Secularization Of Mission:a Study Of The Activities Of The Presbyterian Church In The United States Of America In Shandong In The Early Time (1861-1900)

Since mid-nineteenth century, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America had begun to spread the gospel in Shandong province. Missionaries with the idea of saving the soul of heretics to preach Christianity, but the harsh reality were forcing them to engage in worldly affairs. Highly secular Chinese society affected the material and spiritual world of missionaries. The conflict between ideal and reality from deep showed Christian tension of sanctification and secularization, and it was not only the great challenges religion facing in modern society, but also the results of China’s response to the huge national crisis since modern times.Missionaries on their own to explore how to relieve this tension. John L. Nevius, who had preached religion in the neighboring of Teng Zhow Fu, developed the theory of three-self, self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing. he personally to fulfill the theory, but his theory had not been universally accepted. Calvin W. Mateer, on behalf of most missionaries, affirmed the positive role of money, they advocated hire more assistants to help local missionary, then promoted the localization of churches in China gradually. Compared to the other missionaries, Calvin W. Mateer had gone farther on specialization of education, he determined to cultivate a group of "new people" who had a thorough knowledge of both Western and traditional Chinese knowledge, while he also firmly opposed to the teaching of English. Secularization also affected the medical career in missionary societies, Robert Coltman, an excellent medical missionary of Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, however, with the passage of time, he ultimately failed to become a mentor to cure the soul; he devoted too much energy on saving lives, which led to conflicts with missionary society and became a professional doctor in the end.In fact, secularization itself should be a nature and dimensionality of church career. Since modern time, secularization in missionary work gradually manifested, which let missionary societies received a lot of believers in a short time, but on the meantime created many "rice believers", even corroded inside of missionary societies, made missionary suffered criticism and questioning of all parties; on long terms secularization promoted the development of education, science, medical treatment and so on in modern China, at the same time, but also brought some negative impact on the healthy development of local Church in China.