Expositions And Comments On Church Charities In Modern China

Christianity came to China very early. In modern times, along with the western powers invading China and the introduction of the Protestant Christ, the Christian influence in China expanded. As an important part of the cause of Christianity in China, Church charities was in essence one of the ways of Christianity'adaptation to Chinese society and communication and mutual understanding with Chinese culture.For a long time, the Subject about Church charities in China has become a field left out in the cold. Based on results from previous studies, and theextensive information collection from newspapers and magazines, local files, teaching-materials, as well as other information materials, this paper will do multi-angle, multi-level analysis and research on Church charities in modern china. Considering that Church charities is nearly an virgin land uncultivated and therefore study results and theoretical framework which can be used as reference is little , this paper focuses on evolution of context in the history, the basic framework, the basic scope and the main content of Church charities in Modern China, discusses the motive and purpose ,its impact and significance, to has a re-evaluation of Christianity'role in modern China's social life and social structure changing ,has a new understanding of cultural exchanges and mutual understanding between China and the West.The text contains the preamble, theses, and the main conclusions. The preamble mainly defines charity, and brief reviews the development of traditional Chinese charities and the missionaries'activities at the turn of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China. It also expounds research status and related materials. History scholars have gained some research achievements on this subject by now. However, those researches'theoretical level is not high, with a single mode of study, simple research methods. Therefore study on it must be further deepened.The second part is the main body of paper. The part is divided into four chapters. Chapter I discusses the development process of church charities and charitable organizations settings in modern china. This paper will divide the church charities course into three stages, and analyses changes in the size of each period. The first was the start-up period, which was from Morrison's first Protestant missionary to Hawaii in 1807 to 1842; the second was the development period. Which was from 1842 to 1900; the third was the climax and the end, which was from 1900 to now. Then it relates run means of Church charities in terms of the Church medical care, education, and Yoyingtang, and analyzes the results. Besides, it brief introduces geographical distribution, the organizers and the funding sources. This article holds that the church charities have geographical difference in China. With the passage of time, it expanded from the south and the coastal area to the north and the inland regions. The organizers belonged to three basic types: Catholicism, Protestantism and quasi-Christian religious organization. The component of organizers was different according historical periods and regions, but generally the majority was Catholics and Protestants. The main funding sources contain: Headquarters support, social contributions, membership contributions, government grants, and its own income, which showed a changing, diversification and increasing localization trend. The second chapter discusses church charitable activities in modern China by classification, in order to have a general understanding of the content and scope. This chapter analysizes Church charities'run situation and achievements according to the Salesian cause, the cause of the Church Relief, the Church medical education, the charitable activities, and other charitable activities. It is worth mentioning that, this paper holds that the charitable activities in the early church medicine and education were an important component of Church charities, which is often overlooked by the majority of researchers. Chapter III discusses the motive and purpose .This paper holds that the primary motive and purpose was to seek the foothold and development in China. Eradicate the Chinese people'suspection, doubts and resistance, attract more followers through wide dissemination of the gospel. Secondly, religious teachings considers charity as a basic principle, and the church charities is the basic way of shaping the image of Christ and caring virtues of love of Christ . Again, in the second half of the 19th century, rise of the social gospel movement advocated applying the "Bible" of the "love" and "justice" principle to social life, reforming society according to the ethical principles of the Christianity and therefore realizing the entire community salvation. In addition, there were other motives. Such as politics, missionaries personal, cultural subjugation, and the social order of Christ. Chapter IV discusses the impact and significance. In terms of the development of the cause in China, the church not only provided medical drugs, run educational charity, practiced the Disaster Relief JACKIE, but also actively publicizes doctrine, which attracted a lot of the poor class people to join the church. In view of the role Church charities acted, although the Government introduced a number of charitable causes, there were also many major philanthropists, and private charities had a certain degree of development, religious charities were essential which helped the disadvantaged groups, acting as government and non-government'important complement. In view of developing social charities, Church charities did an important promoting role in developing social charities in modern China, especially the Republic of China, promoting China's old charitable cause turning to a modern charitable cause. From the East-West cultural exchange and mutual understanding, missionaries, mainly through participation in local charitable activities, contacted with the Chinese people, and also contacted the Qing Government officials at all levels through disaster relief opportunities, resulting in enhancing mutual contacts and understanding.Part III is conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to study Church charities'state in modern China, and gain comprehensive and objective evaluation. First of all, because there were various motives and objectives, and its fundamental purpose was to expand the impact of the Church to attract more people to join it, we can not evaluate it too high. But the objective results should be affirmed. Secondly,its role must be made clear. From a historical stage of development perspective, as time forward, the church charities becomes more prosperous, religious overtones is more diluted, secular trend is more obvious, and it does better in supplying social services and save the poor. At the same time, we should also see that in modern China the church charities'rise, the historical background and social situation in different historical periods showed a huge difference. Historical experience showed that: Church charities run by the Church was the best way of Church'entering China, servicing China, realizing cultural exchanges and mutual understanding, and also a wise choice conforming to China's social development.