On Sunday, 4 February, 781 C.E., one of the most long-lasting evidences for the spread of the Christian faith to Asia was finished and erected in Chang’an, China, now the modern city of Xi’an. It was a ‘Stele’ (a monument in stone) that described in detail the history of Jingjiao (the ‘Luminous Teaching’) over the previous almost 150 years since starting in 635. This remarkable artifact has survived being buried in the ground for almost 800 years, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and still stands in a museum in Xi’an, where I have had the privilege to see it on two occasions.
Glen L. Thompson’s new book is an important and groundbreaking resource for bringing into one volume the evidence for the Xi’an Stele as part of the larger context of the history of the Church of the East in Asia and especially in China. After dealing in the Introduction and Chapter 1 with the still largely unknown spread of the early Asian church from its homeland in Northern Mesopotamia (now the Kurdistan area of Iraq), Thompson in Chapter 2 lays out the interpretation and context of the Stele. An important point he makes is about the ‘audience’ for the Stele, describing it as twofold: the Christian community in China but also the Imperial Tang authorities who had given permission for its construction.
However, this book is not only about the Stele, it also describes the state of research overall for the existence of Christianity in China in two periods: the 7th–9th centuries during the Tang Empire and the later 13th–14th centuries during the Mongol period. The author details the history of documents discovered in the early twentieth century in the caves of Dunhuang farther west than Xi’an along the ancient Silk Roads, some of those being of Christian origin. He also discusses more recent releases in 2010 of Dunhuang material that sheds further light on the life and theology of the Church in China and the Church of the East overall.
There are many interesting points that the author makes in this far-ranging book. Perhaps, central is the way he masterfully puts the Church in China in its context with the overall Church along the Silk Roads in earlier centuries. Jingjiao was ‘part of a larger entity’ (p. 152) and had a strong connection to the mother church based in Baghdad, where most of the Jingjiao clergy were trained. As Thompson notes on pg. 143, many of the missionaries and leaders for the larger church came from the monastery of Beit Abhe in Northern Mesopotamia. As my own researches have in part focused on, it is fascinating to speculate that Alopen and his mission team to China in 635 may have gone forth from Beit Abhe.
An important question that Thompson finds difficult to answer from the existing evidence is how effective was the Church in seeing a transfer to mostly Chinese priests, from Syriac-speaking Persians and other Middle Easterners? Certainly, some growth in that area happened as evidenced by the Chinese names on the Stele and how effective was the theology of the Christian faith able to develop in Chinese concepts and language? The Stele itself and the Dunhuang documents do indicate a growth in that adaptation, but as Thompson rightly notes, there is much more room for study in this area, especially with a new generation of Chinese scholars writing and researching in these areas.
Another important area Thompson deals with is the end of Jingjiao in its existence in the Tang period. In the years after 845, Christianity along with Buddhism was suppressed by the Daoist rulers, and evidence is sparse for what happened to the priests and believers. An interesting albeit speculative possibility the author proposes is that some Jingjiao Christians may have emigrated out of China as missionaries to nearby areas, sowing the seeds that became crucial for the emergence in the next centuries of the faith among the Turks and Mongols. (p. 164). This was also the time when the Xi’an Stele was most likely buried, only to be discovered almost 800 years later in 1623 by laborers digging a foundation for a building.
This book also provides important material for discussion in the continued controversies over the inculturation of the Gospel into other cultures and faiths. Thompson examines in Chapter 5 from different perspectives the questions of whether the Church in China in the Tang period failed to adapt their message and practice to the Chinese ways, or did they go too far in inculturation? Both accusations have been leveled at them by scholars and mission practitioners in the many centuries since. This work will not definitively settle that debate, but it does move the discussion forward in vital ways.
Thompson is well-equipped to author this rich and informative new study. He is Professor Emeritus of New Testament studies and historical theology at the Asia Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong. For the past several years, he has been an active participant in the yearly conferences on Jingjiao that have produced excellent volumes of scholarship presented. In his retirement years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he continues to work with students and edits a website focused on fourth-century Christianity. Thompson has an interest in the Church in China not only in its far past but also in its present, having a deep concern also for the future. As Thompson writes in conclusion, “It is a story that holds special interest to Christians, and especially to Chinese Christians….Let us pray that it will inspire a new generation of heralds.” (p. 206).
