Christianity And Hainan Society From The Late Qing Dynasty To The Early Republic Of China

The late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China were the important age of Christianity development in Hainan. As early as the mid-Ming Dynasty, along with Western missionary movement, Catholicism had been passed into Hainan. The missionary work at this time was the foundation of Christianity development in Hainan. France Catholicism and North American Christianity are the two branches of missionary work in Hainan from The late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China. North American Christianity came into Hainan relatively later than France Catholicism, but both had a profound impact on Hainan society. During the course of mission, the North American Presbyterian Church attaches great importance to attract followers secular activities. In order to promote the development of Hainan Church, expand the social impact of Christianity in Hainan, the Christian missionaries disseminated doctrines. Meanwhile they held a series of secular activities, such as founding modern newspapers, establishing new style schools, translating famous western works, organizing charities, providing medical treatment and other medical practice. These secular activities, on one hand, had promoted the spread of Western culture in Hainan, especially religious culture and secular culture, which influenced the traditional secular concepts of Hainanese; on the other hand, it had a profound impact on Hainan society in late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China through advancing the development of health and education in Hainan, training a large number of modern talents of Hainan. Moreover, the Christian missionaries not only penetrated into the Miaos at Li villeges to disseminate the doctrines, but also tried to know the local folk customs and took them down to publish on the religion magazines. As a result, Hainan graduallly became an important missionzing region of Christianity from a unknown place. Therefore, the study of Christianity in Hainan has a positive significance on the study of social change of Hainan.