East Asian Buddhism and the Christian Encounter
East Asian Buddhism and the Christian Encounter
Introduction
When Christian missionaries set foot in East Asia in the nineteenth century, how did they perceive Buddhist practices in relation to their own evangelical goals?
Two centuries earlier, Catholics of the Jesuit order had befriended elite Confucian intellectuals and criticized Buddhism as idolatrous and excessively ritualistic. An adaptive approach to Confucianism had won the Jesuits considerable success in proselytizing on Chinese soil. But the nineteenth century was different. Imperialist invasions and a perceived triumph of Westernization would eventually challenge the relevance of Confucianism.
In this context, missionaries collected humble materials of popular Buddhist and Daoist practices, opening themselves to the worlds of commoners. Contextualizing the multi-faceted encounters between Christian missionaries and Buddhism in the nineteenth century, this exhibition explores how missionaries used their own feet to trek through the unknown, acquired first-hand materials, and advanced missions in both spiritual and pragmatic terms.
The books and artifacts on display come from Pitts Theology Library’s Hartford Chinese Literature Collection, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Oxford College Library’s Collection of Asian Artifacts.