"This dissertation surveys the history of Christianity in China during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with particular attention given to Chinese clergy and lay Christians. A variety of issues are discussed: the social organization of Christian communities, the networks among communities in different localities, internal tensions and conflicts, and Christian devotions in relation to the printing and circulation of Chinese Christian texts known as "scriptures".
By examining a group of unusual sources that have been mostly neglected by past scholars---the correspondence of Chinese Christians with ecclesiastical authorities in Rome, and other more familiar but little studied sources such as memorials and edicts regarding the investigation and interrogation of Chinese Christians and Western missionaries during the period of prohibition (1724-1844)---I intend to show how the imperial ban on Christianity in 1724, especially the expulsion of missionaries and the closing of all churches outside the imperial capital, may have affected Christian beliefs and practices at the local level.
The historical survey of the period from 1724 to 1780 and the two case studies in Beijing and Jiangnan from 1780 to 1860 will demonstrate that the repression of Christianity and periodic anti-Christian campaigns did, to some extent, help to shape the Christian community in China, making them into a whole body of people connected by religious identity, as distinguished from non-Christians. Yet this strong sense of community may also have been due to spiritual and social connections with Christian communities beyond China.
A second contribution of this dissertation study has to do with its exploring the nuances of Christian and other forms of popular devotions. Recent scholarship that sees Christianity primarily as a Chinese popular religion may have underestimated its distinctive "foreignness" and in part misunderstood what conversion meant in the context of Chinese religion and society. To some extent, Chinese converts were attracted to Christianity because it provided another choice for them beyond the existing religious traditions. A drastically different calendar characterized by distinctive feast days, fasting and abstinence, veneration of saints, along with other peculiar Christian beliefs and practices, have become what I define as "alternative devotions".--OCLC record.
See also sections on the Russian Orthodox Church in China and its contacts with the Jesuits, the Beitang, Nantang, and church properties during the early 19th century.

"Following the prohibition of missionary activity after 1724, China's Christians were effectively cut off from all foreign theological guidance. The ensuing isolation forced China's Christian communities to become self-reliant in perpetuating the basic principles of their faith. Left to their own devices, the missionary seed developed into a panoply of indigenous traditions, with Christian ancestry as the common denominator. Christianity thus underwent the same process of inculturation as previous religious traditions in China, such as Buddhism and Judaism. As the guardian of orthodox morality, the prosecuting state sought to exercise all-pervading control over popular thoughts and social functions. This study therefore presents the campaigns against Christians during this period as part and parcel of the campaign against 'heresy' and 'heretical' movements in general." -- Publisher description.

Defining the research parameters -- Aims and structure -- Our sources : a word of caution -- Geography -- Through inculturation to Chinese Christianity -- Accommodation and inculturation -- Japan's 'hidden Christians' -- The evolution of Chinese Christianity -- Christian missions and popular religious culture -- The philosophical background -- Christianity and the Manchurian elite -- Late imperial Christianity : popular cult or alien creed? -- Filial sons and a world of demons -- Ancestral tablets and auspicious inscriptions -- Interaction with other movements -- Peasant millenarianism and Christian theology -- Guilt, sin, universal harmony -- Healing and black magic -- Death and afterlife -- Materialism and superstition : attitudes towards religious discipline -- Matrimony and filial duty -- Inherited identity in Christian villages -- Itinerant Christians, private religious practice, and the interest of the state -- A protective father : official perceptions of Christianity and government action against sectarian movements -- The philosophical basis for anti-heresy campaigns -- The Confucian order and the importance of family ties -- State-sanctioned orthodoxy and 'heresy' -- Christianity as target : a chronology of state action -- The Yongzheng Edict of 1724 -- The Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns (1736-1821) -- The Adeodato Affair and the persecution of 1805 -- The persecution of 1811 and its aftermath -- Relaxation of anti-Christian state action during the Daoguang period -- The perplexed official : Christianity as heterodox mystery -- The official description of heresy -- 'Heretical' writings -- Christianity as internal menace -- Between social control and official paranoia -- Poverty and persecution -- The state versus Christian 'heresy' -- Christianity as alien intrusion -- Conclusion : Chinese Christianity and the fear of 'heresy'.

Catholics and society in eighteenth-century Sichuan / Robert E. Entenmann -- Catholic converts in Jiangxi province : conflict and accomodation, 1860-1900 / Alan R. Sweeten -- Rural religion and village organization in North China : the Catholic challenge in the late nineteenth century / Charles A. Litzinger -- Twilight of the Gods in the Chinese countryside : Christians, Confucians, and the modernizing state, 1861-1911 / Roger R. Thompson -- Christian missionary as Confucian intellectual : Gilbert Reid (1857-1927) and the reform movement in the late Qing / Tsou Mingteh -- Politics of evangelism at the end of the Qing : Nanchang, 1906 / Ernest P. Young -- From barbarians to sinners : collective conversion among plains Aborigines in Qing Taiwan, 1859-1895 / John R. Shepherd -- Christianity and the Hua Miao : writing and power / Norma Diamond -- Christianity and Hakka identity / Nicole Constable -- Christian virgins in eighteenth-century Sichuan / Robert E. Entenmann -- Chinese women and Protestant Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century / Kwok Pui-Lan -- "Cradle of female talent" : the McTyeire home and school for girls, 1892-1937 / Heidi A. Ross -- "Oasis in a heathen land" : St. Hilda's school for girls, Wuchang, 1928-1936 / Judith Liu and Donald P. Kelly -- Christianity, feminism, and communism : the life and times of Deng Yuzhi / Emily Honig -- Karl Gutzlaff's approach to indigenization : the Chinese union / Jessie G. Lutz and R. Ray Lutz -- Contextualizing Protestant publishing in China : the Wenshe, 1924-1928 / Peter Chen-Main Wang -- Growth of independent Christianity in China, 1900-1937 / Daniel H. Bays -- Toward independence : Christianity in China under the Japanese occupation, 1937-1945 / Timothy Brook -- Y.T. Wu : a Christian leader under communism / Gao Wangzhi -- Holy Spirit Taiwan : Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in the Republic of China / Murray A. Rubinstein.

Publisher description ; Table of contents.