The question asked in this article was: How Gu Hongming attained to interpret Confucianism in such a way that it seemed for Europeans as equal to Christianity or even suppressing it? Gu Hongming interpreted Confucianism in such a way that it was fitting to understanding of religion promoted by liberal theology. He introduced Confucianism as religion in a sense, that it was concerned only with pure morality, just like Christianity was in its essence, as in Matthew Arnold’s writings. Then he claimed that having no supernatural elements, Confucianism is more compatible with contemporary European thought than Christian religion. Furthermore, he not only stated the compatibility of Confucian teachings with contemporary European thought, but also pointed out that if religion has to be valued according to its performance on the field of morality, then Confucianism is working better than Christianity, because Chinese people live in peace. In the end it is worth to notice that the nineteenth century liberal theology lost its popularity after the Second World War. Gu Hongming was forgotten even earlier.
PL
Pytanie przewodnie tego artykułu brzmi: Jak udało się Gu Hongmingowi zinterpretować konfucjanizm w taki sposób, że Europejczykom wydawał się równy chrześcijaństwu, a nawet go przewyższał? Gu Hongming interpretował konfucjanizm w taki sposób, aby pasował do rozumienia religii propagowanej przez teologię liberalną. Przedstawił konfucjanizm jako religię zainteresowaną przede wszystkim czystą moralnością, czyli tak, chrześcijaństwo było w swojej istocie, a wszystko tak, jak w pismach Matthew Arnolda. Następnie twierdził, że nie mając elementów nadprzyrodzonych konfucjanizm jest bardziej zgodny z myślą europejską niż religia chrześcijańska. Co więcej, stwierdził nie tylko zgodność nauk konfucjańskich z ówczesną myślą europejską, ale także wskazał, że jeśli religię trzeba docenić zgodnie ze swoimi osiągnięciami na polu moralności konfucjanizm działa lepiej niż chrześcijaństwo, ponieważ Chińczycy żyją w pokoju. Na koniec warto zauważyć, że dziewiętnastowieczna teologia liberalna straciła popularność po II wojnie światowej. Sam Gu Hongming został zapomniany nawet wcześniej.
The article discusses the biography and thought of Gu Hongming. Gu Hongming was a Chinese thinker who won recognition in European academic circles. Still, he was not popular in China. When he lived and studied in Europe on his young years, he acquired broad knowledge on European culture and literature. Afterwards, he became the adviser to Zhang Zhidong, an eminent Chinese politician during the late Qing dynasty who was the promoter of moderate reforms. After his death and the birth of the republican China, Gu Hongming was active as a publicist and teacher in Beijing University. During that time he was often labelled as backward and conservative by his Chinese contemporaries. The article provides the analysis of complexity of his views that cannot be easily labelled as it was done by many from his contemporary thinkers. His attitude towards China and Western civilization was quite complicated and it should be understood in the background of European conservative thought, romanticism, and the Confucian worldview.