The Inculturation of Christianity in Late Imperial China, 1724-1840

The thesis argues that Christianity underwent a profound process of inculturation during the "long eighteenth century", which was caused by the absence of foreign missionaries after the edict of 1724 and by the fact that the Christian centres moved from China's cities into the countryside and wilderness

The Protestant Missions to South-East Asia: Experimental Laboratory of Missionary Concepts and of Human Relations (Circa 1780–1840)

The relationship between the Anglo-Scottish Ultra-Ganges Mission and the Dutch missionaries in South East Asia, both missions based at Batavia and at Melaka (Malacca), could be described as “distant but cordial” – even during times of colonial conflict – but the same cannot always be said about the internal conditions of the British mission. This article will attempt to place the relationship between the Anglo-Dutch missionary enterprises into a historical context which includes the complex networks built up by the missionaries with the colonial administrations, as well as with the local Malay and Chinese communities. Ultimately, the success of their mission depended as much on such external factors as on the internal cohesion between the individual missionaries. Much of the historical sources for this article has been derived from the Special Collections archives kept at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

Christian heretics in late imperial China : Christian inculturation and state control, 1720-1850

Following the prohibition of missionary activity after 1724, China’s Christians were effectively cut off from all foreign theological guidance. The ensuing isolation forced China’s Christian communities to become self-reliant in perpetuating the basic principles of their faith. Left to their own devices, the missionary seed developed into a panoply of indigenous traditions, with Christian ancestry as the common denominator. Christianity thus underwent a thorough process of religious inculturation. As the guardian of orthodox morality, the prosecuting state sought to exercise all-pervading control over popular thoughts and social functions. Filling a gap within the discourse of Christianity in China and also as part of the analysis of late imperial religion, this book presents the state action against Christians during this period as part and parcel of the campaigns against ‘heresy’ and ‘heretical’movements in general

Memories of Faith: The 'Christian sutras' of late imperial China

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate the degree of inculturation manifesting itself in Christian writings of the eighteenth century. The contribution also highlights the preservation of Christian identity by means of fractured and incorrectly copied writings, during a period when no foreign missionaries were allowed in China

Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China

To this day, the perception persists that China was a civilisation defeated by imperialist Britain's most desirable trade commodity, opium - a drug that turned the Chinese into cadaverous addicts in the iron grip of dependence. But, as this new edition of Narcotic Culture brilliantly shows, the real scandal in Chinese history was not the expansion of the drug trade by Britain in the early nineteenth century, but rather the failure of the British to grasp the consequences of prohibition. They reveal that opium actually had few harmful effects on either health or longevity; in fact, it was prepared and appreciated in highly complex rituals with inbuilt constraints preventing excessive use. Opium was even used as a medicinal panacea in China before the availability of aspirin and penicillin. But as a result of the British effort to eradicate opium, the Chinese turned from the relatively benign use of that drug to heroin, morphine, cocaine, and countless other psychoactive substances. The transition from a tolerated opium culture to a system of prohibition produced a 'cure' that was far worse than the disease. Delving into a history of drugs and their abuses, Narcotic Culture is part revisionist history of imperial and twentieth-century Britain and part sobering portrait of the dangers of prohibition

Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China

The book analyses the influence of medicinal and recreational drug consumption in China from the late Ming period (c.1600) to the fall of the Republic on the Chinese mainland (1949). It questions the assumption that opium (and later semi-synthetic opiates) were responsible for the military and political weakness of China during much of the the 19th and 20th centuries, pointing to patterns of social consumption which provided for stability and economic growth. The role of the (opium-importing) western powers is also re-assessed, resulting in a more positive interpretation than dictated by 20th-century Chinese nationalism