A Study Of Western Missionaries In Guizhou During1861-1949

The encounter and exchange of the modern civilizations between the East and the West began with religious matters—that is exactly the case in Guizhou Province. Those important events about the evangelization history of Christianity since the late19th century in Guizhou could be considered as an episode of Sino-West cultural exchange.Based on all-around investigation and compiling of extensive data, the dissertation makes a systematic illustration and the analysis of Western missionaries’ influences on Guizhou society from1861-1949in the light of the theories and methodology of history, religious study and cultural communication. With the references of Guizhou regional archives and literature, researches have been also done on the history of Christianity and the localization of Christianity in Guizhou ethnic minority area.Some related texts about Guizhou written by Western missionaries are used in this dissertation to describe the local customs, social characteristics, ethnic groups, culture and religion, and to create the image of Guizhou society in the eyes of western missionaries. The missionaries’ attitudes towards the Chinese realities are also reflected and commented.The dissertation has analyzed the different strategies used by the different missions in order to explain the remarkable progress of the evangelism in Guizhou. It helps us see the old features of the old Guizhou and find its development in the history.The dissertation consists of an introduction, five parts, a conclusion and six appendices. The introduction firstly presents the reasons why the research is chosen and the significance of it as well as the theory and the resources of the research.The missionaries introduced the Western civilization to Guizhou. Their writings and other related literature data have brought relevant influence bridging the East and the West with a specially important impact on the history of cultural communication between them, which is obviously significantly meaningful to Guizhou society. From the influence of Christianity on the development of society, economy, culture, education and health care in Guizhou, we would find what changes have taken place to Christianity in Guizhou, whether and to what extent the syncretism of Christianity and Guizhou folk religion remains authentic Christian. Within the context of China’s present social, economic and political development, the exotic religion Christianity assimilated itself to ethnic life and culture and thus, contributed in its own way to the socio-cultural development in Guizhou society and found ways to begin to shape a culturally Chinese Christianity. So the necessity of the cross-cultural dialogue as well as the significance of the localization of the exotic culture should be highlighted when a religion is transported from one to another culture group.