How Can Christianity Establish its Place in a Chinese Culture Research Paper

How Can Christianity Establish its Place in a Chinese Culture - Research Paper Example The Christian groups consisted of Protestants known as Ji du jiao and Catholics who were better known as Tian Zhu jiao of Lord of Heavenly Religion and a small number of Orthodox Christians (Tony 1994). China is a country dominated by ancient religious groups and beliefs like Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Christianity has had a rough journey to reach the position it is today. It has had problems like the persecution of leaders and followers, harassment, physical and mental abuse. Christianity in China has been growing significantly since the loosening of restrictions on religion in 1970 within the republic. However, many religious practices are still controlled by the authorities. Christianity had been in China from the 7th century AD but it later disappeared for many years and then it was re-introduced. The Persian missionary who came to China during the Tang Dynasty were the first Christians to settle in China. Their Christianity which was referred to as Nestorian thrived for many years until the emperor then, implemented anti-religious measures in 845 AD. As a result of the measures, all foreign religions and traditions including Christianity were kicked out of China (Arnold 1889). During the 13th century, under the reign of Yuan dynasty, Christianity was re-introduced but it did not last for long as the Ming Dynasty overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century leading to the expulsion of Christianity again. Later in the 16th century, after Jesuits arrived in Beijing, they introduced western learning and Christianity began to sink deep into the people of China. Although it had grown, it remained a minority group in China. Missionaries started flocking to China and brought in westernization. Christianity had a great deal of influence on the people of China and its teaching started to influence the Chinese people (Yeo 1998).  Ã‚