Zhu Xi and Christianity

Historically speaking, it is a fact that Zhu Xi never encountered during his life any person that he would have been able to identify as a Christian intellectual or scholar. Nevertheless, because his interpretive influences in Ruist traditions were so immense after his death, and especially during the Qing dynasty (as other chapters in this volume document so clearly), nineteenth century foreign and indigenous missionary-scholars as well as twentieth century Chinese and foreign Christian scholars from a relatively wide range of backgrounds had to come to grips with the nature of his immense corpus and the claims that were associated with his mature positions. That process did not occur spontaneously, but involved several centuries of inchoate engagement with Zhu Xi’s works that did not display self-conscious awareness of his influences, lasting till the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this article, then, the major discussions will focus on those who self-consciously engaged Zhu Xi’s philosophical system and its claims, usually involving some specific portion of his works.