By Cuiwei Yang Department of History University of Ottawa
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LIBERAL THEOLOGY IN THE LATE QING CHINA: THE CASE OF TIMOTHY RICHARD by Cuiwei Yang Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree in History Department of History University of Ottawa © Cuiwei Yang, Ottawa, Canada, 2014 ABSTRACT Liberal Theology in the Late Qing China: the Case of Timothy Richard PhD Candidate: Cui Wei Yang Supervisor: Micheline Lessard André Laliberté 30 April 2014 The opium wars in China during the 1840s were followed by a surge of Christianization in the late Qing dynasty. What a kind of role played by missionaries in the modernization of the Qing China has been a long-lasting issue since the early 20th century. Due to political reasons, the contribution of the Christian mission was either underestimated in view of Cultural Invasion paradigm or overemphasized in view of Modernization paradigm. The thesis employs a less-distorted model, Liberal Theology, to analyze the influences of liberal missionaries, exemplified by Timothy Richard, on the social reform in the modernization movement of the late Qing. It describes the relevance of missionary activities to the development of Chinese history in view of the biographical records of Christian missions. The entry point of this presence is traced in the text through Richard’s activities to contribute to famine relief, literary work, reform advocacy, higher education, cross-cultural exchange, a product of the development of his ideas and strategies gained from the promotion of European models of modernization. Particularly, the thesis brings to light Richard’s symbiotic conception between religion and secularism (i.e., science, technology, education, and political reform). The main contribution of the study hinges on a couple of aspects: (1) Building a thorough portrait of Richard and of his life-long ii vocation by means of a number of primary and secondary sources in both English and Chinese; and (2) Interpreting the liminal role Richard played in his missionary work to answer the question: are missionaries a proxy of imperialism, or a paragon of modernization, or something in between? After pointing out the limitations of the two old paradigms, the thesis exposes that, armed with the hybrid Liberal Theology model, we can better understand the nature of the mission work done by liberal missionaries, such as Richard. Thus, though their activities happened in an era marked with colonial imperialism, the Christian mission should not be regarded as simply an imperialistic invasion in the cultural field; what is more, though missionaries introduced western civilization to Chinese people in various proselytizing approaches, they could not be considered as one of the prime movers for China’s modernization in the late Qing Dynasty, because the contributions they made subordinately promoted China’s modernization through a series of religious and cultural contacts with Chinese elites via, e.g., meetings, media, literary work, higher education. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With my great pleasure I would like to express my gratitude to all who have contributed to my PhD study. First and foremost I thank my supervisor, Professor Micheline Lessard and Professor André Laliberté. Without their sincere, timely, resourceful, and consistent supervisions, it would be impossible for me to enjoy the sunrise during my research life. Their fruitful achievements, extraordinary patience, and everlasting enthusiasm have impressed me deeply and will continue to shed light on my future. I also thank Professors Jean-Guy Daigle (retired) and Viren Murthy (University of Wisconsin-Madison) who offered their partial supervisions. I show my great appreciation to Professor Li Shen-wen (Université Laval) for the help with reference materials, conference attendance, and discussions about some topics of mutual interests. I express my sincere appreciation to Professor Gregory Blue, Professor Éric Allina, Professor Lotfi Ben Rejeb, and Professor Alberto G. Flórez-Malagón! They commented on the thesis and suggested important advice to guide me for a final version. I do not know where to find proper words to express my thanks to them. Their resourceful ideas on the subject under investigation, including those on the most recent advances in research and their connections with the thesis, have led the revised version to being a significant improvement. With my love I express my thanks to my parents. Their partial financial support to my family and good wishes to my study encouraged me to endeavor step by step in the last eight years. Especially, my father Yang Shaopu helped me to collect Chinese literature about Timothy Richard in the China National Library, Beijing. It deserves mention that, to commemorate my study on missionaries in China represented by Protestant Timothy Richard, I named my son Richard, who was born in the middle of my study. I also express my dearest love to my daughter, Helen, who helped me a lot to look after Richard so as to offer me plenty of time. Finally, I show my gratitude to my husband, Zhen Guo, who managed to make my family survive during my study. I acknowledge that the Quebec government and the Department of History provided the financial support for the study. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Statement of Issue 1 1.2 Different Models of Scholarships on Mission Work 3 1.2.1 Western Academia 3 1.2.2 Chinese Academia and Political Community 13 1.2.2.1 Invasion Paradigm 17 1.2.2.2 Modernization Paradigm 24 1.2.2.3 Comparison between the Two Paradigms 31 1.3 Emergence of Modernity and Liberal Theology in Europe 34 1.4 Elements of Richard’s Liberal Theology 40 1.5 Purpose, Significance, and Structure of Study 46 1.5.1 Purpose of our Study 47 1.5.2 Significance of our Study 49 1.5.3 Structure of the Thesis 52 CHAPTER 2 STUDIES ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS EXEMPLIFIED BY 56 RICHARD: NECESSITY OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY 2.1 Introduction 56 2.2 Necessity of Liberal Theology Paradigm 63 2.3 Review of Studies on Richard’s Mission Work 70 2.3.1 Missionary Records 71 2.3.2 Studies by Other Western Scholars 77 2.3.3 Studies by Chinese scholars 84 CHAPTER 3 MODERNITY FEATURE IN THE FORMATION OF 94 RICHARD’S LIBERAL THEOLOGY 3.1 Missions in China before Richard’s Arrival 94 3.2 Richard’s Awakening of liberalism from Fundamentalist 100 Missions 3.3 Resistance from Chinese Officials and Richard’s Responses 105 3.4 Resistance from Fundamentalists & BMS and 115 Richard’s Responses 3.5 Positive Responses from Chinese People 127 3.6 Richard’s Endeavour to Maintain Mission Work in China 135 3.7 Discussion 145 CHAPTER 4 EXPANSION FEATURE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF 147 RICHARD’S LIBERAL THEOLOGY 4.1 Importance of Publishing 147 4.2 Mission Work at Shibao 150 4.3 Mission Work in the S.D.K. 152 4.3.1 S.D.K. Output and Responses from Chinese Elites 154 v 4.3.2 Influence on Emperor’s Reform 165 4.3.3 Influence on Empress’s Reform 183 4.3.4 Connections with Western People 189 4.4 Contributions in the C.L.S. 191 4.5 Significance of Publishing 197 CHAPTER 5 MODERNITY FEATURE IN RICHARD’S MISSION 199 WORK:WESTERNIZATION OF EDUCATION 5.1 Background 199 5.2 Advocacy of Educational Reform through EAC 200 5.2.1 Reform Plan 201 5.2.2 Practice 203 5.3 Promotion of Educational Reform through Higher Education 207 5.3.1 Situation 207 5.3.2 Initiation of Project 208 5.3.3 Challenges and Advances 213 5.3.4 Accomplishment and the Significance 220 5.4 Honors 226 CHAPTER 6 EXPANSION FEATURE IN RICHARD’S MISSION WORK: 228 CHRISTIANIZATION OF BUDDHISM 6.1 Cultural Conflict and Solution 228 6.2 Intrinsic Connection between Han-Buddhism and 230 Christianity 6.3 Literary Evidence of Buddhism-Christianity Relation 235 6.3.1 QI Shin Lun 235 6.3.2 Lotus Sutra 241 6.3.3 A Mission to Heaven 243 6.3.4 Other Resources 245 6.4 Great Unity under Christian Universalism 249 6.5 Discussion 256 CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND FUTURE WORK 261 7.1 Summary 261 7.2 Discussion 264 7.3 Future Work 279 APPENDIX I TABLE OF CHINESE NAMES: 272 CONVERSION OF HANYU PINYIN AND WADE-GILES APPENDIX II TIMOTHY RICHARD’S CHRONOLOGICAL LIFE OUTLINE 275 APPENDIX III TIMOTHY RICHARD’S COMPLETE OEUVRE 279 III-1 Literary works in English 279 III-2 Literary works in Chinese 280 BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 B1 Primary Sources in English 281 B1-1 Manuscripts 281 B1-2 Books 282 B1-2-1 Annotated Books 282 vi B1-2-2 Non-annotated Books 282 B1-3 Pamphlets 283 B1-3-1 Annotated Pamphlets 283 B1-3-2 Non-annotated Pamphlets 283 B1-4 Articles 284 B1-5 Reports and Proceedings 286 B1-6 Newspapers 286 B2 Secondary Sources in English 286 B2-1 Books 286 B2-1-1 Annotated Books 286 B2-1-2 Non-annotated Books 292 B2-2 Articles 302 B2-2-1 Annotated Articles 302 B2-2-2 Non-annotated Articles 306 B3 Primary Sources in Chinese 307 B3-1 Annotated Books 307 B3-2 Non-annotated Books 309 B4 Secondary Sources in Chinese 309 Annotated Books and Articles 309 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of Issue Timothy Richard (1845-1919) was one of the most influential and famous British protestant missionaries in Late Qing China (1840-1911). He was brought up in a historical period when western colonization and Christianization were simultaneously expanding globally after the European Industrial Revolution. Armed with a unique liberal theology for Christianization, he came to China in 1870 and worked there as a Liberal missionary for 45 years.