Editor's note: Chloë Starr, professor of Asian Christianity and Theology at Yale Divinity School, shares how her upbringing, influenced by her sinologist father, sparked her interest in Chinese culture and Christianity. In the exclusive interview with China Christian Daily, Starr discusses her research on the intersection of Chinese literature and theology and emphasizes the need to understand Chinese Christianity within its cultural context. She also refutes the binary thinking of simply categorizing academic approaches into Western and Eastern, adding that they are integrated in the context of globalization. She highlights the unique contributions of Chinese Christian thought to global theology and recognizes the value of Christian literature to Chinese literature. Starr has authored books including the three edited volumes of Modern Chinese Theologies, Reader in Chinese Theology, Chinese Theology: Text and Context, Reading Christian Scriptures in China, and Red-light Novels of the Late Qing.
China Christian Daily: Your father is a sinologist. How has this influenced your understanding and research of Chinese culture and Chinese Christianity?
Chloë Starr: When I was little, we had Chinese books, scrolls, and calligraphy in the house, and Chinese friends who spoke Chinese. So I grew up in an environment where China was normal, and in fact both my parents studied Chinese at university, whereas at that time few people in Europe and North America studied Chinese then. Their interest gave me an environment in which studying Chinese was a normal thing to do.
It also gave me some practical help. I spent my gap year between high school and university teaching English at the high school affiliated with the Renmin University of China because my father’s university had an exchange program with the university and he knew that they were happy at the time to take an English teacher who was only 19 and had no training or skills. So that gave me an opportunity to live in Beijing before I went to university. I had lots of advantages just in studying Chinese that other people didn't. When I later studied Chinese literature and Chinese theology, I had slightly more of a sense of what I wanted to do, a sense of China, and knowledge of Chinese people and things, but it was still my decision to study China.
China Christian Daily: What are your main areas of interest in your research on Chinese culture and Chinese Christianity? Why are you interested in these areas?
Chloë Starr: I now work on theology and literature and the intersection of Chinese theology and Chinese literature. My undergraduate study was in modern Chinese literature and my PhD was on late Qing fiction. Then later, I moved to study academically Chinese Christian thinking, starting in the late Qing. I worked on the Book of Common Prayer (公祷书) in the late Qing, then worked on some Chinese theologians in Sino-Christian theology (汉语神学).
As to why I’m interested in these areas, I was always interested in literature at school. I studied French and Russian literature in high school, so literature theory, literature, and the expression of ideas in fiction have always been something I'm interested in. I've spent the last five to ten years doing theology, and now I'm going back to the literary side and writing A Life of Christ in Chinese Fiction, a book on Chinese Christian literature. The writings of people including Lao She, Shi Tiesheng, and Bei Cun, various writers within the Christian sphere, or like Lu Xun, who wrote the prose “Revenge (Part II)” 复仇（其二）on how Christ has been viewed and expressed within Chinese literature, are exciting to me at the moment.
China Christian Daily: How do you use a combined Chinese-Western perspective in your research?
Chloë Starr: I don't agree with thinking that these are two different things, and think they're integrated in the context. For example, when I worked on the 1930s theologians like T. C. Chao, Wu Yifang, and Xu Zongze, who were trained in Columbia, London, and the Sorbonne, they were all trained abroad, but we call them Chinese theologians who do Chinese theology. Many of my colleagues now studying Chinese literature in America or in the UK were born and trained in China and went to the West. Does that make them Chinese thinkers? Or does that make them Western? Which methodology are they using? I'm not sure that either theology or literature has separate bodies of scholarship, and I don’t think Sinology (汉学) and study of Chinese culture (国学) are totally separate either.
Most Chinese think that theology is a Western thing, but Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion. If you look at the global situation now, Africa, Southern America, represent booming areas of Christian growth. World Christianity is not a Western religion today. If we're thinking just about white European male thinkers from the 19th century or whatever the center of theological thought was, that's not where we are now. I read both the works of my Chinese colleagues and my Western colleagues, in Chinese litearature and theology, and try to draw on what I need to answer the questions I want to ask within Chinese theology. My students are always saying, that Westerners think this, and Chinese think that. I'm saying, “You can't use that kind of binary in that kind of way.”
China Christian Daily: How did you start your research on Christianity? What do you think is unique about Chinese Christianity?
Chloë Starr: When I started thinking about a PhD, it wasn't possible to simply study Chinese theology because that field didn't exist really as a field. I'd always wanted to combine my Chinese scholarship and literature work with my Christian thinking, so by starting working on the prayer books and then doing more work on theological literature in the late Qing, I gradually shifted, but stayed within Chinese studies and literature, working on elements that were Christian within the Chinese corpus.
All Christianity is culturally specific. As the Bible is always translated into new languages, what's unique about Chinese Christianity is what is specifically about China. Chinese Christianity is shaped by the history of China, the languages of Chinese people, and its existence in a country where Christianity is a minority religion. It's always in dialogue with other religions, and with e.g. Confucianism.
China Christian Daily: When it comes to Sino-Christian theology, Hong Kong Tao Fong Shan Institute of Sino-Christian Studies has done a great deal on that. You have been involved in their work, too. So what are your focal points regarding Chinese theology?
Chloë Starr: Tao Fong Shan is hugely important in Chinese Christian studies, both in its work in translating or supporting the translation of Western theological texts into Chinese and also by publishing Chinese works and Chinese new theological thinkingCourt. It is also key in bringing young scholars and academics from the mainland together in China, whether for summer school or for longer-term research. The Divinity School of Chung Chi College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has fantastic theological resources, so it's a great place to do research. At the moment, TFS is doing a 40-year retrospective, producing a huge overview of different fields of academic Christianity in China. They also introduced many academic talks and such, and supported me originally when I did some work there.
In terms of my own work, I've done an extensive amount of work on the 1920s and 1930s because that's an exciting time in Chinese theology. At that time, many of the arguments in China were of course about whether or not there should be religious education in school. Many church students wanted to continue religious education, and especially their American funders. The other main argument was about “what does it mean to save the country (救国)?” In terms of Chinese theology, we, especially foreigners, need to understand Chinese history and the Chinese context before we can understand Chinese theology because it's so linked to the social and cultural questions of time. My own personal contribution to the questions about Chinese theology has been to sugget it’s not just about its content, but also its form: the ways in which theology is written, where it's written, and how it's written are important. I argue in my 2016 book Chinese Theology, for example, that Xu Zongze wrote his notes (笔记) to give him a space to have personal, creative Chinese Christian theology separate from his official, ethical theology. The literary content for Chinese theology was the Confucian frame, the morality, family-oriented context. And about where it’s written: if it's written in a sermon and not distributed, if Chinese academics are often not reading those sermons and foreigners are not studying Chinese sermons, then we are missing significant amounts of theology.
China Christian Daily: What contributions do you think Chinese Christianity can make to global Christianity and theology? How can it engage in dialogue with the ecumenical church?
Chloë Starr: Chinese Christian thinking, especially in the interreligious context, is very helpful to the postal, secular West: how do we speak to our neighbors? How do we live in a non-Christian society? My nieces and their generation in Britain know almost nothing about Christianity, and even my generation needs to learn again how to speak to people with no Christian background. From an Asian political and social perspective, China is doing well in communal life and has a strong sense of family and society. As you know, it's difficult not to live in your cultural space. Many Christians in the West and North America are very individualized and think that Christianity is an individualized religion, but that's a cultural thing from Western culture. China can help engage in dialogue with living communally and socially and caring about your neighbor.
For the Church in China, including the unregistered church, it is often difficult to engage in global dialogue due to the nature of the church. Part of the challenge for the unregistered church is how to have a broader, globally-oriented Christianity and interaction.
China Christian Daily: Currently, there are also scholars in China researching and exploring indigenous Christian literature. What do you think Chinese literature can contribute?
Chloë Starr: There's a huge amount of Christian literature in China and there are so many Chinese writers in the past who have written on Christian topics, such as Lao She (老舍), Ai Qing (艾青) and Wang Meng (王蒙). Part of the work of scholars is to write about them, make them better known, and let people know of those who were Christians, as people don’t always link them to Christianity.
Chinese Christians have already contributed hugely to the development of Chinese literature, both through the missionary literature and baihua ouhua language development of the 19th century and twentieth century genre and form development. in the late 19th century, Chinese Christians were writing new fiction, in a new form of language, as studied by Chinese scholars. More recently, scholars have been categorizing several interesting spiritual literatures and thinking about the development of Chinese literature. So Christianity has already contributed more than most people understand.
China Christian Daily: Can you introduce Yale Divinity School? What kind of research is it currently conducting? Does the school have plans to collaborate with China in the future?
Chloë Starr: Yale Divinity School is a part of the wider university of Yale, and has around 300 students. There are two main courses: the M.A., mainly for people who are going to a Ph.D. or further research, and M.Div., mainly for people who are going to become priests or professional religious people. I have more than 40 colleagues, and we teach across areas covering the Hebrew Bible, New Testament theology, ethics, church history, Christian philosophy, world Christianity, and practical theology. Within these are small areas like literature, Christian art, and architecture. The research is especially strong in systematic theology at the moment, with people like Willie Jennings and Kathryn Tanner, well-known figures in theology.
We have good links with China. For example, our students can study at Chung Chi College, Hong Kong, through an exchange program, and they can study at Yale too. We just sent eight students to attend this summer’s course at Chung Chi. Some of my colleagues teach classes in China, and some work with Chinese students and visiting researchers. Yale Divinity School is also the national center for China missions and we have many archives related to Chinese Christian history and Chinese missions. That means many Chinese scholars want to visit because they need to come to our library. There are also some new scholarships for Chinese students to come and study with us and do an M.A., spread over the next three years. I hope in the future we will increase academic collaboration with China.
China Christian Daily: Do you expect any help from China to benefit your research work?
Chloë Starr: I’ve received so much help from librarians, archives, and things from my colleagues, and I have many good colleagues and friends in China. I come to conferences regularly and will attend a conference in Dalian soon. I had a scholarship from the Hanban in 2008, and I've been a visiting researcher at Renmin University of China and at the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies.
Chinese writing is the focus of my work. If there were no Chinese producing theology or Christian literature, I wouldn't have any work—it’s because there is such rich and exciting Chinese Christian literature that is still being added to by new writers and new thinkers, that my work is so interesting. I'm always grateful for exciting new writing that helps us to think about Christianity in Chinese.
China Christian Daily: Do you have any words for the Chinese church and Christians?
Chloë Starr: I think it would be rather presumptuous of me to say anything to Chinese Christians or offer any kind of thinking or advice. There is little I can say that will be useful or helpful as an outsider. I am just grateful personally to be able to go to church services, and keep up with books and developments. There are many interesting things happening in the church at the moment.
