| Due to large number and high proportion of religious groups, Wenzhou is known as "China’s Jerusalem". Christianity plays an important role in Wenzhou people’s daily life and work, which has gained the academic circle’s attention and been discussed for a long time. The subject of this paper is the Protestantism during 1867 to 1907.The thesis tries to find how and why Christians’ faiths had been shaped by Protestantism from two groups:missionaries and believers. The study found that, in late Qing Dynasty, Christian faith was constructed by Protestantism of Wenzhou in two ways:one was geographical sphere and the other was belief sphere. Under the influence, individuals had changed their life trajectory, and a batch of believers who played important roles in religious and social affairs, emerged lately. The study of early belie vers can be used as a reference for discussion of contemporary Christians in Wenzhou and it may help to get the specific path in which religion has been shaping individual life. This article is divided into five parts.The first part introduces the social background before the time when Protestantism went into Wenzhou, mainly including the early days of Protestant missionary groups in Zhejiang Province under the influence of the evangelical movement in Britain, missionary societies’ attention to Wenzhou before 1876s, social basis of Wenzhou which is suitable for missionary work, and the early recognition of Protestant Christianity by Wenzhou society and ordinary people, etc. Discussion on social background helps to analyze the reasons why British missionary societies chose Wenzhou for missionary, and to have an outlook of the special natural environment, geographical, social and cultural conditions of Wenzhou which were suitable for alien belief to get rooted.The second part discusses the activities by two chief Protestant missionary societies, named the China Inland Mission and United Methodist Free Churches. These two Protestant missionary societies played an important role in Wenzhou modern history. Under the leadership of Mr. Stott and Mr. Soothill, Christianity in Wenzhou had experienced three different phases:sowing time、rooting time and growing time. Taking advantage of related resources from church or the pastors themselves, missionary work had been taken well. These two missionary societies got fruitful results. Branch organizations of church continued to be refined in, and Christian believers expanded unceasingly. Christian church had paid enormous efforts to social service, which assisted the missionary work of Wenzhou, thus making an important contribution to education, medical and health development of Wenzhou.The third part analyses the way how Protestantism shaped Christian faith in Wenzhou. Christianity had constructed Wenzhou society since 1867s, through the construction of geographic sphere and belief sphere. Construction of geographical sphere is marked by the establishment of the religious landscape. Church is an important religious landscape. New churches had been built since these two missionary societies got into Wenzhou. Churches were distributed among local religious buildings and living quarters, and they were in good relations. Due to its high identity characteristic, the church building once formed special groups in Wenzhou. Through a process of adapting to Wenzhou’s local customs, Geographic sphere construction provided preconditions for belief sphere construction. And belief sphere was shaped by reinterpretation of Christianity, perfect of parish programs, construction of urban and rural organizations and creation of spiritual life forms such as Will Encourage, cultivating and consolidating believers’ belief life. Also appealing to local habits, church had attracted different kinds of people to join in, potentially helping to promote ordinary believers’ spiritual and social life. Construction of two kinds of sphere helped Protestant shape Wenzhou society.The fourth part analyses the manifestation of individual beliefs which has been shaped by Christian belief, from the case of Liu Tingfang’s family. Liu Tingfang’s grandmother Mrs. Ye, as the first believers of her family, got psychological comfort from Christian faith, and her religion is more devout than other believers. Being well-educated, living in middle class of society, she, obviously, was a special case in the first generation of believers. And she established the habit of family Christian faith as well as contributed a lot to church. Liu Shikui and Liu Tingfang were affected by Mrs. Ye, and their experience explained that, the family belief habit would shape individual life deeply. As Christians, they also made contributions to church development. At the same time, they were active in daily life and work, showing a heartfelt concern for social development. Christianity not only affected their life of faith, but also encouraged them to pursue the existence of social sense and creating personal value. Believers from middle group, particularly represented by Liu Tingfang’s family, had gradually grown into the leader of Wenzhou society and church.The last part is the summary. From the current hot academic topic of "Boss Christian", this paper aims to evaluate the social value of Christian life in contemporary Wenzhou. Boss Christian is a new group of believers who have emerged in contemporary Wenzhou. They take the church career seriously, and construct churches with the help of business logic. They have a high level of education, and they are very active in business. At the same time, they are investors and leaders of the church. Boss Christian’s role in contemporary Wenzhou may have historical clues. Groups of different generations have many similarities in terms of life and behavior characteristics of belief in life. This paper tries to promote the study of ’Boss Christian". |
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