ABSTRACT
Many Chinese intellectuals discussed Christianity's various aspects without confronting directly its central tenets or even its main “figure.” This might have been partly due to the ways how Christianity was presented in China even within a professed Christian upbringing as the one of Lin Yutang. Lin continually claimed to be shaped by three factors: his rural home in a mountain valley, his poor but sincere and ever optimistic father, and his closely-knit Christian family. Throughout his life Lin remained emotionally attached to this “lost paradise.” As Lin's small scholarship was suddenly stopped, he tried to make a living by applying with the Y.M.C.A. to work among the Chinese laborers in France. With The Importance of Living Lin tried to advance his Chinese philosophy of life as an alternative to Western beliefs. Wu Jingxiong, on the other hand, had grown up in the traditional Chinese religious atmosphere.
