Between Adaptation, Persecution and Modernity: Christianity in East Asia in the 18th and 19th century

by Giulia PORCU and Anish PARCHA

Intro: The afternoon turned thoughtful on 16 September, as students trickled into the Petit Amphitheatre with notebooks in hand and quiet curiosity in the air. Professor Pierre Emmanuel Roux, Co-editor-in-chief of the magazine Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident and senior lecturer of history at Universitè Paris Citè, took the floor for a talk titled “Between Adaptation, Persecution and Modernity in East Asia in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Minds eager to learn and pens ready to chase his words set the stage for an engaging session. The session was brief yet intuitive, insightful and packed with value. What was the discussion about? What were the most significant insights and how do they correlate to our 21st century understanding of the modern world?

A brief breakdown of the lecture and the subsequent interview is as follows:

A recap of the lecture: Accepting the unacceptable

Covering the history of Christianity in East Asia through the 18th and 19th century, professor Roux gave us essential historical context starting from the 16th century. Further highlighted the importance of three key terms when analyzing local context: proscription, adaptation and modernity. Starting with the idea of persecution between the 16th and 18th centuries,, he stated that local Christian communities had to deal with constant repressions and tensions caused by the contrapposition of Christian preaching and Confucianism order. These were, for example, revealed by debates over practices like ancestor worship. Despite being a minority, Christians sustained their faith through a lineage of personal connections, preexisting networks and local religious figures. These local challenges reveal that Christianity’s survival relied as much on East Asian networks as on Western missionaries. This challenges the common assumption that East Asian conversions were based on the mere arrival of missionaries in local territories, hence the traditional vision which attributes great importance to the West in the making of Christianity in Asia.

Upon this, the focus of this lecture was on the recent reverse theory in academia: ‘‘Are we ready to accept the unacceptable by fully recognizing Asia’s role in the making of world Christianity?’’. As a starting point “Inculturation” is the term used by many historians to describe Matteo’s Ricci ambitious but failing project. He was the first to realize the importance of finding shared knowledge between the two civilizations, using Chinese concepts adaptable to Christianity, specifically the Confucianist ambition to a virtuous society and inner self, so as to allow reciprocal comprehension and common grounds. Despite the failure of his project, as demonstrated by the 1724 expulsion of Christian missionaries, the greatness of Ricci’s work lies in highlighting how impossible it would have been for the West to be the only factor in the spread of Christianity in the East.

As stated by Nazarudin in ‘Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde’:

‘When something is transmitted, it is received in the mode of the receiver rather than the transmitter. Thus, what has been transmitted as Western Christianity has been received as Asian Christianity. Therefore the ownership of the Christian tradition — both for East and Southeast Asian people — grows stronger when it’s passed on intergenerationally’.

After the address by Professor Roux, we had the opportunity to speak with him via a Zoom interview. This was done not only to build a deeper understanding of his work but also to cultivate a new sense of curiosity around Christianity’s central role in shaping Asian societies. The interview was carried out through three main questions, the first one being:

As you presented during the lecture, many Western books acted as the major means of spreading Christianity among the elites in China, Vietnam and Japan. Considering the fact that they were based on European ideas of utopia, how were they received by their audience?

It is important to keep in mind that there were different categories of books, specifically scientific and religious. In the Jesuits missions, especially, both were used. Given the importance of Jesuits in Beijing and their knowledge, it is only natural to conclude that Asian scholars were curious to meet them and grateful to receive their books.

Missionaries were scarce in East Asia, so it was religious and catechetical books that were diffused among the faithful. Qing China is emblematic in this matter: in the early 19th there were 100 missionaries spread among the territory, while in the early 18th century only 20-30. Missionaries and local priests visited the main local villages once a year, hence the importance of books for conversion, maintenance of faith and continuity of prayers. “In many places it still works like this,” commented Professor Roux. “You can’t imagine the number of Bibles I received in Chinese and Korean because of this strong desire to spread faith!”

(2) What events led to the ban on Christianity in East Asia?

Fundamentally, the main common denominator for the ban of Christianity in East Asia was political.

Korea, Japan and Vietnam were small countries that embodied the idea of protonations state. Hence, when Christianity arrived as a new phenomenon, it was perceived as a possible threat to the social order. Obviously, this was not the case in China as it was a huge multiethnic empire, so the spreading of new ideas and beliefs was slow and further minimized by the ridiculously low number of missionaries in loco.

(3) “The elaboration of this ‘European Utopia’ first took form in Matteo Ricci’s world map. Given the diverse perceptions around his work and that of other figures, how far did they actually influence the perception that the West had of the East and vice versa?”

There certainly were missionaries who had influence in China mainly at the national or regional level, but the majority of them had a local impact.

For example, Francis Xavier, who travelled all around Asia, is remembered as a great missionary, but there are some inaccurate narratives regarding the extent of his influence on conversions. Rather than influencing the East, his influence was far more prominent among young Jesuits who now dreamt of going to East Asia. Matteo Ricci, on the other hand, did have quite an influence in the 17th century, even though not as much as Francis Xavier did. That being said, it is important to note that Matteo Ricci’s influence was profound in East Asia itself, shaping local knowledge, religious practice, and cross-cultural exchange across China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Unlike missionaries whose impact was measured by conversions abroad, Ricci’s legacy lies in his intellectual and cultural contributions within East Asia, from maps to catechisms. Since his catechism, books and map were dissaminated in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China, he came to be known everywhere in East Asia. His map became the first world map shown in China, which continues to be used to this day. Institutes built in his honour are located all over the world (Paris, Boston, Taipei), proving the growth of his prestige after the major clash between Beijing and the Vatican. By nominating new Chinese saints in the early 2000s, the Vatican underscored Ricci’s enduring influence, indicating that his contributions continued to be respected despite historical tensions with Beijing.