Background

Christianity has an ancient history in China, dating back at least to 635 A.D. when an official mission of the Church of the East was invited to the Tang court. The first Roman Catholic presence was recorded in the 13th-century Yuan period; the Russian Orthodox faith entered China with the eastward expansion of Russia in the late 17th-century; and Protestantism arrived with Robert Morrison at the beginning of the 19th-century. One hundred fifty years later, Chinese Christians numbered about 1,700,000. During the past fifty years, Christians in China have not merely survived severe persecution, but have multiplied themselves many times, with estimates ranging from fifty to a hundred million. Government-sanctioned churches, house churches, Christian fellowships, and Bible study groups all are flourishing in urban and rural areas, in business companies, and on university campuses. Christianity has spread its influence among Chinese communities around the world, where Chinese churches also are growing rapidly.

Who are the persons who have played important roles in this tremendous growth? In the modern era, the prodigious efforts of Western missionaries carried the Gospel message throughout the land of China. But what are the names and stories of Chinese indigenous church leaders and lay persons who embraced the Gospel, pioneered and nurtured the churches, led independent Christian movements, and applied biblical values to Chinese social and political challenges? Incredibly, the majority of them are virtually unknown. Other than a few dozen church leaders, theologians, and evangelists, their stories have been lost even to Chinese Christians, as well as to the rest of the world.

Concern about this situation brought a group of China scholars to a consultation in New Haven, Connecticut, in October 2005 to consider how to narrow the gap between current reference materials and contemporary Chinese Christian demography.

Objective

The BDCC is an international undertaking aimed at producing an electronic database containing the essential biographical facts of Chinese and foreign Christian missionaries, church leaders, evangelists, and laity chiefly responsible for laying the foundations and advancing the growth of Chinese Christian communities and their influence in societies around the world. While the database is widely inclusive of time periods and faith traditions, the distinctive focus of the project will be on the lesser-known Chinese Christians of the modern era.

The dictionary will fill important gaps in historical and theological studies and will inform, challenge, and enrich both academic and church communities by its internationally collaborative character. It will bring into focus for younger generations the richness of lives of faith and service.

An international team of scholars is facilitating the project. Contributors are drawn from academic, church, and mission communities in China, Asia and elsewhere. After the start-up phase through June 2006, during which the website will be designed and launched, work to sustain the database is expected to continue. The launch phase of the project will focus on the period from 1800 to 1950 and will place a high priority on finding and preserving the stories of indigenous church leaders and laypersons. With a solid base in academic expertise, the project nevertheless would aim to introduce the personal stories of grass-roots Chinese Christians and their communities in a lively writing style.

Scope

The database will begin with already published biographies from quality reference materials and in cooperation with the Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco, which sponsors the current best digital source of Chinese Christian biographies, mainly those of Roman Catholic missionaries and Chinese Catholic clerics, primarily in English and French. See www.usfca.edu/ricci/. The BDCC will be designed to complement this resource.

The dictionary eventually will cover the whole of Chinese Christianity from earliest times to the present and in every country where Chinese communities are found. Broadly inter-confessional, historically descriptive, and exploiting the full range of oral and written records, the dictionary is being produced electronically, both in Chinese and in English. The project is designed to stimulate local data gathering from universities, churches, seminaries and colleges, and para-church agencies, with faculty members, graduate students, and organizational staff doing research and writing.

Selection of Subjects

Biographical subjects are discovered and selected on the basis of their perceived local, regional, national, or international importance. No subject is excluded if, in the opinion of communities of local believers, his or her contribution is deemed singular. Regional coordinators will collect and verify the contributions, for project staff to add to the electronic database. The database will be kept current and available on the BDCC website, and a CD-ROM version will be shared annually with each participating institution. See www.dacb.org for our model.

Contribute

An invitation is hereby extended to researchers, writers, and participating institutions to join in our team effort.

Participants will be trained and mentored for the task of recording stories of specific church leaders and influential laypersons. BDCC staff and advisors will serve as facilitators for researchers and institutions, supplying resources and expertise in oral history and archiving. Guidelines for compiling the biographies and information about institutional participation may be obtained from the BDCC website or project manager.