Whether Confucianism is, or has ever been, a religion is a consideration that has been hotly debated for centuries, with evidence for and against its religious nature presented by those who answer either “Yes” or “No.” Anna Sun states that this is indeed a question “the West has never been able to answer, and China never able to ask.” She continues, however, that Confucianism is a civil religion. In this section, we shall present the findings of two outstanding American writers, Kenneth Scott Latourette and Charles E. Farhadian, both of whom identify Confucianism as a world religion.

“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), in God I have put my trust. I will not fear” (Psalm 56:3-4). 

“For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head” (Psalm 40:12).

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:6). 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart . . . And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23a-24).

“In the twentieth century, for the first time, there was in the world a universal religion – the Christian religion. . . . In country after country . . . it took root, not as a foreign import, but as the Church of the countries in which it dwells,” this author powerfully proclaims. Though the term is not used, this was the period when “World Christianity” fully came into being as the major development in Christian history and, perhaps, of all human history.