Ancestors, virgins & friars : Christianity as a local religion in late Imperial China / Eugenio Menegon.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 385-426) and index.

• Maps and Figures
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction: “Truly Unfathomable”?
• 1. Fuan Literati, Jesuits, and Spanish Friars
• 2. Becoming Local: Conflict with Gods and Ancestors, 1634–1645
• 3. The Golden Age of Opportunity, 1645–1723
• 4. Suppression and Persistence, 1723–1840s
• 5. The Christians of Fuan
• 6. Christian Religious Fellowship in Mindong: Priests, Rituals, and Lay Institutions
• 7. Filial Piety, Ancestral Rituals, and Salvation
• 8. Virginity, Chastity, and Sex
• Conclusion—Ruptures: Fuan After the Opium Wars
• Notes on Sources
• Bibliography
• Index

Christianity is often praised as an agent of Chinese modernization or damned as a form of cultural and religious imperialism. In both cases, Christianity’s foreignness and the social isolation of converts have dominated this debate. Eugenio Menegon uncovers another story. In the sixteenth century, European missionaries brought a foreign and global religion to China. Converts then transformed this new religion into a local one over the course of the next three centuries.

Focusing on the still-active Catholic communities of Fuan county in northeast Fujian, this project addresses three main questions. Why did people convert? How did converts and missionaries transform a global and foreign religion into a local religion? What does Christianity’s localization in Fuan tell us about the relationship between late imperial Chinese society and religion?

Based on an impressive array of sources from Asia and Europe, this pathbreaking book reframes our understanding of Christian missions in Chinese-Western relations. The study’s implications extend beyond the issue of Christianity in China to the wider fields of religious and social history and the early modern history of global intercultural relations. The book suggests that Christianity became part of a preexisting pluralistic, local religious space, and argues that we have so far underestimated late imperial society’s tolerance for “heterodoxy.” The view from Fuan offers an original account of how a locality created its own religious culture in Ming-Qing China within a context both global and local, and illuminates the historical dynamics contributing to the remarkable growth of Christian communities in present-day China.

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"明清之際天主教入華傳播, 對東西方社會均產生了一定程度的影響, 梁啟超認為這是學術史上值得"大筆特書"的公案. 本書另闢蹊徑, 將天主教的傳播問題置於明清以來地方社會歷史發展的脈絡中加以考察. 結合人類學的田野調查及歷史學的文獻分析, 系統深入地探討了地方官府, 宗族與鄉村教會發展三者之間的關係"
Includes bibliographical references (pages 320-335).
See Table of Contents.

目錄-- 序 -- 導論：尋找社會底層的歷史 -- 一、繆氏宗族的歷史記憶 -- 二、底層視角 -- 三、田野與資料 -- 四、概念與框架 -- 第一章 福安印象 -- 一、環境 -- 二、社會結構 -- 三、災害、寇亂與地方社會 -- 四、早期宗教信仰 -- 第二章 傳教與禁教 -- 一、從馬尼拉到福安：多明我會之初傳 -- 二、禮儀之爭與明末反教事件 -- 三、清初的傳教與禁教風波 序 -- 導論：尋找社會底層的歷史 -- 一、繆氏宗族的歷史記憶 -- 二、底層視角 三、田野與資料 -- 四、概念與框架 -- 第一章 福安印象 -- 一、環境 -- 二、社會結構 -- 三、災害、寇亂與地方社會 -- 四、早期宗教信仰 -- 第二章 傳教與禁教 -- 一、從馬尼拉到福安：多明我會之初傳 -- 二、禮儀之爭與明末反教事件 -- 三、清初的傳教與禁教風波 -- 四、雍乾以降的禁教政策與福安天主教 -- 第三章 鄉村天主教群體 一、數量 -- 二、構成 -- 三、分佈 -- 第四章 宗族與宗教網絡 -- 一、宗族與地域天主教網絡建構 -- 二、鄉村宗族與天主教：個案研究 -- 三、宗族皈依與文化延續 -- 第五章 信仰與生活 -- 一、村落信仰空間的重組 -- 二、婦女守貞觀念的移植 -- 三、宗族通婚網絡的變遷 結論 -- 一、宗族、教會與國家 -- 二、集體記憶與社群認同 -- 三、隱喻的鄉村教會 -- 參考文獻 -- 外國人名漢譯對照表 -- 後記.