Human Nature,Justice,and Society: Reinhold Niebuhr in the Chinese Context

As a public theologian, ¹ Reinhold Niebuhr is not only a figure for American public life but also for public issues on an international scale. He spoke on many international affairs, including China. ² Besides his rich theological insights into public life, this special issue on Niebuhr in the Chinese context will draw special attention again to his theological methodology and its relevance to and challenges in the Chinese context. In this regard, Larry Rasmussen describes Niebuhr as one who “travelled a methodological circle, employing Christian symbols to illumine the human drama that fascinated him, and then revising the articulation of those symbols in light of the drama as it unfolded. He let faith discern the truth of his experience and at the same time let the reality of human experience be his guide into theology.” ³ This issue will bring this methodology into a contextual experiment with the “the reality of human experience” in the Chinese context (which here includes mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) and see how Niebuhr’s Christian ideas are relevant, receptive, and revisited in that context.

Background: Niebuhr and Christians/Christian Scholarship in China

Niebuhr received attention from Chinese Christian scholarship at a very early stage, even during his lifetime. His book Moral Man and Immoral Society was translated and published in Chinese in 1935. ⁴ Later, his other books, such as An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Children of Light and Children of Darkness, Self and the Drama of History also became available in Chinese. There is also some Chinese scholarship on Niebuhr, covering the topics of Christian realism, Christian ethics, love and justice, morality and politics, and so on. ⁵

In addition to Chinese Niebuhr scholarship, there are also some cases of individual Chinese figures (including Christian) “encounter” with Niebuhr, who have attempted to relate Niebuhr to their theological and intellectual thinking in the Chinese context. An outstanding Chinese confrontation with Niebuhr is exemplified in Yao-tsung Wu (1893–1979), a pioneer of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in China, who studied at Union Theological Seminary in the 1920s and 1930s and was influenced by Niebuhr, especially his ideas on pacifism and social transformation. ⁶ An influential Chinese public intellectual, Hao Chang (former professor both at Ohio State University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) listened to Niebuhr lecture at Harvard University when he was a doctoral student there in the 1960s. He was inspired by Niebuhr’s interpretation of human nature and democracy from a Christian point of view, upon which he initiated the term “Sense of Darkness” (Youan Yishi) with regard to humanity and reflected the problem of a developing democracy in the Chinese context. ⁷

In contemporary Chinese scholarship, there is a trend for studying prominent Christian theologians and their relevance to the Chinese context so as to advance the development of Sino-Christian theology. In this regard, the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (Hong Kong) has published several volumes, such as Karl Barth and Sino-Christian Theology (2000, 2008), Jürgen Moltmann and Sino-Christian Theology (2004), Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sino-Christian Theology (2006), Paul Tillich and Sino-Christian Theology (2006), and John Calvin and Sino-Christian Theology (2010). To continue this direction with focus on a distinctive public theologian and his implications in understanding Christianity and public life in the Chinese context, the Institute and the Center for Christian Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong coorganized an international symposium on “Human Nature, Justice, and Society: Reinhold Niebuhr in the Chinese Context” in Hong Kong in December 2019. The symposium, presented by Western Niebuhr experts and representative Chinese Niebuhr scholars, explores the implications of Niebuhr’s religious, social, and political thought in the Chinese context as well as the challenge of the relevant issues arising in the Chinese context in relation to Niebuhr’s thought. This symposium focused on how to relate Niebuhr to Chinese culture, society, and politics. The articles in this issue are taken from the symposium. ⁸

Reinhold Niebuhr has been influential in America and beyond for decades. I believe the significant and public issues he raised from a Christian perspectives on human nature, love and justice, and democracy are universal to some degree, which are not only located in his culture and society but also in other global contexts, including the Chinese context. We hope the discussions here are beneficial to Niebuhr scholarship in general as well as to Christian scholarship and public discourse in Chinese academia against international settings.

Politics, Society, and Religion: Niebuhr and Public Issues in the Chinese Context

According to a recent summary of the Niebuhr legacy by Jeremy L. Sabella, “Niebuhr’s major contribution lies in three areas: politics, society, and religion, particularly pointing to the questions of ‘how to ethically wield power, especially the power of governments,’ of ‘how the categories of love and justice shape human relation,’ and of ‘how humans find meaning in life.’” ⁹

Accordingly, we shall further reflect on the problems arising from the three areas in the Chinese context and see how Niebuhr’s thinking can have implications for those problems. First of all, an outstanding phenomenon in China is its diversity (at least tending to be) of religious and social life. In 2014 Pew Research Center produced an index that ranks each country by its level of religious diversity, in which Singapore is listed first, Taiwan second, mainland China ninth, and Hong Kong tenth. Here we see Chinese societies have a high level of religious diversity and the Asia-Pacific region has the highest level of religious diversity. ¹⁰ In mainland China, the percentage of the followers of major religions is: Christian 5.1%, Muslim 1.8%, Buddhist 18.2%, folk religion 21.9%, and particularly 52.2% (more than half) identified as “unaffiliated.” Even though the percentage of Christians in China is estimated as 5.1% by Pew Research (i.e., more than 65 million Christians, including 58 million Protestants and 9 million Catholics), the number is controversial. Still, some may expect a vast growth of Christians in China. Despite this, it would be equally important to take seriously the high level of religious diversity in China both in evangelical enthusiasm and in Christian encounters with Chinese cultural and social life in general. This situates the place of Christianity in Chinese religious life and its interaction with Chinese society and politics.

This diversity is further demonstrated in social life. It has been observed that the “social” category (by contrast with the state and the collective) has emerged in contemporary Chinese society in terms of two layers: the differentiated spheres of social life and the emergence of various social organizations. Since the 1980s, together with a growing market economy, we have seen the emergence of different and dynamic social spheres rather than a unified model of these spheres, such as agriculture, industry, business, trade, transportation, communications, architecture, arts, and media. These spheres have gained relatively independent status, diverse forms, with a certain flourishing. Social life in China becomes dynamic, although some problems take place in these various spheres, which require further regulation by laws and public policy.

Alongside the diversified social spheres, different interest groups have diversified social demands. We can witness the emergence and development of various kinds of organizations in contemporary China, ranging from organizations approved by the Chinese government to those more independent, including unregistered grassroots organizations, from nonprofit urban organizations (professional associations, business associations, trade associations, academic associations, social service organizations, sports and entertainment organizations, public affairs organizations such as environmental protection organizations, social services and charity organizations) to rural communities (various religious groups, kinship organizations, and community schools). ¹¹ Many of the organizations are associated with diversified social spheres.

Despite the rise of “society” and the plural tendency in contemporary China, the basic model remains “state control or state-led society.” There are increasing demands for more autonomy of social spheres and institutions as many social organizations (religious and nonreligious alike, including private enterprise) tend to be quasi-governmental. One Chinese scholar maintains that, “in addition to the acquisition of an independent identity from the State, Chinese civil society strives for participation so as to facilitate positive interactive relations between itself and the State.” ¹²

This applies to religious groups in China, too. As C. K. Yang, a Chinese sociologist of religion, points out, “[O]rganizational autonomy of religious bodies in the Western sense never existed under the traditional government, and certainly does not under the contemporary Communist rule.” ¹³ More recently, Chinese legal scholars agree with this, saying, “[i]n recent years the religious associations in China have increasingly become quasi-state organizations, with their independence continually declining.” ¹⁴

Besides the problem of diverse social institutions, there are also problems of social justice regarding the areas of education, public health, social welfare, employment, the protection of marginalized people, and gender equality. In this regard, some emphasize institutional transformation, including constitutionalism, while others are more concerned with the moral aspects, especially the issue of humanity. ¹⁵ The dynamic development of social life including religious life raises the challenging problem of their relationship to government, hence the problems of the use of political power, social governance, human rights, and democracy.

Back to Niebuhr. He addresses the pluralism of religious life and social organization as well. For Niebuhr, religious and cultural diversity is “possible within the presuppositions of a free society, without destroying the religious depth of culture,” and “It demands that each religion, or each version of a single faith, seeks to proclaim its highest insights while yet preserving a humble and contrite recognition of the fact that all actual expressions of religious faith are subject to historical contingency and relativity.” ¹⁶ He endorses religious diversity while he demands religious commitment and relativity. Wilfred M. McClay suggests, “He is envisioning the cultivation of religious toleration not merely as a process of bracketing one’s own religious beliefs in the encounter with others, but as itself the product of redoubled religious intensity, as a kind of ascetic spiritual discipline leading to an ever higher form of religious commitment.” ¹⁷

Niebuhr also appraises the diversity of social organizations, saying, “The realists know that history is not a simple rational process but a vital one. All human societies are organizations of diverse vitalities and interests. Some balance of power is the basis of whatever justice is achieved in human relations.” ¹⁸ However, as Eric Patterson shows, Niebuhr tends to see “institutions as tools of individual and/or collective self-interest, but realized that these institutions could check one another’s power if they had sufficient resources for balancing the other.” ¹⁹

Niebuhr himself urges us to “bear our Christian witness in the cause of justice,” ²⁰ and makes “continuous effort to find proximate solutions for the perennial problems of public life” in politics. ²¹ The cultural, religious, and social diversity further locates the background of Niebuhr’s ideas of justice and democracy. Robin Lovin proposes, “Niebuhr’s focus on the human capacity for justice and the political necessity of democracy will have to be integrated with a pluralism that makes a more complete statement about the human good and thus provides broader guidance in relation to the broader questions of our time.” ²² The quest of justice and democracy informed by Christian insights in a contemporary context has to be attentive to diverse ideas of human good, including religious ideas, diversified even in conflicted interests of social organizations.

The central problem arises regarding Niebuhr’s engagement in politics, society, and religion, the meaning of life offered by religion with humility, “ethically wielded power,” and “approximate justice” motivated and transformed by love. The Christian responsibility is to create “a moral vocabulary for the public” ²³ in a more and more diversified world. It would be worthwhile to explore the relevance of Niebuhr to particular religious, social, and political contexts in China, which sets the background to examine the place of Christianity in that context. Among many things about Christianity in China, there coexist the ongoing movement of “Sinification of Christianity,” the quest for the “evangelization of China” and “Christianization of culture.” Some Christian communities (both registered and non-registered) strive for their rights to Christian practice, struggle with more freedom and autonomy, linked with social and political activism, engage in public disobedience, and involve Christian social services in various circumstances. It is said there is growing interaction with state and society and Christianity in contemporary China. ²⁴

Christianity in Chinese culture and society will have to encounter the fact of characteristic religious diversity, the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture, the relations between Christian communities, state, and other spheres of social life in China where Christians can cooperate with large non-Christian communities in cultural, social, and economic life, and engage with social justice with respect to its own state–society/church–state structure and the increasing social pluralism in China. I have suggested that “In current political-social circumstances, even though there is some other work such as striving for more freedom to practice, the public significance of Christianity and theology in China lies in its moral power in different spheres of life and its spiritual resources for public life as well.” ²⁵ At this point, Niebuhr’s concern with the morality of public life could be outstanding.

Impossible Ideals and Proximate Solution: The Themes and Contribution of This Issue

Niebuhr has much more to say about Christianity in the Chinese context. This special issue contributes to the discourse on the religious, social, and political problems in a Chinese context from a Christian perspective which Niebuhr illuminates. It also relates Niebuhr’s theological methodology to the Chinese context and sees that Christian theology can engage in particular circumstances.

This issue consists of contributions from four Chinese scholars and one American Niebuhr expert. Lai Pan-chiu’s article provides a contextual and multidisciplinary approach to Niebuhr’s idea of forgiveness in the Hong Kong context with reference to the resistance movement since summer 2019. Lai argues for a realistic understanding that political forgiveness is possible (yet not compulsory) as well as desirable, which should be based on a dialectical view of human nature with its focus on selfishness, rather than a naïve and optimistic view of human compassion. He expounds this with a certain reliance on Confucian perspectives that emphasize political forgiveness as part of statecraft and multidisciplinary (such as from biology, psychology, and neuroscience) studies of altruism, particularly reciprocal altruism. Throughout this study, Lai addresses in his own way the question of “proximate and appropriate expressions of the law of love” (including forgiveness) Niebuhr raised earlier, where he attempts to extend forgiveness from interpersonal relationships to the public domain.

The concern with human nature in Niebuhr and Chinese circumstances is also raised by Luping Huang. Huang offers a historical and comparative study of Y. T. Wu and Niebuhr covering the 1930s through 1940s with regard to the issues of human nature, pacifism, coercion, and social transformation, and explores how Wu critically used and converged with Niebuhr’s Christian realism. Particularly, Huang points out that Niebuhr’s influence was evidenced in Wu’s growing awareness of human sinfulness, which motivated him to renounce pacifism and accept the necessity of coercion while acknowledging love as an absolute ideal. Against his experience and background in this period, Wu departed from Niebuhr in his belief in the infinite progress of human society and instead embraced communism from his early progressive pacifism. Huang provides a detailed case study about how Niebuhr’s Christian realism is contextualized in China, in which the ideological, social, and political circumstances are considered.

While Huang relates Niebuhr and a Chinese Christian in a specific period, Zhibin Xie introduces Confucian perspectives presented by several Chinese scholars and the perspectives of social scientists in the Chinese academy on social justice to dialogue with Niebuhr’s dynamic understanding of love and justice. He examines various Confucian alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy and justice, including the Niebuhrian version of love and justice. He argues that to explore social justice in China the concepts of love—both Confucian ren and Christian agape—can make their own contributions, demanding just institutions while revealing human limitations. Importantly, he suggests that both independent political and social inquiry into justice and religious ethical contributions, such as the ideal of love, to creating a just society are demanding. It is in this sense Niebuhr is relevant to the Chinse context.

To further understand Niebuhr’s public theology and his theological methodology, the adherence of human nature to such issues as love, forgiveness, justice, and coercion is further demonstrated in the issue of democracy based on Niebuhr’s work The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. In this regard, Shang-Jen Chen and Robin Lovin’s articles provide us reflections from a Chinese perspective and a contemporary pluralist setting, respectively. Shang-Jen Chen reflects the roles of Christians and churches in the Chinese public discourse of democracy where he highlights Niebuhr’s theological ideas of human sinfulness, individual ownership, and toleration. He further explores the possibility to construct a free, just, and affluent society in the Chinese context, where he emphasizes the value of genuine humility and toleration of cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity derived from the human condition of sinfulness, which is underscored by Niebuhr. For this purpose, he refers to the Taiwanese experience in which the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan plays a role in making some theological statements regarding human dignity and human rights. He even has the confidence in the accommodation of Chinese culture and tradition with a democratic society, where the virtue of toleration towards plurality is cultivated and practiced with the help of both Christian theology and democratic ideas. As I see it, Chen’s proposal is contrasted with Hao Chang, who has suggested that even though there is a sense about human evil in Chinese traditions, there are still difficulties in developing democracy constitutionally in Chinese history. This problem reminds us of Niebuhr’s dialectic understanding of human nature as both sinful and created in the image of God and how it pertains in social and political structures.

Starting with the possibilities and limits of human nature, Lovin develops Niebuhr’s idea of the tensions and conflicts between impossible ideals (religious ideas in particular) and proximate solutions as essential to democracy. He proposes a version of “realistic pluralism” that can accommodate realistic goals as “multiple, limited, and situated in a particular context” and a “religious humility” in politics under conditions of religious and political pluralism. Under this framework, he also responds to some issues raised in China, including from the other articles in this issue by Chinese scholars, such as Confucian perception of Chinese politics, theological conviction, and political implementation.

As Lovin proposes, the crucial question is, again, how the biblical understanding of human nature requires both impossible ideals and proximate solutions in a functioning society in light of Niebuhr. Yet Niebuhr’s Christian realism demands critical distance and modification in different cultures, traditions, and politics in a new global reality, while we may find a possible analogy regarding human nature, ideals, and solutions in other traditions such as Confucianism, which means “bringing the impossible ideal to bear on the recurrent task of creating a new proximate solution to insoluble problems.” ²⁶

In general, the articles in this issue attach great importance to human nature, such as human sinfulness, and show concern with the political and public expression of such values as love, compassion, forgiveness, and humility, either from Christian or Confucian roots, either in the American or Chinese context. On those issues, Niebuhr matters. It would be stimulating for the Chinese philosophers and social scientists who study Chinese politics and public life to recognize the meaning of moral ideals, either religious or secular, in facing social and political problems such as justice and democracy, on the one hand, and it would be beneficial for Chinese Christian scholarship to enhance Christian moral ideals’ relevance to public issues, on the other. The problems from the discussions here remain open about the two outstanding issues at least: one is the possibility of transforming virtue based in family and interpersonal relationships to public virtue, and the other is understanding human nature as the development of democratic institutions, which was raised earlier by Chang. I believe the problems deserve further examination in wider Niebuhr circles.