MATTEO RICCI DAN PROSES KONTEKSTUALISASI KEKRISTENAN DI CINA

Abstract

Matteo Ricci had played important role regarding Christianity and Chinese culture. He had done many things as his efforts to make Christianity could be rooted in China and be accepted by the Chinese. Making Christianity accepted by the Chinese was his first aim, more than converting people. He learned Chinese and had a serious study on Chinese context. Yet, like all pioneers, Ricci had a problem using this language, because he was faced with the thorny problem of finding Chinese equivalents for Christians terms, and of deciding how far ancient Chinese custom was appropriate with the Christian principle. When he arrived in China for the first time, he showed his sympathy to the Buddhist monks. He dressed as a Buddhist monk and also used a Chinese name, Li Madou. Later, when he realized that the social status was important, and that the Buddhist monks were considered inferior to Confucianists, who held official degrees, he changed his dress and dressed like a Confucian scholar. Since that time, Ricci was in a tension with the Buddhist. Such condition made he could not understand Buddhism and other religious well. He able to borrowed arguments from Confucian text to counter the theological claims of the Buddhist. In fact, Ricci’s methods were not going in peace. His method create conflict or tension. There was even the rite of controversy as a response to what Ricci had done through his cultural accommodation method.