| In the dissertation I take China's minorities as the survey region, especially focus on the southwest area, and choose the climax of Christian Missions after the Opium War (Britain's invasion of China,1840-1842) as the historical background. The key point of my research is to take religion as the deepest part of culture; I probe into the Christian's influences towards minorities in southwestern China, especially the influences on the Legal Psychology, Right Consciousness, the Customary Law, and the Dispute Resolving Mechanism. To these aspects I will explain the influences from the perspective of religious sociology and the jurisprudence as well.The Christianity's influences on southwestern minorities'law follows this sequence:"Belief conversion—Christianization of culture—Legal culture modification". When we see the significance of its occurrence, we can conclude that there must be four qualifications on the large scale Christianization in the minorities of southwestern China:1) the religious mission of preachers to "preach gospel to all nations";2) the extreme poverty in life3) the feeble influence of nation's right4) the weak explanation of traditional culture.We can generalize the strategies and methods of southwestern minorities in two aspects, which is influenced by Christian. The first aspect is the external influence, namely "bottomup model" strategic move. This can be manifested in the actual ways of preaching according to China's former specific situation on writing, education, medical treatment and charity; the second aspect, on the contrary, is the internal influence of "transculturation" which could be interpreted concretely in the content of the replacement in which Christian legend and the divinities takes the place of traditional Chinese minorities culture. However, the culture bears the influence from both externally and internally gets harsh resistance from both the religious pressure of Tibetans and the Yi tribes family groups.Christian has influences on legal culture in the disciples of southwester China's minorities. And this is revealed in a "from in and form" way, following a guideline of "Legal Psychology—Legal rights Perception--Customary Law--Dispute Resolving Mechanism". The first two levels belongs to deep structure of legal culture, which is the level of ideal consciousness in legal culture; while the later two levels could be sorted into surface structure of legal culture, in other words, it is the level corresponds ideal consciousness to Legal Norm, Legal System and Legal Orgs.The influences can be concludes in three aspects, which Christianity has on disciples southwestern minorities. The first level lies in the stimulation of individual's conscious awakening. With the help of three concepts in Christian, namely "created""sin""redemption", one can form the basic cognition of oneself, so as to form powerful ideological force to break down ideas of immortal and liberate from social restriction. The second aspect is to impel the formation of nation conception. The minority's disciples in southwestern China have had weak nation consciousness, while the theory of "city of God" in Christian endues nation with divinity; in the meantime it marks off the bounds of worldly regime and faith community. Therefore, people's thought can be changed in this way. The third aspect is that Christian can lead the transition in sense of law. The minority's disciples get basic sense of law from "Torah" and "Covenant" in Christian.Preachers from west comply with the doctrine of Christianity; they lead people fighting against cruel oppression of feudatory; offering people with free medical care; founding welfare institution; opposing suicide; purchasing land and renting it to people; creating characters. In this way, southwestern minorities'rights are maintained by preachers. Among which is life right, property right, equal right, cultural rights and freedom of conscience. After the long persistent efforts of western preachers, disciples in southwestern China realize the transition from "be saved" to "save oneself" gradually and begin to take their own rights seriously.The influences of Christian on southwestern minorities' customary law could be analyzed as the following:it t takes "Ten Commandments" in Christian and "ten commandments" in mainland as the general outline, reconstructs customary law especially on religious rituals, marriage and family, political system. Alcohol and opium is forbidden by Christian, it also makes restrictions on public health. However, during this process there rises a new boundary between the disciples and common people and new opposition makes its appearance. While in the same time with abolishment of old conventions, the splendid culture of southwestern minorities is hurt, too.The influences of Christian on Dispute Resolving Mechanism could be elaborated in two levels. First level is resolving dispute among people. In the disciples of southwestern minorities, the traditional Dispute Resolving Mechanism is substituted by the mechanism supported by church. In this procession, canon modifies with customary law on procedure, authority, and scopes of accepting cases. The second level is the level of national litigation. With the development of terms of "Patronatus missionum", church takes a particular position in national litigation. In the eyes of disciples, the authority of church and country shares binary forces, and this leads the final transition of lawsuit idea and lawsuit options.Owing to the large number of disciples in minorities of southwestern China, and the complex cultural and historical backgrounds, I couldn't do entire the research on legal culture in minorities of southwestern China, so in this dissertation, I choose the typical area and nationality and try my best to provide universal explanations. As we all know, it's definitely no easy work to investigate minorities in southwestern China comprehensively, with limitations of time and energy. I have to leave this defect, and I'm looking forward to complete this research little by little in future study.
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