The Research Of The Change Of Missionaries Roles From Late Ming And Early Qing Dynast To Late Qing Dynast

The influences that Christian missionaries have on China began at the end of Ming Dynasty and the start of Qing Dynasty. At that time, China enjoy the property national wide. The preaching and the range of activities of these Christian missionaries were under the restriction of the government. The major activities of these missionaries did are catering for native people to spread the knowledge of science and technology. These missionaries made friends with the royal, officers and had seldom opportunity to get involved into the politics, nor even mention about inference it. However, after the later Qing Dynasty especially after the Opium War Ⅱ, the situation changes a lot. China was in a standing of disadvantage and became a semi-colonialsemi-feudal society. Weak country has weak connection, the role of Christian missionaries play changed as well. Their activities more involved into other areas such as education, publication, medical service, political movement and so on.This paper uses several typical missionaries as examples exploring their change of social role in China against the background of changing society in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. Thus, this paper posesses certain academic value and practical significance.The first chapter is a general introduction about the religious background in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty when the missionaries came to China and also Chinese people’s attitude toward Christianity. This Chapter also uses Xavier, Matteo Riccias and Johann Adam Schall von Bell as the representatives of missionaries to explain their social activities and social roles at that time.The second chapter mainly discusses the Protestant missionaries coming to China in the late Qing Dynasty. Missionaries’status was in gradual increase due to the huge change internationally, especially after the Opium War. The role missionaries played also experienced great change under the new historic background. Their single task of preaching developed into multiple, such as diplomat, educator, doctor, disseminator of western culture. The specific examples uses here are Robert Morrison, Peter Parker and Timothy Richard.The third chapter is the most important part. Through the analysis of previous chapters and the comparison between the missionaries in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty and late Qing Dynasty in terms of politics, economy, culture and education, this chapter demonstrates the differences of the missionaries during the two phases in regard of the changes of social roles and the bridge between the communication of Chinese and Western cultures.The last chapter is the ending part, summing up the whole paper.