How is the Christian world impacted by a China that goes Christian?

As for Christianity itself, Christianity in China is complicated by three major questions – “Rationally explain in a rational manner the Trinity,” “Is Confucius saved, why should we revere your Lord Jesus when China has a much older philosophical tradition than the west,” and “Catholics and Protestants worship the same god, why do you try to steal each other’s believers, convert, condemn to hell, and try to kill each other?” To the author’s own limited knowledge, the world’s greatest theologians could not agree on the color of an orange less than agree on an answer to just one of these questions.

Christianity was, AFAICT, doing respectably at winning converts in the late Qing period, and is doing pretty well now, so clearly these questions aren't that much of an impediment to evangelisation.
 
Depending on the POD and its date, would you see the same sinophilia/sinoiserie during the 1700s? On the one hand, Christianized China is now less exotic, but its still a pretty different place and still has an elite, non-Western culture.
 
So... is this incorperation more the "Latin American"-style of syncretism (ritual, image, story based ect.) that would have the sect be in communion with Rome, or are we talking a fully autonimous Protestant brand?
But I wonder, imagine if the Rites Controversy works out favorably for the Jesuit view, and Emperor Kangxi patronizes Christianity, perhaps even more among Manchus than Chinese, seeing it as a tool to reinvigorate Manchu cohesion. Perhaps similar in some ways to how Gothic Kings patronized Arian Christianity to keep a distinct identity from the Roman natives in the Dark Ages. Kangxi does not personally convert until he is on his deathbed or close, not wanting to give up polygamy or concubinage yet, but he raises his heirs Catholic. ...

This, I think, is the best and only way to make a Christian China: the Jesuits win the Chinese Rites controversy and the Pope issues a Papal bull endorsing Confucian rites as civic rituals compatible with Catholicism. Christianity had already made inroads in China and was supported by the Kangxi Emperor. There would certainly be an increased Sinophilia / Chinoiserie movement in Europe, and an contemporaneous Chinese embrace of European ideas. "Chinese Catholicism" would very much syncretise those endorsed rituals.

I suspect that this will lead to an Anglican-like schism between normative Catholicism and Chinese Catholicism at some point, because the institution of the Emperor cannot ideologically accept even a pro forma primacy of Papal authority. But how would ITTL China would react to Enlightenment ideas (which questioned both the Catholic Church and monarchism)?
 
Just adopting christianity won't make europeans respect China as an equal. If anything it will be seen as a great success in Europe's "mission to civilize" and encourage more western missions in Asia.
 
Just adopting christianity won't make europeans respect China as an equal. If anything it will be seen as a great success in Europe's "mission to civilize" and encourage more western missions in Asia.

A successful mission to civilize means they are civilized once you are done.
 

raharris1973

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I'm impressed, it was not till the second page till somebody said "maybe the Nestorians will convert them".

Might a potential side-effect of China's ruling dynasty being Christian from late Kangxi onward be lesser or different western campaigns? Perhaps the Qing never take Kokonor/Amdo/Qinghai, or Tibet or Xinjiang.

In OTL, the Manchus patronage of Tibetan Lama Buddhism encouraged the takeovers of Kokonor and Tibet to control the Tibetan Lamas and religiously significant tea trade to lamaseries in Mongolia and Manchuria. In the ATL, they won't be following a similar patronage policy. They might consider grabbing the western territories a national security imperative, but they might not, or they may be distracted by other events or goals.

Perhaps the alternate Qing simply expand less, or, are more eastward and southward looking. Perhaps some missionary incentive as well as the business opportunities that drove Chinese private migration to southeast Asia gets converted into a state project to invade Vietnam or intercede on behalf of Christians there? Or Chinese could get government sponsorship to settle in, exploit, and evangelize in some of the islands of the East Indies.
 
Just adopting christianity won't make europeans respect China as an equal. If anything it will be seen as a great success in Europe's "mission to civilize" and encourage more western missions in Asia.
Except in the 16th century, the Chinese aren't seen as "uncivilized". Increased contact with European Christendom through Jesuit translations of Chinese texts will only make it more and more clear that China is in fact part of the "civilized world".
 
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