The Cultural Missionary Theory
We should pay close attention to the issue of "cultural proselytization." Many terms that were once far apart—religion and the market, God and commodities—have been linked under this concept. Not long ago, a popular saying went: to capture someone’s heart, you must first capture their stomach. Certain contemporary proselytizers could be said to know this all too well; they also attempt to capture the hearts of the Chinese people by way of their stomachs. As for whether doing so constitutes praise or profanation of their God, they seem to have no time to consider.
The so-called "cultural proselytization" includes both proselytizing through cultural means and proselytizing to "cultural workers" [1]. What significant effect on Chinese society can be achieved by constantly proselytizing to grassroots women who enjoy leisure or to people who cannot distinguish between Jesus and the Heavenly Lord [2]? Consequently, some proselytizers have turned their thoughts toward cultural workers and cultural methods. They hope to use the method of "capturing the stomach" to capture the hearts of those who are supposedly "China's brains and backbone," and then use the hearts of these elites to satisfy their own stomachs—realizing their own political and economic interests. Regarding this point, the author discussing the problem of cultural proselytization is clear-headed. This journal publishes such articles in the hope that more people will likewise become clear-headed.
Propagating one's own religion is beyond reproach from the standpoint of one's own religious devotion, as this is their doctrine. Buddhism seeks to deliver all sentient beings from suffering, and Jesus wanted his disciples to go into all the world to preach the gospel. However, from the perspective of the recipient, it involves having one's own faith and convictions changed. It is impossible for conflict not to occur. There is no need to mention traditional religious conflicts represented by the Crusades; even in contemporary localized wars, how many are without religious factors involved? Although realistic interest relations are the fundamental cause of conflict, religious divisions undoubtedly provide people with another demarcation beyond those of the state and the nation, thereby adding another factor that triggers conflict.
Nevertheless, regardless of the circumstances, the introduction of Buddhism into China and its spread throughout the world, as well as the introduction of Islam and Christianity into China before the Opium War, were all beyond reproach. People, for their own reasons, could choose to believe or not to believe.
Starting from the Opium War [3], the situation in China changed. Clauses for the propagation of Christianity were written into almost every unequal treaty [4] that China was forced to sign under the escort of "strong ships and sharp cannons" [5]. Those unworthy descendants of Matteo Ricci [6] no longer wore Confucian robes but instead scurried alongside the strong ships and sharp cannons. At this time, the nature of proselytization became the same as demanding the cession of territory and the payment of indemnities: it demanded that the Chinese people simultaneously cede their souls and pay out their hearts.
Now, as the factor of "strong ships and sharp cannons" gradually moves backstage, economic factors have become prominent again. Although the lives of the Chinese people are much better, they remain among the ranks of the poor. The leader of the rich, the U.S. government, has even established commissions specifically to monitor the conditions of proselytization and religious reception. We know that in terms of maintaining and safeguarding its own national interests, the United States is among the most clear-headed and intense, if not the most. One only wonders if those Chinese cultural workers acting as "vanguard pawns" [7] for this proselytization are clear-headed about this point. If they are clear-headed, do they understand what they are doing? Or, to use a phrase frequently uttered in the past: what role are they playing!
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a literacy textbook whose first lesson was: "We are Chinese; we love our motherland." When we face certain wealthy people coming to seize our souls and telling us that we should place their so-called "universal values" above the interests of the state and the nation, it is necessary for certain cultural workers to review this lesson.