Lecture 4 Providential Empire? Early Nineteenth-Century British Overseas Missions in Asia

第四講　天佑的帝國？十九世紀初英國在亞洲的海外宣教

Stewart J. Brown

《神學與教會》 42卷1期 (2017/01) Pp. 135-150

https://doi.org/10.6888/TC.201701_42(1).0010

摘要

The modern British missionary movement and the modern British Empire emerged together amid the generation of 1790 and 1830 in Europe - that extraordinary generation that we considered in our previous lecture. It was this generation which the distinguished English historian of Christianity, W. R. Ward, described in his presidential address to the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1970 as 'the most important single generation in the modern history not merely of English religion but of the whole Christian world'. This was a bold claim to make, but it was not without evidence to support it. For this generation witnessed phenomenal changes and upheavals in the Western world. This was the generation that was shaken by the French Revolution and the Revolution's unprecedented assault on the institutional Churches. This was the generation that experienced sweeping movements of religious awakening that were linked with new movements of democratic nationalism and new notions about the capacities and potential of each individual. These included heart-felt, emotive forms of piety, with emphasis on personal conversion. This generation was affected by apocalyptic visions of the impending end of the world, and of the signs and wonders that portended the end time. Many were drawn to biblical prophecy and visions of the coming millennium. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare contributed to revived beliefs across Europe in elect nations, in chosen peoples destined by God to represent His divine will in history. And as we will see in this lecture, this generation did much to end the iniquities of slavery and the slave trade and it greatly advanced the cause of Protestant overseas missions. Our focus will be on Britain, which was the great industrial and military power in the nineteenth-century world, and also the great nineteenth-century missionary state, sending out nearly as many Protestant missionaries as the rest of the world combined.

並列摘要

在十九世紀，英國發展成世界上最大的帝國，還派出了與世界其他地方總加數量一樣多的新教傳教士。現代的英國傳教士運動和現代大英帝國都出現在1790年到1830年的一代，見證了與法國大革命和拿破崙戰爭相關動盪的非凡的一代，並經歷了基督徒重新覺醒的全面運動。這些再覺醒運動的新感知包括：成為一個真實宗教和上帝揀選國家以實現其在世上攝理的目的。本講座探討了在英國新教海外宣教的復甦，和一個支持宣教的廣泛基礎的出現，以及大英帝國的擴張在世界上具有一個神聖使命，一個天佑目的的概念。講座特別著重在大英帝國內廢除奴隸貿易和奴隸制的民眾政治運動，以及迫使東印度公司允許在大英帝國內不受限制的宣教活動的民眾政治運動。一些人受到1790年至1830年間的基督教覺醒運動的召喚，成為傳教士。當時數以千計的人更是投資金錢和努力來支持傳教事工。特別是在亞洲，當中是有一股對宣教令人印象深刻的熱誠和拯救靈魂的熱情。但是，也有天佑帝國的概念中較為黑暗的一面，正如在1839到41年的鴉片戰爭中所看到的。這包括了大部分啟蒙運動對其他信仰和其他文化的價值的開放的失敗，以及啟蒙運動意識的失敗，因為其他宗教也教導省思共享人類需求和抱負的道德價值觀。