This thesis researches on the religious thought of Zhang Chun-yi(1871–1955). The characteristic of Zhang's religious thought is that he tried to use the Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy as an explanatory framework to reconstruct Christian theology, and he gave particularly insights on soteriology and doctrine of the Trinity. Zhang accepted Christianity in his early years. He worked in the Christian Literature Society for China for about ten years and wrote many books to propagate his religion. In these books, the Christian gospel was explained and promulgated by using Chinese philosophy, especially the Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. However, he was then converted to Buddhism, and proposed to ‘Buddhicise’ Christianity, which aimed at demonstrating the superiority of Buddhism against Christianity. He proposed that the genuine Christianity had no difference to Buddhism, and it would only indicate that the religion was not genuine Christianity if it differed from Buddhism. He also suggested that no one could understand the profundities of genuine Christianity without a prior study of the Buddhist philosophy. Zhang used the term ‘foreign religion’ (yang jiao) frequently to describe the erroneous Christianity in the West, and he strongly opposed its monotheism. Zhang also strongly criticized the western missionaries in China and blamed their complete misinterpretation of Jesus' gospel. There is generally a lack of study on Zhang's life and religious thought in the academic circle. This thesis mainly investigates the following efforts Zhang had made: (1) Try to use the theory of intra-religious dialogue to reconstruct the cause of Zhang's religious change. To find out when he called himself Christian, when he named himself Buddhist, the reasons why he turned into another religion, and to analyse in depth the arguments for and the contents of his Buddhist-Christianity. (2) To trace the development of Zhang's Buddhist- Christian soteriology and Buddhist-Christian doctrine of the Trinity, particularly to find out if there is any change in the contents, and if there is any opinion which maintain the same idea consistently in Zhang's different religious identities. (3) The underlying principle of Zhang's religious thought is ‘Every human is God’. Based on this, he started a creative discussion on Buddhist-Christian theology. In this thesis, the author will make use of the Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy to develop a thorough study of how Zhang understood deification, how he believed that God was actually human's real heart, how he comprehended the meaning of the cross, how he perceived Jesus Christ as Bodhisattva, how he used Buddha nature to give an account of the Holy Spirit, and how he use Mahāyāna models to discuss the intra-relations of the triune God. (4) Finally, to compare Zhang's Buddhist-Christian theology with the Mahāyāna Theology of John P. Keenan, in order to rediscover the academic-value of the Buddhist-Christian study appeared in early Republican China.
