Through a critical examination of some Chinese Christian intellectuals’ discussion on the indigenization of Christianity in China, this paper attempts to show that Chinese Christians did attempt to learn from the Buddhist example concerning the way of indigenization. It is possible to say that to a certain extent their ideas of indigenzation were inspired by Buddhism. However, they came to different understandings on the details of the lesson to be learnt from Buddhism. The results of their exploration were influenced not only by their knowledge of the history of Buddhism, but also their theological presuppositions and their analysis of the problems facing modern Chinese Christianity. Furthermore, most of them attempted to learn from the part history of Buddhism rather than the present Buddhist practices or the face to face dialogue with contemporary Chinese Buddhists.
