Dans le cadre du séminaire du projet [La religion des Chinois en France, ->http://www.gsrl.cnrs.fr/spip.php%3Frubrique91.html] présentation de Huang Yuqin (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Allemagne),

Chinese Evangelists on the Move: Space, Authority and Ethnicization among Overseas Chinese Protestant Christians

Mardi 18 juin à 10h, au site Pouchet du CNRS, salle 255 Missionization is the foremost means by which religion traverses geographical and cultural space, therefore, constitutes one important aspect of the globalization of religion (Csordas, 2007). By telling a story about Chinese evangelists who are on the move, this research intends to argue that however global, transnational missionary enterprises are deeply embedded in political and economic histories, and how evangelists constitute spaces becomes also entangled in a particular locality. Since the 2000s, Chinese Christians in Europe have witnessed increasing flows of resources and Chinese evangelists from North American. This paper aims to reveal the mechanism and dynamics behind the space-making and network building. The rising flows, it suggests, first take place in an imagined community which is reinforced by the discourse on “suffering” of Chinese nation both in the past and at present; secondly, are a result of a fantastically far-reaching and self-important geographical imaginary with ethnic Chinese evangelists at the helm of “God’s master plan” in the ultimate missionary enterprise of “Great Commission” and the attendant proselytizing activities. Named “gospel into China, gospel out of China”, this missionary enterprise is a response to the recent changing migration waves from China to the West and the economic and political “rise” of China. And evangelizing mainland Chinese students and scholars migrating to Western Europe are considered an important link to fulfill the enterprise, based on a somewhat imaginary interpretation of the historiography of Chinese Campus Ministry. And finally, the flows also link to the dynamics in the locality, in this case, the UK, Germany and Shanghai, China. All these process are entangled with a geography of moralities which is mainly produced in relation to the discourses on “authenticity’ and on “suffering”. These mechanism and dynamics help produce an ethno-religious space, which, however, this paper suggests, does not conflict with the cosmopolitan end of the grand missionary enterprise.