- Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Stephanie M Wong
Villanova University, Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty Member
- Georgetown University, Theology and Religious Studies, Graduate Studentadd
- Buddhist-Christian Studies, Confucianism and Christianity, Global Christianity, Chinese Culture and Identity, Theology, Cultural Theory, and 24 moreEcclesiology, Confucianism, East Asian Theology, Chinese Christian History, History, Comparative Religion, Comparative Philosophy, Christianity in China, Christianity and Chinese Culture, Sino-Christian Theology, World Christianity and Chinese Christianity, Chinese Christianity, Chinese Theology, Asian Christianity, Asian American Christianity, History and Theology of Missions, Mission Studies, World Christianities, Pentecostalism, Comparative Theology, Interreligious Dialogue, Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue, Systematic Theology, and Religious Pluralismedit
- I am an Assistant Professor of Theology at Villanova U where I teach comparative theology, focusing especially on Chr... moreI am an Assistant Professor of Theology at Villanova U where I teach comparative theology, focusing especially on Christianity and Chinese religio-philosophical traditions (esp. Confucianism, Daoism, and Mahayana Buddhism). I enjoy teaching about interreligious dialogue, and focus my research especially on the development of Catholic theology in China.edit
Plenary at CTSA 2022 (Reid Locklin, Stephanie Wong, Mara Brecht)
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This article calls for explicit attention to the temporal dimension in interreligious reflection on the common good. Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020) urges people to care for others with renewed commitment to the common... more
This article calls for explicit attention to the temporal dimension in interreligious reflection on the common good. Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020) urges people to care for others with renewed commitment to the common good and recommends fraternal love and dialogue as a needed remedy for a wide range of social problems. In making the case that we are saved from these socio spiritual ills not alone but together, Francis employs Christian notions of history and salvation. I argue that any meaningful interreligious reflection must be willing to open up the very concept of common good to comparative reflection, in order to better grasp how the other perceives the problems and possibilities of their time.
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Research Interests: Christianity, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Anthropology, Aesthetics, and 15 moreEducational Technology, Comparative Philosophy, Digital Humanities, History of Religion, Catholic Studies, Diversity, Catholicism, Instructional media design, Catholic Church, International and Comparative Education, Digital religion, Curriculum and Social Inquiry, Catholic Imagination, Internet, and global catholicism
[For the "Catholics & Culture" website initiative and the Journal of Global Catholicism] While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics and Cultures... more
[For the "Catholics & Culture" website initiative and the Journal of Global Catholicism]
While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics and Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential heuristic tools for making sense of Catholicism’s rich diversity.
While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics and Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential heuristic tools for making sense of Catholicism’s rich diversity.
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Research Interests:
As a particular case study of “world Christianity,” this article seeks to develop a Chinese Catholic epistemological foundation for the Church’s theological quest to know God. It is a comparative study of the thought of Neo-Confucian... more
As a particular case study of “world Christianity,” this article seeks to
develop a Chinese Catholic epistemological foundation for the Church’s theological
quest to know God. It is a comparative study of the thought of Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) and the Belgian Jesuit Joseph Maréchal. I demonstrate how both thinkers affirm the subjective contribution of the human mind in any act of knowing while still maintaining that any accurate or moral knowledge participates in a higher order of ontological being. The agreements between Wang’s Neo-Confucian and Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomist theories of mind make for a fruitful convergence of the Chinese and Catholic intellectual traditions, from which Chinese theology can contribute to the worldwide Church’s understanding of God.
develop a Chinese Catholic epistemological foundation for the Church’s theological
quest to know God. It is a comparative study of the thought of Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) and the Belgian Jesuit Joseph Maréchal. I demonstrate how both thinkers affirm the subjective contribution of the human mind in any act of knowing while still maintaining that any accurate or moral knowledge participates in a higher order of ontological being. The agreements between Wang’s Neo-Confucian and Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomist theories of mind make for a fruitful convergence of the Chinese and Catholic intellectual traditions, from which Chinese theology can contribute to the worldwide Church’s understanding of God.
Research Interests: Epistemology, Comparative Philosophy, Systematic Theology, Theory of Mind, Comparative Ethics, and 13 moreComparative Theology, Catholic Moral Theology, World Christianity, Global Christianity, Neo-Confucianism, Theology (Systematic & Philosophical), Chinese Catholicism, Systematic and Philosophical Theology, Chinese Christianity, Christianity in China, Wang Yangming, Joseph Marechal, and Moral Cultivation
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Research Interests: Catholic Theology, History of Roman Catholicism, Interreligious Dialogue, Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue, and 14 moreRoman Catholicism, Ecumenism, Ecumenical Ecclesiology, Catholic Church, Global Catholicism, Vatican II, Council Vatican II, Theology and History of Vatican II, Catholic Church History, Nostra aetate, Interreligious Relations, Catholic-Jewish dialogue, Ecumenical movement, Protestant-Roman Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue, and Orientalium Ecclesiarum
How can we best understand the work of Chinese Catholics in interreligious dialogue? This essay puts ecclesial and academic discussion of interreligious dialogue in relation with the social realities of religious relations in China: the... more
How can we best understand the work of Chinese Catholics in interreligious dialogue? This essay puts ecclesial and academic discussion of interreligious dialogue in relation with the social realities of religious relations in China: the minority status of Christians as a demographic group, the plurality and multiple religious belonging common to Chinese religious life, and the political power of the state managing religious groups and their relations for state ends like social stability and harmony. Drawing on the insights of sociologists of Chinese religion, I consider the likelihood, challenges and possibilities of Catholic participation in interreligious dialogue.
(paper not uploaded; contact author for copy)
(paper not uploaded; contact author for copy)
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This paper analyzes the wartime writings of two twentieth century Catholics in China: Bishop Yu Bin of Nanjing and the Belgian-Chinese missionary Vincent Lebbe. Both wrote passionately about the need for the Chinese Catholic Church to... more
This paper analyzes the wartime writings of two twentieth century Catholics in China: Bishop Yu Bin of Nanjing and the Belgian-Chinese missionary Vincent Lebbe. Both wrote passionately about the need for the Chinese Catholic Church to support the Chinese defensive war effort against Japan. I parse their speeches and published essays on the topic of armed defense, in order to come to a better understanding of how they used Biblical passages (especially from the Catholic Deuterocanonical literature like Judith) and examples from Catholic history to justify their involvement in the anti-Japanese resistance. (In press)
Research Interests: Historical Theology, Just War Theory, Modern Chinese History, World Christianity and Chinese Christianity, World Christianity, and 10 moreGlobal Christianity, Systematic and Historical Theology, Chinese Catholicism, War and Theology, Chinese Christianity, Christianity in China, Second Sino-Japanese War, History of Global Christianity, History of Christianity in China, and Chinese Catholic theology
In Republican Era China, Catholic clergy in Beijing and Shanghai hoped to rally the Church as an indigenous and interconnected network for the task of evangelization. The task was two-fold, to both indigenize the faith and to convert... more
In Republican Era China, Catholic clergy in Beijing and Shanghai hoped to rally the Church as an indigenous and interconnected network for the task of evangelization. The task was two-fold, to both indigenize the faith and to convert lives. Thus, Catholic leaders of the time promoted sometimes contradictory priorities in the hopes of infusing Chinese modernity with Catholic values. On the one hand, the apostolic delegate Celso Costantini hoped to present the Church with a Chinese face. He commissioned artists from Furen University and elsewhere to produce Chinese Catholic fine art to demonstrate the indigeneity and value of the Church in modern society. Missionaries designed Chinese-style catechism aides to depict faith as a form of the Chinese good life. On the other hand, these evangelistic works inculcated a conservative set of traditional Catholic teachings and moral norms more in keeping with the China that was passing away. In the face of the New Culture Movement of the 1920s, which was obsessed with making China new, Catholic posters used indigenization to reaffirm traditional moral norms and duties while representing them in indigenous language and imagery.
(Paper not uploaded; please contact author directly for copy)
(Paper not uploaded; please contact author directly for copy)
Research Interests: Christianity, Visual Culture, Missiology and Mission Theology, East Asian Studies, Chinese Art, and 14 moreWorld Christianity and Chinese Christianity, China studies, World Christianity, Global Christianity, Contextual Missiology, Chinese Catholicism, Catechesis, Chinese Christianity, Christianity in China, Political posters, Asian Christianity, Missiology and Culture, History of Chinese Christianity, and Republican-era China
In this chapter of the edited volume [Confucianism and Christianity: Interreligious Dialogue on the Theology of Mission], I consider Catholic witness a) in light of the Church's recent sexual abuse and financial scandals, and b) in... more
In this chapter of the edited volume [Confucianism and Christianity: Interreligious Dialogue on the Theology of Mission], I consider Catholic witness a) in light of the Church's recent sexual abuse and financial scandals, and b) in conversation with Confucian role ethics. Focusing on the Catholic Church in Asia, I argue that Confucian conceptions of role ethics can help put moral responsibility at the center of Catholic thought and practice.
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Presented at 'An International Conference on Confucianism and Catholicism: Reinvigorating the Dialogue, Washington DC< March 4-5, 2016.'
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Presented at "Christianity in Asia' conference, U. of Munster, Germany, Sept. 14-27, 2014.
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Presented at 'Engaging Particularities' Conference, Boston College, March 26-27, 2015
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Presented at 'Engaging Particularities' conference, Boston College, March 20-21, 2014