Buddhicized Christianity: Creative Transformation and the Boundaries of Interpretation in Zhang Chunyi’s Buddhist–Christian Dialogue

Zhang Chunyi (张纯一) was a significant thinker in modern Chinese intellectual history, but his profound ideas had long been marginalized. He demonstrated exceptional intellectual creativity in his practice of dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. His religious identity evolved from that of a Confucian scholar to a Christian, and finally to a Buddhist who advocated “Buddhicized Christianity”. This faith-based transformation constituted a theological revolution grounded in internal religious dialogue and rational reflection, ultimately heralding the construction of an original theological system of Buddhicized Christianity. With Mahayana Buddhism as its hermeneutical foundation, this system employs strategies like conceptual correspondence, the ontological internalization of mind–nature, the transference of meaning, and the harmonization of practices in order to systematically and creatively reinterpret core Christian doctrines. Not only does it provide unique historical resources for theories of interreligious dialogue, but it also profoundly reveals the internal tensions and interpretive boundaries inherent in creative transformation. The intellectual experiments and religious practices of Zhang Chunyi, drawn from a Chinese religious context, provide invaluable historical references and theoretical insights that can still inform key contemporary issues such as interreligious dialogue and multiple religious affiliations.