Upon first glance, nineteenth-century German Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals seem to come from different milieus. Compare two mastheads: an October 1895 issue of the monthly periodical of the Catholic Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and the Protestant Berlin Missionary Society's monthly periodical of November 1895. An ornate woodcut print inhabits the masthead of the SVD periodical, the Kleiner-Herz Jesu-Bote. Jesus, with his sacred heart exposed, stands on clouds and is flanked by two angels, Raphael and Gabriel. In the top left-hand corner, the reader sees the Archangel Michael militantly guarding over the frontispiece with sword and shield, while in the top right-hand corner, the one mortal, St. Francis, smiles benevolently, offering the reader absolution. The periodical's title is presented in lettering akin to an illuminated manuscript. Pictures of saints, relics, and martyrs adorn the rest of the issue.Footnote 102
The masthead of the Berlin Missionary Society's (BMS) Berliner Missions-Berichte, on the other hand, is austere. It contains no pictures: the title stands alone, emblazoned in fracture print. The only clue that this is even a religious publication lies below the title, in smaller print: the citation of a Bible passage enclosed in parentheses, “(Matt 28:19).” The rest of the issue is also devoid of iconography. Instead, a table of statistics and a list of donors inhabit the heart of the issue. The Protestant periodical is clearly rooted in a social-scientific attempt to quantify and to measure.Footnote 103
Contemporaries noticed these differences. Max Weber considered Catholic periodicals and the prevalence of saints, relics, and icons in them, “bizarre kitsch.”Footnote 104 For the devoutly anti-Catholic Weber, Catholic periodicals provided proof of Catholicism's resistance to modernity.Footnote 105 Protestants, on the other hand, had decided to join the world of science, and had discarded Catholic superstition. Was Weber right? Were Catholic missionary periodicals somehow more retrograde, more resistant to the lures of modernity, when compared to their Protestant competitors?
In one way, Protestant missionary periodicals reflected Weber's views: individuality was at the heart of the missionary's project of modernization. For Weber, the rational individual subject was the motor, the force that drove modernity. Similarly, for German Protestant missionaries, individual conversion (Einzelbekehrung) formed the core of their work.Footnote 106 The belief in individual conversion is apparent in missionary journals. The BMS, for example, printed numerous stories detailing individual Chinese Christian conversion. Conforming to a common template, the stories begin with an evocation of the Chinese landscape, mired in superstition and enemies to Christianity.Footnote 107 Together with descriptions of mass poverty and dirtiness,Footnote 108 the missionaries depict China as ahistorical, stuck in the past. This inert, retrograde landscape prevented the advancement and happiness of the individuals living in it. Chinese individuals are described as ensnared and mired in sin, especially the “sins of the flesh”—most commonly appearing in the unholy triumvirate of polygamy, opium, and gambling.Footnote 109 The descriptions of individuals dialectically reinforced larger social problems—China's superstitious heathenism led to sin, and the moral degeneracy further reflected the moral evil of traditional Chinese culture.
Then, the moment of conversion arrives. The ignorant Chinese is rescued from “darkness,” and describes the day of conversion as “the most important day of [his or her] life.” He or she is positioned as a rational actor who makes the choice of moving from a previous life filled with “darkness” to a new one illuminated by “light.”Footnote 110 For Protestants, conversion was a political and social act: it was a decision to engage the evils of the world, rather than retreat from them. This decision had real consequences: Chinese converts were seen by their neighbors as traitors to traditional, ancient Chinese wisdom, threatening to the fabric of Chinese society. Stories abounded of how the Chinese Christian became ostracized, threatened, or injured by anti-Christian violence.Footnote 111 Protestant missionary accounts thus made it clear that in order to create a new, Christian China, the individual Chinese Christian was the one who would suffer; the Chinese would have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Christ. The stories, then, are parables of embracing modernity: Chinese Christians accept Christianity in order to renounce their traditional, anti-modern outlook.
In Catholic missionary periodicals, individuals of a different sort dominated the pages: the European missionary. While individual Chinese Catholic conversion stories exist, for the most part, tales of Chinese conversion more often illustrated the communal character of Catholic conversion, such as in reports of children joyfully and enthusiastically participating in First Communion classes.Footnote 112 For Catholics, conversion was at heart a social and communal experience, one embedded within communities and structures. The individuals who do contain agency and the ability to make decisions are the missionaries themselves. Hagiographies of Catholic martyrs, whether working in China, Vietnam, or Japan, abounded in Catholic missionary periodicals.Footnote 113 Both martyrs of the early Church, mostly those who had died during the era of Roman persecution, and contemporary martyrs, who had died amidst persecution in the field, were mainstays in the SVD's literature. While Protestant conversion stories tended to embrace stories of movement, Catholic hagiographies, on the other hand, were more static. The saint, martyr, and missionary hero tended to be preternaturally gifted, born with a heart of devotion and belief. Their decision to choose Christ and a life of service reflected the unchanging, ever-loving, and ever-good nature of God.
The difference in focus, in part, can be attributed to historical precedent. These stories sought to create instant historical links between current and historical missionary sacrifice. In order to create this modern, Christian China, the ones who would suffer the brunt of the persecution were the Catholic missionaries, not the individual Catholic Chinese converts—the “blood of the martyrs plants the seeds of Christianity,” the journals proclaimed.Footnote 114 In the case of China, the expulsion of Catholic missionaries from China in the eighteenth century after the Rites Controversy loomed large in Catholic historical consciousness.Footnote 115 For Catholics, the Qing state was a constant threat, a powerful, demonic force that had expelled the Catholic mission, killing and martyring European missionaries in the process. Protestants, on the other hand, entered China in the middle of the nineteenth century in the aftermath of the Opium Wars. The Qing state that they encountered was weakened and humiliated.
Even though the missionary periodicals differed in form, their fundamental view of China, and their vision for China, was the same. Both Protestant and Catholic periodicals characterized the world in sets of binaries—a state of spiritual warfare existed between Christians and non-Christians. The forces of the world were divided into light and dark, good and evil. Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals both presented China as a backward place. Protestant and Catholic missionaries alike referred to China as the “stronghold of Satan,” the “Kingdom of the Devil,” “the Kingdom of Hell,” and talked about how Satan used “heathen superstition” to imprison the Chinese.
Thus, even though Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals looked dramatically different in form, they served similar functions. Protestant and Catholic missionaries both used their periodicals to promote their visions of how to construct a new and modern China. Both Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals advanced the central belief that China needed its version of Christianity to serve as the foundation for a new and modern China. Even though different individuals stood at the heart of their narratives, individual sacrifice was ultimately needed for the promulgation and success of the Gospel in China. These stories of individual sacrifice were meant to mobilize and motivate their faithful European readers, who themselves had to sacrifice some of their time and money to support the cause.
In this sense, Catholic missionaries were by no means more retrograde than Protestants, but just as modern, savvy, and attune to contemporary realities as their counterparts. While Weber may have been right that the form of Protestant and Catholic missionary periodicals differed greatly, their purpose and function was remarkably similar. They both argued that China was stuck in a pre-modern, backward state, and their confessions could bring China into the modern world. While the agents of change differed, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries shared the same eschatological vision—a Christian China, sanctified through the blood and sacrifice of Chinese and European Christians.
