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Developing a Discipline: The Recent Study of Western Church History in the People's Republic of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2005

LONG XIUQING
Affiliation:
History and Culture College, North Campus, Tianjing Normal University, Tianjing 300074, People's Republic of China; e-mail: tjlongxq@yahoo.cam.cn

Abstract

The growth in the study of church history in China is one outcome of Deng Xiaoping's policy of ‘reform and opening’, as well as a result of increasing exchanges of scholars and ideas between China and the west during recent years. Since the 1980s Chinese scholars have to a great degree abandoned the Marxist interpretative framework, and gradually developed their own interpretations and methodologies for the study of church history. In consequence, academic studies in the 1990s displayed a fair, honest and objective character which marked the process of maturation in the development of church history as a discipline. In this process Professor Yu Ke played an important role, of inheriting the past and ushering in the future as the real founder of the discipline in China.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to Professor R. N. Swanson for his suggestions and for his help in revising this paper and reading the proofs. All Chinese titles have been translated. It should be noted that Chinese periodicals and journals are issued in parts during the year, with no annual volume number. They are cited here by year and part number: thus 1999/iv.