Ancestral Worship In The Eyes Of Protestant Missionaries In China At The Age Of The Late Qing And Early Republic Of China

At the age of the late Qing and early Republic of China, the policy of prohibiting Christian which had been implemented for more than one hundred years was abolished, when the isolation and stagnation was broken totally under the force of western imperialism world. Following steps of early missionaries, many missionaries came to China to revive the Gospel, with the duty of trying to realize Christianization of China. Christian mission developed from the southeast coast to the mainland and missionary region was extending while the number of Christians rising. Friction between eastern world and western world becomes fierce, especially the contradiction between Christianity and Chinese traditional custom ---ancestral worship.Since Rites Controversy in the late Ming and the early Qing dynasty, controversy between Christianity and Ancestral worship was never stopped. Until the end of 19th century and early 20th century, this issue was focused by Christianity again. Superstition and idolatry factors in Chinese ancestral worship became the critic target of western missionary. After the religious revolution in Europe in 16th century, Christianity was divided into two different sects.On the issue of the ancestral worship, missionaries appeared serious internal contradictions in the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China in 1890, W.A.P. Martin, as a representative of liberal, broke the traditional mind, and put forward that the ancestral worship was not idolatry in some conditions, so they should have sympathy and tolerant attitude to ancestor worship. This view was opposed by fundamentalists. Hudson Taylor, one of representative of fundamentalist, thought ancestral worship was a kind of idolatry which must not be tolerated by Christianity and should be negated totally. Finally the conference was ended with fundamentalists’advice.In the 20th century, more missionaries changed their attitude to think of the positive affection of this worship. And they began to seek a mission approach, which was fit for both adherence to Christian doctrine and avoiding to provoke contradiction between heathen and Christian to convert more adherent. The attitude of missionaries underwent a qualitative change after the China Centenary Missionary Conference in 1907. James Jackson, the chairman of the discussion committee, pointed some missionaries misunderstood the subject of ancestral worship, which contained some positive elements, such as filial piety. He suggested a constructive attitude to treat the problem of ancestor worship rather than focusing on the different theory between Christianity and Chinese ancestral worship. The conference decided to give full play to the role of the local church to respect for ancestors and carry forward the filial piety, only in the prescribed rule of prohibiting idolatry. Through conscience education of building schools, hospitals and charity institution, the policy made heathen give up the ancestral worship willingly.At present, the study of missionary mostly concentrated on the affection of Christian and personal mission in the Modern China almost in the view of Chinese. And the most of conclusions were deduced, vague and general. For example, as to Christian localization movement in the 1920s, some historian owned to Nationalist trends and other reasons in China, but ignored the factors of Christianity. Different from the existing research way, this paper uses micro-analysis methods based on a view of foreigners and unscrambles the magazine Chinese Recorder which was established by western Christian Church in the late Qing and early Republic of China to study the changing process of Protestant missionaries’attitude of ancestral worship, which led to Christian localization movement in the 1920s. In conclusion, western Christian had adjusted to their attitude to the Chinese ancestral worship based on actual conditions, from totally opposition to conditional tolerance. The change was finished by the western church and missionaries willingly, which laid the foundation for Chinese Christian localization movement in the 1920s.