With contributions from various leading scholars in the field, a new book Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) and China from the Seventeenth Century to the Present was published by Brill on November 15, 2021.
As the sixth volume of the series Studies in the History of Christianity in East Asia, the book is the first scholarly book that pools studies on the interactions between Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) and the Catholic Church, as well as between French and Chinese societies.
Established in the 1660s, MEP is a Roman Catholic missionary organization and is considered to be one of the first missionary institutions that worked independently, away from the control of colonial powers. MEP has been focused on Asian countries, particularly the Southwest area, Northeast area, Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as Tibet in China.
“This volume explores the proactive engagement of MEP missionaries in Bible translation and cultural accommodation, their evangelization efforts in local communities, and the interaction between MEP representatives and various local groups. Each study in this book responds to one or more of the major themes in the history of Christianity in China that include conflicts, accommodations, indigenization, imperialism, and nationalism”, the publisher said.
The book is composed of eight chapters, categorized into three parts: “Cultural Accommodation in the 17th and 18th centuries”, “Intensification of Evangelization in the Early and Mid-19th Century” and “Expansion of MEP Presence in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries”.
The editor of the book, Ji Li, is an Assistant Professor of History at The University of Hong Kong, author of God’s Little Daughters: Catholic Women in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria (Washington, 2015), and of other monographs and articles in English and Chinese.
Other contributors to the book include François Barriquand, Jean Charbonnier, Yanrong Chen, Lina Guo, Zhijie Kang, Matthieu Masson, Jean-Paul Wiest, Qing Wu, Hongyan Xiang, Ernest Young, and Aidong Zhao.
