19세기 중국 개신교 선교에 나타난 조상숭배에 관한 윤리신학적 고찰

Abstract

This is the thesis from the perspective of moral theology, which is written about the issue of ancestor worship that appeared in 19th century China Protestant missions. Western missionaries and Chinese Protestants both expressed either acceptance of ancestor worship or opposition to it. The position of acceptance as! serted that ancestor worship should be understood not as superstition or idol worship, but in the context of respect for ancestors based on moral understanding of ancestor worship. In contrast, the position of opposition claimed that ancestor worship is an obstacle of missions, based on the understanding that ancestor worship is superstition and idolatry. Particularly, I have examined how Christianity held on to both universal ethics and characteristics in East Asian culture in regards to the issues of filial piety and divine rituals in ancestor worship in the perspective of moral theology. The side of opposition to ancestor worship thought that ancestor worship was not sufficient to describe who God is, and that Christianity was much broader than simply worshiping God. That means there are no clear distinctions in Chinese culture and furthermore such recognition was raised by superstitious ritual toward ancestor worship from the culture of lower classes. With this idea above, this side regarded that the filial piety could not be used to worship God; instead, it merely made human beings equal to God. Meanwhile the side of acceptance thought that the divinity of ancestor worship was worthwhile for truly worshiping God in the practical level. This was considered to! be the method of mission that could adapt to the understanding of Confucian culture about ancestor worship. And also they called on making good use of missionary works of Christianity from the understanding that filial piety exerted the function of society unification. Seeing through this, the two sides have made efforts for the logical rationalization by working toward the respectively different objective in terms of the methods of missionary works, targets and so on. In particular, this idea might be able to give some recognition for the necessity about the harmony and balance of advance of culture and gospel in the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture.