NO. 2 FOLK RELIGION IN SOUTHWEST CHINA — GRAHAM 217 



for no more discussions were published in later issues of the Chris- 

 tian Quarterly. 



A few days after the article was published, I met Bishop Soong 

 at an afternoon party. He warmly shook my hand and said, "I want 

 to thank you for that article. You see some good in filial piety, but 

 there are some Chinese who see no good in it." 



CHRISTIANITY AND FILIAL PIETY OR ANCESTOR WORSHIP 

 David Crockett Graham 



Thoughtful Christian leaders throughout the world are more and more realiz- 

 ing the importance of making Christianity indigenous. This means that the 

 best in native art, architecture, ethics, and religion should be employed by native 

 Christian churches. Native architecture should be used in the erection of 

 churches, native art in the ornamenting of church buildings and in portraying 

 in pictorial form Christian stories and scenes. Native tunes should be employed 

 in Christian hymns, although not to the exclusion of the world's best Christian 

 music, and native Christian hymns should be written to express the creative 

 religious experiences of the people. The best of native moral and religious ideals 

 and teachings should be used where possible to enrich Christian instruction. 

 Making Christianity indigenous in these ways would remove the handicap of 

 being a foreign religion, and at the same time a contribution would be made 

 to world-wide Christianity through the enriching of Christian art, ideals, and 

 hymnology. Says Dr. Daniel Johnson Fleming, author of two books which dis- 

 play oriental art in Christian painting and architecture: 



"One of the obvious gains for the younger churches from indigenous 

 Christian art is that it helps to remove the foreign aspects of Christian- 

 ity. It helps to dissipate the deadly prejudice which regards the church 

 as an alien cult. In these days of excessive nationalism, the more our 

 universal faith can be freed from the distinctively western accessories 

 the less likely it is to be boycotted in some anti-western trend. That 

 there are western accessories is manifest when an African priest can 

 say that 'For a Bantu to be a Christian was to behave like a white man,' 

 or when we are told that a madonna of the Italian type, holding her 

 baby in a way unknown to an African mother, remains an alien. 



"One way of bringing about this naturalization of Christianity so 

 much needed and well justified is to use, in the various arts, forms 

 and techniques which are native to any given people — to use their 

 artistic language just as we already use their literary language." (Flem- 

 ing, 1938, p. 2.) 



In making Christianity indigenous, there is danger of lowering its standards. 

 Such a thing happened when Constantine caused most of the Roman Empire to 

 become nominal Christians. Christianity did not transform heathenism, but 

 heathenism transformed Christianity, and this was one of the greatest calamities 

 in the history of Christianity. 



There are high moral and religious ideals in the teachings of Lao-tzu, Con- 

 fucius, Mencius, Mo-tzu, and others, so high that they are worthy of employ- 



