透過研二十世紀前半耜份中國基督教知皆子對本色化的應論，本文嘗試指出，不少基督教知識分子普通過借鑒佛教中國化經驗來探索基督教在華的本色化，可以說他對基督教本色化的思考曾受到佛教經驗的啟迪。然而，他們對佛教在華的發展有何歷史經驗和教訓可供借鑒，有著不同的體認。他們的思考結果，往往不是純粹取決對佛教史的踏實細緻的研究，而是也會在很大程度上，受到他們的神學思想以及他們對近代中基督教所遇到的困境的分析所左右。此外，他們所嘗試學習的，往往集中在借鑒往佛教在華傳播的歷史，嘗試在其中尋找基督教可以參考的地方；而不是學習當代佛教所展示的榜樣，也不是直接的從與中佛教的對話中學習。

Through a critical examination of some Chinese Christian intellectuals’ discussion on the indigenization of Christianity in China, this paper attempts to show that Chinese Christians did attempt to learn form the Buddhist example concerning the way of indigenization. It is possible to say that to a certain extent their ideas of indigenization were inspired by Buddhism. However, they came to different understandings on the details of the lesson to be learnt from Buddhism. The results of their exploration were influenced not only by their knowledge of the history of Buddhism, but also their theological presuppositions and their analysis of the problems facing modern Chinese Christianity. Furthermore, most of them attempted to learn from the part history of Buddhism rather than the present Buddhist practices or the face to face dialogue with contemporary Chinese Buddhists.