the sinological studies of missionaries provide abundant evidence that the society in which they lived was in desperate straits, as later revolutionaries would insist. As our author has shown us, though Confucianism had much good advice to offer, it did not possess the kind of “light” that can either show us how to live before God in this life or with him eternally in the next life.

Who is “we”?

The author constantly asserts, "We read the Analects and the Gospels in the light of ...” the intellectual and cultural movements that he so brilliantly describes. To me, the interpretative key of the book might lie in the meaning(s) of this word "we.”

Here are my guesses: “We” are 1. The cultured despisers of Christianity (and the wisdom of Confucius). 2. Extremely sensitive, alert, and educated students of our culture - people like Christopher Hancock. 3. In the last chapter, almost everyone, for we have all been influenced by some form of existentialism.

So, I think that he is trying to prod the skeptics toward greater respect for, and even faith in, truth, and especially Jesus. He is reminding himself and other Christians to return to a “simple” and straightforward reading of the Analects and the Gospels. And he seeks to help everyone realize just how complex and inter-related the relationship is between China and the West.

Does he really “read the Analects and the Gospels in the light of…”?

One thing that stands out very clearly is that in each chapter, though he repeatedly says, “We read the Analects and the Gospels in the light of....”, only in the last chapter does he make this more explicit when he compares Confucius and Christ. Furthermore, in all his expositions of the Analects and the Gospels, he offers us analysis and interpretation that are almost entirely devoid of any references to what has gone before in that chapter, and in a way that is very – and, I would say appropriately – “pre-critical.”

In other words, except in the last chapter, he does not “practice what he preaches,” which, in my opinion, is good!

Is it true that we can no longer say that “Christianity and Confucianism are engaged in a competitive quest for wisdom”?

Certainly, this book has shown that people in China and the West have for millennia engaged in the search for wisdom, and that the ethical teachings of Confucius and Christ have some things in common. I have published a book comparing Christ and Confucius that points out some of these similarities. (Composed in English, the book was translated in Chinese and published in Taiwan. An abridged version, Jesus: The Complete Man, is available in English.)

And yet, Hancock himself makes abundantly clear that these two belief systems diverge at the root; they are built on two different foundations. That makes sense of an incident that took place in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, not too long ago. When local Chinese Christians planned to erect a very large church, one what would overshadow the ancient complex of buildings honoring China’s Sage, Confucianists erupted with rage and made such a protest that the government – itself committed to a revival of Confucianism – ordered that construction on the church be abandoned.

Finally, do we really now live in a situation in which “‘Orient’ and Occident’ are words imposed on our old, majestic, profoundly interconnected world” (259)?

Hancock has persuasively demonstrated, with massive erudition, that China and the West have together created a world that is immensely interconnected. Chinese and Western intellectuals do, indeed, in habit a “One World” of discourse.

On the other hand, having lived and worked among Chinese for more than forty-five years, I am still struck by the ways in which we inhabit different worlds at some very deep levels. Even Christians, who share the same theological and ethical beliefs, hold significantly divergent assumptions about social relationships, decision making, and moral obligations.

To give only one example: My wife and I watched a 48-episode long Chinese drama series about highly sophisticated elites in Shanghai. We were surprised that they were shown eating Western food, drinking Americano coffees (not tea), travelling to Europe as if going down the street, and speaking English with their global partners in the technology sector.

BUT – the entire plot revolved around a sense of filial piety and obligation that would strike most Westerners as not only strange, if not bizarre, but which was perfectly comprehensible to the huge audience of this drama in China.

Strongly Recommended

Those questions aside, however, I highly recommend Christianity and Confucianism.

There is no way I can convey to you the stunning breadth and depth of the author’s description of the development of the main currents of Western thought and culture over the past 500 years or so, and of how these developments have both influenced, and been influenced by, China’s great tradition, Confucianism.

What I can say is that he provides us with a clearer understanding of the culture in which we live and – more importantly perhaps – in which our children live. While reading the last chapter, I went into the kitchen to freshen up my tea. On the radio I heard Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I said to my wife: “This book explains why this kind of music could not have been composed after the First World War.” Then I added, “It also shows me why, perhaps, we appreciate this music even more than those who first heard it.”

Hancock cares deeply about harmonious relationships, both in the family and between nations. Clearly, he hopes that readers of this story, both in the West and in China, will learn to see how much we have in common, while at the same time respecting our differences.