Revisiting religious higher education in China: comparative analysis of Furen University narratives
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Revisiting religious higher education in China: comparative analysis of Furen University narratives Zhenzhou Zhao1 · Yi Sun2 Received: 23 April 2020 / Revised: 28 July 2020 / Accepted: 8 September 2020 / Published online: 19 November 2020 © Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2020
Abstract Established in the 1920s, Furen University was a private Catholic university in China. Just as in the case of other Christian colleges in modern China, Furen was taken over by the communist government soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and incorporated into the new state-controlled higher education system. Since the beginning of China’s reform and opening up, Chinese scholars have shown growing interest in exploring the religious history of the country’s pioneering higher education institutions. Focusing on Furen University, this study draws data from various sources to examine critically some popular Furen University narratives proposed by contemporary Chinese scholars in China. These narratives suggest that this Western Catholic university underwent substantial changes during its decades-long operation in Chinese society, becoming more Sinicized, secular, and patriotic. However, our analysis indicates that Furen University’s history in modern China might be more complex than these narratives suggest. Keywords Cultural politics · Religion · History · China
Introduction Before the establishment of the communist regime in 1949, Christian colleges played a pioneering role in the development of China’s modern higher education institutions (Hayhoe 1983; Ris 2020). From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, 16 Christian colleges (13 Protestant and 3 Roman Catholic) were established, and together, they were responsible for approximately 10–15% of China’s university student population (Ma 1996; Tao 2009). At the time, most other higher education institutions had been established by the government or non-governmental bodies. The only Pontifical Catholic university in modern China, Furen University1 was established in 1925 by the Congregation of the American Cassinese–Benedictine Fathers and administered by the German-based Society of Divine Word Fathers from * Yi Sun [email protected] Zhenzhou Zhao [email protected] 1
Department of Social Sciences, Education University of Hong Kong, Ting Kok, Hong Kong, China
Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
2
1933 to 1950 (Chen 2004). Furen was one of the few universities to remain in Beijing during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) because of Germany’s alliance with Japan during the Second World War. Despite its short history as an elite Chinese Catholic university in mainland China, Furen quickly gained a reputation as the “Notre Dame of the East” (Chen 2004, p. 124). Shortly after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, all of China’s Christian colleges, including Furen, were taken over by the communist regime and restructured as part of
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