로버트 모리슨(Robert Morrison)의 중국인을 바라보는 시선과 신앙정체성 - The Chinese Repository(1832-1834)를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines both the ways Robert Morrison, the first protestant missionary sent to China, looked at Chinese people and some notable aspects of Christian identity that were inextricably linked to his perception of the people, based on his writings published in The Chinese Repository during the last three years of his missionary work. Through this examination, this paper offers an example of a meeting between China and 19th century western missionaries that occurred in a fundamentally different way from that most commonly mentioned, which has often suggested Christianity’s strong association with imperialistic desires. One of the most important characteristics of the way Morrison perceived Chinese people is that he viewed them not as categorized group opposed to the Western Europeans but as equal and unique human beings. Another notable aspect is that Morrison, often through analogies, broke the dichotomy between “Chinese and Western Europeans, heathen and Christian, the savage and the civilized”, and tried to abolish artificially established boundaries between both sides. The fact that his faith in the superiority of Christianity remained unattached from a sense of cultural·ethnical superiority is also important to note. Among the core elements which enabled Morrison to look at Chinese people the way he did was his christian faith on the equality of humanity in the eyes of God and his philanthropic spirit, along with his faith in voluntary and sincere profession as opposed to a forced and hypocritical one. Upon these grounds, Morrison warned of the dangerous possibility of friendship or patriotism turning into idolatry and sharply criticized those Western Europeans who demanded heathen pagan to convert to Christianity by their abuse of power. Moreover, Morrison was against all kinds of wars on the ground of New Testament and strongly argued that Western European Christians should protest against the chief’s persecuting their pagan servants. Morrison’s attitude revealed through his perceptions on Chinese people and his Christian identity clearly distances itself from a sense of ethnical·cultural superiority or strong patriotism that much permeated Western European Christians’ way of thinking through the 19th century. This paper demonstrates that Morrison’s attitude was formed not despite but rather due to his firm Christian faith.