Making Catholicism Chinese: The Catholic Church in a Modernizing China (2026)
Qinghe XIAO
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書中記載這場本土化運動面臨的種種挑戰：來自法國政府的法律壓力、部分歐洲傳教士的種族歧視、軍閥割據造成頻繁遷徙、反基督教運動的敵對、日本侵華，與國共兩黨之間逐步擴大的意識形態裂痕。
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黄欣慧（Stephanie M Wong，維拉紐瓦大學神學與宗教研究學院助理教授）指出，從歷史與神學的角度觀之，天主教本土化運動雖對教會的去外國化有顯著意義，但並未充分接納中國宗教在結構、慣俗層面的規範。雷鳴遠與他的同伴最初在人事、文化、美學等方面著力，希望使天主教成為「中國的」。隨著之後中國陷入戰火，此運動逐漸轉向，為更強而有力的中國近代化潮流：軍事化、政黨集權與國家建構服務。倡議者們雖開啟了天主教本土化之門，但最重要的環節：如何透過地方教會，完成中國宗教的教會生成（ecclesiogenesis），卻始終欠缺臨門一腳。
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原文書名：Making Catholicism Chinese: The Catholic Church in a Modernizing China
出版社：Oxford University Press
ISBN：9780197623695
出版日期：2026年1月出版
Stephanie M. Wong’s Making Catholicism Chinese analyzes how a coalition of foreign-born and Chinese Catholics attempted to indigenize Catholicism in early twentieth-century China. During this period, China transformed from a semi-colonized empire to a tentative republic to an increasingly militarized one-party state. As religious communities were externally and internally driven to modernize, the Belgian-born Lazarist missionary Vincent Lebbe advocated for a Chinese Church that could take up this task. He was joined by an array of Chinese clergy, newspaper magnates, scholar-politicians, artists, and army medics and combatants striving in various ways to be both faithful Catholics and patriotic citizens.
The book documents the challenges that the pro-indigenization movement faced: legal pressure from the French civil government, explicit racism from some European missionaries, frequent relocations by warlord militias, opposition from anti-Christian cultural movements, invasion from the Japanese Army, and a widening ideological rift between Chinese Communists and Nationalists.
Wong argues historically and theologically that the Catholic indigenization movement, though significant for de-foreignizing the Church, did not sufficiently take up the structural and habitual norms of Chinese religiosity. Lebbe and his colleagues initially aimed to make Catholicism “Chinese” and endeavored to do so in personnel, culture, and aesthetics. Later, as China was caught up in war, the movement shifted to serve a more powerful current of Chinese modernity: militarization, party centralization, and state-building. These advocates began but never realized the indigenization of Catholicism in the way that mattered most, the ecclesiogenesis of the local Church as a Chinese religion, among others.
Part 1 Setting the Stage
1 Catholic Witness and Chinese Religion in Republican Era China
2 Transnational, National, and Local: Catholicism in Semi-Colonized China
Part 2 Making the Church Chinese
3 The Early Life of Vincent Lebbe
4 A Church Like Any Other—Lobbying for a Chinese Episcopate
5 Race and the Local Church: Theological Analysis
Part 3 The Church in Service of Nation
6 The Later Life of Vincent Lebbe
7 A Church for Chinese Culture: Shaping Aesthetics
8 A Church for the Modern State: Defending the Nation
9 Mission and Politics: Theological Analysis
10 Conclusion: Indigenization Beyond Nationalization
Appendix: Glossary of Chinese Names and Terms