Religious Communication And Geographical Writing In Missionary Press In The 19th Centur

The 19 th century to the 20 th century was a period of great collision and integration of ideas in the world.Western missionaries to China were regarded as one of the pioneers to promote cultural flow and exchange.As the main force of early cultural exchanges,Western missionaries in China and Nanyang region established modern newspapers and periodicals and translated various western literatures and works based on the fundamental purpose of spreading Christian ideas,which promoted the ideological and political changes in Nanyang Chinese society and China’s local society.Christian ideas and Western capitalist ideas also entered Nanyang and China.Gützlaff was a representative figure of Western missionaries who came to China in the 19 th century.On the one hand,he deeply studied and understood Chinese culture and promoted cultural exchanges between China and the west through three coastal voyages and the establishment of newspapers and periodicals.On the other hand,for the purpose of opening the door to China and spreading Christianity,he encouraged and participated in the first Opium War between China and Britain,Become a supporter and participant of Western colonial rule.Gützlaff ’s behavior is more active and complex than that of Western missionaries at the same time,full of controversy,which fully shows the complexity and contradiction of his thought.Therefore,the literary combing and analysis of the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine is not only a combing of Gützlaff ’s own thoughts,but also a glimpse of the dissemination process of Western religious thoughts and colonial ideas in Nanyang in the 19 th century.This paper is mainly divided into two parts: the introduction part analyzes the origin,research status,basic research ideas and methods of this paper;The text focuses on Gützlaff and the text of the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine,which consists of four chapters.The first chapter focuses on Gützlaff ’s life,and discusses the objective and subjective factors of Gützlaff ’s acceptance of Christian thought and his mission to China.Gützlaff was born and grew up in the golden age of colonial expansion in western countries.For the needs of colonialism,the position of missionary as a social role has been paid more and more attention.Due to the influence of his family environment,Gützlaff formed a personality disorder of arrogance and conceit,which directly promoted him to realize his life choice through overseas teaching.The second chapter focuses on the macro analysis of the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine,and investigates and analyzes its founding purpose,purpose,column setting and compilation thought.In terms of action itself,Gützlaff founded newspapers and periodicals to spread Western learning and promote cultural exchanges between China and the west,but the actual effect is that the compilers integrate a large number of Christian theological thoughts into western history,geography,science and technology texts,and try to imperceptibly spread religion in this way.The third chapter mainly investigates the mythological text in the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine.In the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine,the Bible is listed and compared with the myth stories of Pangu’s creation of the world,so as to find the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western cultures,and put forward the conclusion that Western myths are better than Chinese myths.The comparison of myths in newspapers and periodicals clearly reflects the meaning of religious communication.Although there are moral requirements in Chinese and Western myths to urge people to eliminate evil and promote good,in essence,western morality comes from the authority of God,while Chinese morality comes from human reverence for nature,belonging to two different cultural systems.The fourth chapter focuses on the geographical text in the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine.By analyzing and comparing the eastern and western images in the geographical text,we can see the colonial thought contained in the newspapers and periodicals.In the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine,Southeast Asia and South Asia are relatively backward,while the western countries represented by Britain are advanced and powerful rescuers,transforming colonial aggression into just salvation,projecting a strong colonial color of the press.