Christianity In East Asia
Christianity in East Asia
When Europeans started sailing the globe looking for new land they wanted to colonize they had many tools that they could use, ships, the astrolabe, muskets and cannons for showing their military might, manufactured goods to show their economic power, and their last tool was religion, specifically Christianity of the Catholic and Roman Catholic denomination to counter the spread of the Protestant movement in Europe. Dominican, Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries successfully spread the religion in Spanish and Portuguese held colonies in the Americas, Africa and parts of Asia. There were however parts of Asia that didn’t convert at all or as successfully as the other areas in the world had been.
There were a number …show more content…
In comparison to missionaries in other parts of the world they began almost a full century later than missions to Spanish Americas and Portuguese Asia. In a sense it could be that simply meant less time to convert the people there to Christianity but that wouldn’t be the best phrase to use because then it gives the connotation of a time frame that missionaries had to complete their jobs by. It might not have worked as easily in Asia because in the case of China and Japan they were independent empires and were not conquered like other areas of the world. There was still a ruler that could give decisions, and in the example of Japan the ruling shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu issued the “Christianity expulsion decree” in 1614 expelling all foreign missionaries from the empire and forced all of its subjects to register at the local Buddhist temple due to suspicions he had about his subjects turning their back on tradition and looking to these foreigners for …show more content…
Though the activity didn’t gain much momentum till the late 16th century when Jesuit Matteo Ricci was allowed out of Macau and further into mainland China. Jesuits then began working in China doing missionary work, even helping to regulate the lunar calendar. They really strove to convert the Chinese to Christianity in a very peaceful and encompassing way, they did this by fitting Christian ideas to Chinese philosophy. Though this caused a lot of problems back in Europe for the Jesuits as this style of mission work was deemed heretical, this caused a secondary effect, that was the Kangxi Emperor forbidding all missionary work from Chin except the Jesuits that helped with the lunar
When Europeans started sailing the globe looking for new land they wanted to colonize they had many tools that they could use, ships, the astrolabe, muskets and cannons for showing their military might, manufactured goods to show their economic power, and their last tool was religion, specifically Christianity of the Catholic and Roman Catholic denomination to counter the spread of the Protestant movement in Europe. Dominican, Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries successfully spread the religion in Spanish and Portuguese held colonies in the Americas, Africa and parts of Asia. There were however parts of Asia that didn’t convert at all or as successfully as the other areas in the world had been.
There were a number …show more content…
In comparison to missionaries in other parts of the world they began almost a full century later than missions to Spanish Americas and Portuguese Asia. In a sense it could be that simply meant less time to convert the people there to Christianity but that wouldn’t be the best phrase to use because then it gives the connotation of a time frame that missionaries had to complete their jobs by. It might not have worked as easily in Asia because in the case of China and Japan they were independent empires and were not conquered like other areas of the world. There was still a ruler that could give decisions, and in the example of Japan the ruling shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu issued the “Christianity expulsion decree” in 1614 expelling all foreign missionaries from the empire and forced all of its subjects to register at the local Buddhist temple due to suspicions he had about his subjects turning their back on tradition and looking to these foreigners for …show more content…
Though the activity didn’t gain much momentum till the late 16th century when Jesuit Matteo Ricci was allowed out of Macau and further into mainland China. Jesuits then began working in China doing missionary work, even helping to regulate the lunar calendar. They really strove to convert the Chinese to Christianity in a very peaceful and encompassing way, they did this by fitting Christian ideas to Chinese philosophy. Though this caused a lot of problems back in Europe for the Jesuits as this style of mission work was deemed heretical, this caused a secondary effect, that was the Kangxi Emperor forbidding all missionary work from Chin except the Jesuits that helped with the lunar