Anthropology

* This chapter was completed with the invaluable help of several Protestant pastors and Catholic priests from China and abroad. Special thanks go to Dennis Balcombe, Peter Chen, Bruno Lepeu mep, and Pastor Thomas S. and his co-pastors in Fujian. It is unusual for a scholar studying Chinese Christians to collaborate with both official and unofficial, Catholic and Protestant networks. The trust and seasoned advice I received from these pastors and priests made it possible for me to apply a comparative perspective in this chapter.

Dans son livre «Les Chrétiens de Chine », Pierre Vendassi présente les résultats de sa recherche en sociologie qui porte sur la conversion religieuse. L'auteur étudie les Chinois qui se tournent vers une forme ou l' autre du christianisme. Son approche ne se limite pas à la question du « pourquoi» mais fait porter son effort sur les mécanismes – les « comment » – qui soutiennent une telle démarche. Les données collectées sont essentiellement des entretiens semi-directifs avec 73 convertis, rencontrés principalement à Shanghai mais aussi à Bordeaux. A travers ces discours, le lecteur découvre huit communautés chré-tiennes de Shanghaï – en grande partie des Églises-maisons, c' est-à-dire des communautés non-déclarées auprès des autorités gouvernementales et qui se réunissent de fait plus discrètement. L'ouvrage se divise en six chapitres qui progressivement proposent d' expliciter comment la conversion religieuse s'articule autour de trois types de processus: affiliation, conversion et confession. Il ne s'agit pas de trois étapes successives au cours d' un parcours linéaire mais de trois dynamiques conceptuellement distinctes, réversibles, fluctuantes et asynchroniques. Pour Pierre Vendassi, la conversion s' alimente de ces trois dynamiques tout en demeurant au fond une quête de sens. L' auteur montre que les personnes rencontrées deviennent chrétiennes en apprenant à recon-naître, sacraliser puis transcender des modèles sociaux non spécifiquement chrétiens, ni radicalement nouveaux mais déjà présents dans leur environne-ment. La notion de famille est en cela largement explorée au cours de l' ouvrage. Ce travail a pour première qualité d' être pionnier parmi les contributions académiques d'envergure en langue française sur le christianisme en Chine. Il a pour grand mérite de ne pas réduire la « question chrétienne » à une question politique et le coeur de la recherche demeure les personnes engagées dans des processus de conversion. Plus encore, l' analyse théorique propose de manière très pertinente un modèle dynamique de la conversion, qui en plus de se pencher sur des mécanismes concrets et comparables, montre combien affiliation et conversion, à la jonction de plusieurs facteurs, peuvent être par-tielles voire réversibles. Ensuite, la qualité des observations et l' analyse qui en est faite, permettent d'illustrer en quoi le développement du christianisme en Chine se situe dans un entre-deux, alliant continuité et rupture par rapport au contexte socioreligieux chinois. En présentant les témoignages directs de nom-breux convertis, Pierre Vendassi permet au lecteur d' entrevoir à quel point ces nouveaux chrétiens ne sont ni dans un strict rejet de leur environnement (poli-tique, religieux et économique), ni dans une simple réincarnation de la religion chinoise populaire.

The rapid transformation of Chinese Catholicism and its adaptation to the new urban environment has been brought about by a wide range of participants and not just by the clergy. This article explores the motivations, organization and influences of one specific type of promotion of Chinese Catholicism: the entrepreneurial lay Catholics who have migrated from the rural countryside to the constantly growing Chinese cities.

This article explores the evolution of female religious life within the Catholic Church in China today. Through ethnographic observation, it establishes a spectrum of practices between two main traditions, namely the antique beatas and the modern missionary congregations. The article argues that Chinese nuns create forms of religious life that are quite distinct from more universal Catholic standards: their congregations are always diocesan and involved in multiple forms of apostolate. Despite the little attention they receive, Chinese nuns demonstrate how Chinese Catholics are creative in their appropriation of Christian traditions and their response to social and economic changes.

This article explores the ways in which Christians are building churches
in contemporary Nanping, China. At first glance, their architectural style
appears simply neo-Gothic, but these buildings indeed enact a rich web of
significances that acts upon local Christians and beyond. Building on
Actor-Network Theory and exploring the multiple ties in which they are
embedded, I argue that these buildings are agents acting in their own
right, which take an active part in the process of making the presence of
the Christian God tangible.

Over the last few decades China’s growing involvement in Africa has led many observers to point out that Chinese Christianity could benefit from this new proximity. In fact, the growing number of citizens from the Middle Kingdom who move to Africa encounter vibrant Christian communities. It appears that some of those Chinese have also embraced Christianity and taken it home with them. But the Christian significance of the Afro-Chinese encounter is even more important, broader than the simple number of the newly baptized. Therefore, this article highlights a dimension that is rarely mentioned: it focuses on Africans who, as workers, students, diplomats or small businessmen, live in China and engage with local Catholics, in order to explore the implications for the Church in China.

An anthropological theorization of the unity and diversity of Christianity, this book focuses on Christian communities in Nanping, a small city in China. It applies methodological insights from Actor-Network Theory to investigate how the Christian God is made part of local social networks. The study examines how Christians interact with and re-define material objects, such as buildings, pews, offerings, and blood, in order to identify the kind of networks and non-human actors that they collectively design. By comparing local Christian traditions with other practices informing the Nanping religious landscape, the study points out potential cohesion via the centralizing presence of the Christian God, the governing nature of the pastoral clergy, and the semi-transcendent being of the Church.

This paper presents the role that nuns have played in the Catholic Church in China and discusses their underlying theology of ministry. 1 As numerous as diocesan priests, and belonging to diocesan orders that share similar structures and functioning from place to place, nuns are deeply involved in the pastoral care of Chinese dioceses. But how can one best describe their ecclesial role? What does it say about the Church as a whole? To answer these questions, this article elaborates on ethnographic material collected between 2015 and 2017 and presented in the article, 'Chinese Catholic Nuns and their Organization of religious Life in Contemporary China' (Chambon 2019). In continuity with this socio-historical analysis of Chinese religious orders, the present article argues that the Church in China has generated a consensus on ministry that is quite distinct from the rest of the worldwide Catholic Church and rooted in its particular history and context. In the People's Republic of China, nuns are a constitutive part of the diocesan clergy and their collective position is best described as a diaconal ministry. This Chinese consensus on ministry does not necessarily contradict the Catholic Tradition but manifests one localization of the Church.

Building Churches on Chinese Soil "What would remain of a religious ideology-the Judeo-Christian one, say-if it were not based on places and their names: church, confessional, altar, sanctuary, tabernacle? What would remain of the Church if there were no churches? The Christian ideology, carrier of a recognizable if disregarded Judaism (God the Father, etc.), has created the spaces which guarantee that it endures." (Lefebvre 1991: 44) This foundational chapter aims to achieve three related goals. First, it provides a broad but substantial introduction to the Christian networks that are operating in Nanping today. Second, it lays out the religious, historical and economic background within which local Christians evolve. Finally, it argues that the spread of Christianity across this territory is orchestrated not by Christians alone, but also through a distinct and active collaboration with material objects that act in their own right via a type of agency that this chapter aims to unfold. To reach these goals, I take Nanping Christians at large, including their objects and their environment, to provide an overview of the place where this study is located. Through what may appear as a tour across northern Fujian, I present the villages, the city, the historical sites, the different spaces, and the new constructions where the Christian actions explored in this book take shape. However, presenting a place is never impartial and objective. In his book The Production of Space, the French philosopher and sociologist

Conclusion: The Tree of Life This book has explored the unity and diversity of Christianity in the Yanping District. By focusing on six local Christianizing assemblages, we have uncovered how various collaborations occur among human actors and material agents to simultaneously critique local worldviews and advocate for the recognition of the central and engaging presence of the Christian God. At the core of this process lies the epiphany of the questioning face toward which everyone and everything is invited-but not forced-to reposition oneself. The revelation of this being does not impose, though, a unique understanding of it, nor a blueprint for engaging with Christian traditions and local society. Nanping Christians constantly and collectively discern and negotiate the best way to respond to the naked face and to hierarchize priorities. The production of new religious practices, social involvement, and lines of distinction among Nanping Christianizing assemblages reveal that the turn to the Christian Lord does not automatically provide a predefined code of practices, nor a unique system of meaning with predetermined values. On the contrary, Nanping Christians are continuously producing and readjusting their many ways to engage with the calling face and their society. However, if the epiphany of the face does not bring a prearranged and coherent system of meaning with itself, it still comes with particular coacting entities. The enigmatic face emerges with and throughout the twin sponsorship of the Church and the pastoral clergy. These paired entitiesspecific to Christianizing assemblages-guide, support, and sponsor the

The rapid transformation of Chinese Catholicism and its adaptation to the new urban environment has been brought about by a wide range of participants and not just by the clergy. This article explores the motivations, organization and influences of one specific type of promotion of Chinese Catholicism: the entrepreneurial lay Catholics who have migrated from the rural countryside to the constantly growing Chinese cities.

This article explores the evolution of female religious life within the Catholic Church in China today. Through ethnographic observation, it establishes a spectrum of practices between two main traditions, namely the antique beatas and the modern missionary congregations. The article argues that Chinese nuns create forms of religious life that are quite distinct from more universal Catholic standards: their congregations are always diocesan and involved in multiple forms of apostolate. Despite the little attention they receive, Chinese nuns demonstrate how Chinese Catholics are creative in their appropriation of Christian traditions and their response to social and economic changes.