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AMERICAN CHR1STIF)N in C H P H L Chapter 2 - -. .. -- - - . - AMERICAN CHR1STIF)N IN CHPhlC* It would be apt to delineate Pearl S.Buck's rellg~uus outlook. and the reasons behind it in the flrst part of tt~~c, Chapter; ref lectlon of her personal rel1,ion in her flrt ;or1 and her Christian mlssionarles are studled in the s~conrland thlrd parts respectively. f3UCK.S RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING Whe11 Pear l 5. FJtlck war. a little blue-eyed glr i . I>*ilzoq Dome of the gold of the sun ln her dark browr~ halr . shp used somstlmes to cuddle up in a sm81 1 cave by the sea and Mati h the turbulent currents and addles that broke on tt~mroucjh coast 01 Chlna. There always came some big wave that wnuld ath her i~pall the dis~ointedand wlllful waves lnto one, 8r~d the tangled waters would become smooth. In later year. that "King Wave" ("Easter 1935".16) as she calls it. became to her the symbol of the unifying forcer of Chrlrt. But it does not matter to her whether Christ actually llved nn earth in one body and soul or was just a matter of falth. "It is enough for her that men have conceived Hlm in thelr dreams and visioned in Him the image of God"' ("Mrs. Ruck Under Flre As a 'heretic"', 15). Bucks religious belle+ can be traced to her family tradition, the three rellqioos ln 1.Tk writer's name was not givm. Chlna, and to the background of Chrlstlan Mlsslons which she disliked. Pearl's father, Absalom Sydenstrlcker hailed from ari Orthodox Presbyterian famlly in West Virginia. Out of the seven sons of his parents, six were minlsters. "Rel~glon was their meat and their excitement, their mental food art11 their emotional pleasure" (Fighting Angel, 13). ?hey quarrelled over it as men quarrel over politics. It was Qbsalom from among them. who declded to go to Chlna. 4s a devoted missionary. - Pearls mothrr. Carollnr Stulting, belonged to a farnily which had loft Holland and migrated to the Unltrd States on account of rellglou6 per-*cution. Shr had a rtr orlp puritanical streak in her nature and often aought God and vowed to devote more time for prayer. Since ahe had fwared that her sensual naturw might lead her away from God, rllr ~ntroduced hrrrelf to the young Presbyterian Mlnlster, Absalom Sydenstricker, and announced her desire to be a Misslonary llke hlm. lf he married her. They were marr~odon July 8, lEEO and almost immediately. set out on the trip to China. Pearl Comfort Sydenstrlcker. being the daughter of Absalom and Caroline, grew up in Chlnklang. lletenlng to tile Buddhlst and Taolst tales from her Chinese nurse and taking regular lessons from her tutor. Plr.Kung who was a Confucian scholar. Pearl s parents never belittled Chinese rulture or its ancient rellqlons and naturallv hlle btarted apprec lat~ng much of what she saw in the reliqlcnp of Chlna. Confuc ani ism, Buddhism, and Taolsm were the thr et? recoqnised re1 iq~ons. Whi 1 e two of them were ir?d~qenrrus. Buddhlsm came to Chlna before the Chrlstlan era. From t~mr to time, each had its perlod of ascendancy; but for the most part, Confucianism had the domlnant role to play at the court and it was generally considered to b~ the state religion. Religious persecution was someth~ngunhmard of 11, China. "For Conf~~clanlsmis as muctl a philoeophy as a religion and philosophy rsldom generates sufflcl~ntheat to ~~prsecutewl th undue frrvoor" (Soothlll. 1973.11 ) . Among the people at iarqr. thm6e re] lglons rere Ihot mutually sxc luolve. The d-ficiency of Confuc1anlsm 111 making little or no provlslon, beyond a calm mtolclrm, for the splrltual demands of human naturm, had bmmn ruppllRd by the more splr i tual prov islon of Buddhism. The lndefinitenm~sof Confuci~ras to a contlnumd existence after death had been met by the more deflnlto raolst dogma of immortality. "The three are complmmentary rather than antagonistic to each other, and together they make a fuller provision for human needs than anyone of them does separately" (Sooth~ll.12). For general purpores, the shrlnes of each were open to a1 1 and availed of by all. In other words, the Chlnese were eclectic, and used whichever form of religlon best responded to the requirement of the occasion for which they used it. The religious harmony of the Chlnese was disturbed to a considerable extent with the introduction of European ldeas ln Chlna. The Jesult mlsslons which wanted to convert Chlna to Catholicism made a scholarly study of the r lch Chlnese civilization and passed on this scholarship to 'urnpe. Thls revelation of China to the West had more conrequer>crs ~n Christendom than th~Jasuits' teach~ng had on kt?.? Chinese. Ths most dallcate. lrltrlcate and pamslo~irte relatlonst~lps rose from the must visible human ad ~uncts <,f lmperlal l6m- mlkrlonar ler and f orelpn sett lemsntc. Wlth t t>r sl~nlnyof the Treaty ~f Tlentrln (1970). mlsslonaries werr permitted to travel anywhrre in Chlna and to scqulre property for misslon homes. schools, orphanages. hornpitalp and churches. Neither the Protrstant nor the Roman Cathollc misslonarles of the nineteenth century were -6 generous t,r scholarly as the Jesult mlsslonarloo of the sixteenth century and this was one of thm many reasons wh~rh contr~butedto the slow, but steady rlse of antl-forelqn feeling ln Ch~na. Unfortunately "Chrlstlanlty was mlrinterpreted as or ldentlfied wlth Western Culture" (Chany. 1984. 19) and the Fhnican Chri6ti.m in China -. -. - .- -- great Western misslonary movement of the latter half of the nineteenth century in China, followed the flag avd was very much dependant upon the commercial expanslon of nat~ons. It 1s not surprlslng, then, that John A. Harrlhon observed irb rhlna Slnce 1800 (1967): M1ss10nar 1e5, ~n Chlnese ey-5. were undlstingulshed from any of the other Western agents who were dehtroylng China, and in the swellinq wave of antiforeignism, it was the mlsslonarles who were the most dpfrr>reless of the W~strrners in Chlna, often suff~ring hnrrihlv (59). Still, why dld missionarler 11kr Absalom Sydenstr~cksr and hi% wlfe lcavr the safety and securlty of tl,e~r own natlon and vow to work ~n Chin-7 Pmarl Buck has sald in her autobiography, My Several Worlds (1954), that mlsslonar~es came to such countries as China, to fulfil some spiritual need of their own. She war troubled when her father preached his doctrines and she always ~ishedhe would be silent, content only to live what he preached and so, ilftsd up, to draw men to him without words. She writer : Somewhere 1 had learned from Thoreat,. who doubtless learned it from Confuclus, that 11 a man comes to do his own good for you then must you flee that man and save vourself (51). Buck afflrms that only a few mlsslonarles llke t?-r father were actually committed to the cause of wlr,nlllg souls. and he was very considerate not to tort the sentiments of the Chinese. St11 1 she admlts ln Ply Several Worlds that as a chlld =.he hesitated to invite her Chlr.ese friends home because. I dld not want them preached at .... I dld not blame him. but I could not cast my frlends :ntr> that whlte flre of hls own splrit. Ond wot~ldthey not dlstrust me if I put them in hlh power' IhOI. Polrlt lng out the 1 lkeness bwtwrur~ Budrlt>~5rn aricl Chrlstianlty, she comments: Jesus may have vlblted the Himalayan Klngdom of Nepal when he was a young man.... Two thoure!,ci years ago all reli~ionr were a brotherhood and rcllgiour leadrrs and dieciplur communlc dted ( 66-67 3. Hence, missionary actlvlty war almost of no relevance and Buck was of the vlew that only the humanitarian aspect ot the mlsslonary actlvlty ln the shape of schools, rollsges, hospitals and orphanages could be encouraged slnce such work had been meaningful in Chlnd for many years. M~vlngabout in a r~l~g10u~lyorlented moclety, Pearl Buck, naturally possessed a keen lnterprt in m~sslonary mican Chistiar in Uilna - - . -- -- - -- .~- . - . actlvlty. In the early 1930s' a sth~cly of tti~forPlijr, mlsslons was made by a group of promlne~~tchurclinlerl header1 hy Dr. W.Fr~>estHocking, Professor of Phl losoph,, ~t +-iarvar~3. Thelr report, the Laymen's Fore~gnNlssion Inqt~lriart,usrrl much controversy; but Pearl Buck defended and praisecJ it. Buck lnslsted that the mlsslc~~~aryshould be jtldqed not r,,' doctrinal ernphasls, but on the honest, proper and sincere manner of his life, on hls Christlike bohavlour . F "orl Christ would not assess the elf lclency of a rniszlolrdr L by counting the total number of c ox!vert'-. he made r by ttlr tl~rif t Ire demonstrated in hand1 ~t~gmoney a1 lottrd to t tie missions. Her comments angered the Furlddmentdl l+ls uf t l~e PresbyterIan Church. She remembrrbr 1 havr 60P11 the mlrrlonary narrow. unrt,ar ~tatlle, unappreriatlvo. ignorant. I havr seen him so ~urp that all truth was with hxm and him only, tt!a+ m~ heart has knelt wlth a humble one before the shrine of Buddha rather than before the God uf that mlsslonary, if that God could br true.. I car, never have done wlth my apologies to the Chlnese people that In the name of a gentle 'hrlst, we have sent ignorant people.... and have made the llves of hungry-heartrd people wretched and more sad. I have heard a misslonary say. 'Of course, I tell these people thelr ancestors are ln hell" (Clted in Harris, 1972, 282).
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