A Study On The Psychology Of American Missionaries In Nanjing City During The Nanjing Massacre Period

The American missionaries who stayed in Nanjing during the Nanjing Massacre worked hard to protect Chinese refugees and expose Japanese army's savage acts. In order to look into the resources of the just actions of the missionaries, the author wrote this paper.The psychology base of the actions to protect the refugees by the missionaries was the consciousness of 'love your neighbor as yourself. The conception of neighbor is an open system in Christian, whose extension can be expanded unceasingly. To these missionaries, their neighbors included everyone who was needed to be helped. In order to protect the refugees from being killed and refrain them from starvation and frigidity, the missionaries did a lot of jobs, to which they devoted great love.The psychology base of the actions to prevent and expose the Japanese army's savage acts by the missionaries was the idea of pacifism. The motive of their actions to uncover the savage acts was to make the whole world know the truth of the Nanjing Massacre then called on all people do something to prevent the Japanese army's savage acts and the world would return to peace.Though the consciousness of "love your neighbor as yourself and pacifism of the missionaries were both connected with their love for God, it's not very appropriate to conclude that the sources of the just actions by the missionaries was the love for God, for it's obvious that all people who believe Christian couldn't manifest so great love as the missionaries did in Nanjing. There was a wide gap between idea and practice of ''the love of Jesus". The reason why the missionaries could manifest great love was connected with the stimulate of the Japanese army's savage actions. We should still consider the influences of international relationship. When the Nanjing Massacre occurred, U. S. A was not an enemy state of Japan, and the American missionaries had neutral state's status, which made them do all kinds of just actions to manifest their ideas of "love your neighbor as yourself and love for peace.