From ‘Sacrificing to Ancestors’ (jizu) to ‘Reverencing Ancestors’ (jingzu): Bread of Life Christianity's Cultural Negotiation between Christianity and Confucianism for a Hybrid Identity

Abstract

Among many issues associated with religious negotiation and intercultural ministry and mission in the history of Christianity in China, the most important issue involves the Chinese rite of offering sacrifice to ancestors. This issue has been closely connected to the process of the Sinicisation of Christianity in all Pan-Chinese societies, including the Greater China and Chinese diasporic communities worldwide. This paper first reviews key historical elements of the Chinese Rites Controversy (1645–1941) on ‘Sacrificing to Ancestors’ ( jizu), and then considers some details of the ‘Three Rites’ of ‘Reverencing Ancestors’ ( jingzu) as a historical development within the Bread of Life Christian Church (BOLCC, Ling Liang Tang) in Taipei and the Bread of Life Global Apostolic Network (BGAN) of nearly 600 local churches on all continents as of 2020. Through this case study, the paper argues that the BOLCC, an independent Christian church established in 1942 and a contemporary Sinophone-based Christian movement, could expand quickly by applying its intercultural ‘Ling Liang Rule’ to continue the successful culture-accommodating ‘Matteo Ricci Rule’ among the Pan-Chinese (Chinese descendants in China and beyond) by providing an ‘in-between space’ negotiating for Christianity and Confucianism to satisfy their believers’ ‘hybrid identity’. Through the Christianised Reverencing Ancestors Rites to hybridise the Confucian Sacrificing to Ancestors Rites, Bread of Life Sinophone Christians in many places of the world can simultaneously affirm their cultural ‘hybrid identity’ as both Christian and Sinophone through core cultural interactions between Christianity and Confucianism in filial piety ( xiao).