The Role ofChristianity in Taiwan

In this paper, we will explore the role that the various Christian communities have played in Taiwan's history.  As we engage with this history, we will have to decide for ourselves whether that role has been negative, positive, or a combination of both.  We will also have to decide for ourselves as to whether the various Christian communities are promoting the self-determination of the people in Taiwan, or whether their theology merely serves to legitimize the status quo of international indecision and the eventual return to Chinese rule over Taiwan.

Amongst almost twenty-three million people on Taiwan, only three percent is Christian.  The rest of the people, more or less, hold on to beliefs in folk religion, i.e. Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, etc. The folk religions are people's popular beliefs which consist of certain native elements mixed with the above-named religions, and are diffused into secular and social institutions.  The folk religions have an entire pantheon of gods and goddesses: more than 243 deities are worshiped.  In 1981, the number of temples and shrines was 5,539, while the number of churches was 2, 169 (Yu Kuang-hong, "Development of Taiwanese Folk Religion: Analysis of Government Compiled Data," in Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, no 53 (1982), pp. 67-103).

Besides these, there are tens of thousands of family altars of folk religions.  Both the number of shrines, temples, and churches, is increasing year by year.  In the traditional ethnic Chinese mind, Christianity is acknowledged as a foreign religion.  But Taiwanese people of Chinese origin usually think that all religions are good for humanity, and that they teach people to do good.  Therefore, Christianity can coexist with other religions in Taiwan, although Christian are an absolute minority group ("The Coexistence Between Christians and the People on Taiwan," in Christianity Among World Religions. Hans Kung and Jurgen Moltmann, eds. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986, pp. 90-95).

Christianity, besides being accepted as a religion of teaching good among many religions in Taiwan and China, is usually recognized as the most liberating prophetic religion.  The leaders of two decisive revolutions in China, in the 19th and 20th centuries, Hung Hsiu-chuan and Sun Yat-sen, were considered Christians ( A.T. van Leeuwen, Christianity in World History, pp. 365-381, C.S. Song, The Compassionate God, New York, 1982, pp. 192-215).

Historically, the Protestant mission to Taiwan started in the year 1627, three years after the Dutch colonization of Taiwan.  They were just a step ahead of the Spanish Dominican missionary effort. Both missions were confined to the natives of Malayan origin, at that time, the majority of the Taiwanese populace.  The first wave of the Christian missionary effort had more or less come to an end with the conquest of Taiwan by the Chinese under Cheng Cheng-kung, a warrior of the Ming dynasty, and known to the West as Koxinga (1624_1663) in 1661.  Christianity faded away quickly because both the Dutch and Spanish missionaries were too closely linked with the colonizing effort to be able to lay the foundations for indigenous church leadership. ("The Reflection and
Envisioning of the Missions in Taiwan.:  Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1995).

The second wave of the Christian mission started with the Spanish Dominican priests in 1859 in Kaohsiung, then Presbyterian missions to South Taiwan in 1865, and Canadian Presbyterian missions to North Taiwan in 1872.  Denominational diversity or chaos came into the picture when Chiang Kai-Shek (1887-1975) and around two million of his followers took refuge on Taiwan in 1949.  Coming along with them were various denominational missions and independent churches initiated and developed in China.  This marked the third wave of the Christian mission to Taiwan (Ibid.).

It is in the recent three decades that the idea of contextual theologies have developed in Asia and Africa, while at the same time, liberation theologies have flourished in Latin America.  Therefore, it might be helpful to clarify the importance and meaning of context in the biblical-theologizing foundation in order to make use of the contextual analysis for missiological reflection and envisioning in Taiwan (Ibid.).

Christianity came to Taiwan with its colonial background.  It usually has an ahistorical orientation.  In comparison, main world religions, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, which came from China, usually have a China-oriented historical view.  Therefore, both Christianity and major world religions in Taiwan do not encourage Taiwanese people to build their own historical world view (Ibid.).

With the coming of Koxinga to Taiwan and the end of Dutch rule, little is known of the existence, nature, and significance of the surviving Christianity among the original inhabitants. Most of the aboriginal villages where the Dutch had promoted the Christian faith were in the plains.  With the great increase of Chinese coming to the island after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, and then 38 years later when the Ming survivors were finally defeated, the social situation was changed drastically.  Gradually, the aborigines were pushed back from their fertile lands into the foothills and high mountain areas (Ralph Covell, Pentecost of the Hills of Taiwan.  Pasadena, California: Hope Publishing House, 1998, p. 103).

By the 1860's, English and Canadian missionaries, as well as Catholic mission orders arrived to "claim Taiwan for God."  The early Protestants had much more success among the Pepohoan-the "civilized aborigines"- then they did among the Chinese.  After this movement waned and ministries among the Chinese became more responsive and stable, missionaries commenced to work among the various groups of "raw savages" in the high mountains and adjacent areas (Ibid., p. 104)

This continued even after Taiwan was annexed by Japan in 1895. In fact, it was Japan's success in pacifying the tribes, particularly the more rebellious Tayal and Sediq, that helped to prepare for the entrance of the Christian faith, not only to these two groups, but to all of the original inhabitants.  On the other hand, the Japanese effort in the mid-1920's to push its own nationalistic Shinto faith and persecute Christianity led to a period of crisis (Ibid.).

When he gained power, Koxinga established his headquarters in Anping, the new name for Zeelandia, and his capital at nearby Sakkam, the present-day Tainan.  He instituted Chinese laws, customs, and administrative procedures to replace the old Dutch ones.  Inasmuch as Christian churches were found largely among the aborigines or the Dutch citizens, there was no witness, as far as is known, among the Chinese (Ibid.).

Koxinga, of course, had not been friendly to the Dutch missionaries or the aboriginal Christians.  Whether this was due to his antipathy to the Christian faith or to his perception that these people seemed more to be Dutch civil servants and traitors than Christians is a matter of debate. After his death, his son, Cheng Ching, apparently following his father's policy, offered to release the Dutch magistrates, clergy and wives-about 100 in all-if the Dutch would agree to oppose the new Manchu government on the mainland.  The Dutch preferred to work with the new government, and this offer was not accepted (Ibid.).

Koxinga became close friends with an Italian Dominican missionary, Vittorio Riccio, whom he had met in Amoy.  He confided in him.  With a hopeless ambition to take the Phillippines, he appointed Riccio to be both his ambassador to the Spanish governor in Manila.  When these hopes were dashed after Koxinga's death, Riccio continued as advisor to Cheng Ching.  Eventually he became the "vicar" of the Formosan mission and meridional China.  It is said that "a European friar converted into an ambassador for a Chinese pirate was a novelty" (Davidson, The Island of Formosa, n.p., n.d., pp. 51-52).

Roman Catholics had indicated an interest in returning to Taiwan as early as 1847, but it was not until 1859 that two Dominican friars from Manila, accompanied by three Chinese catechists arrived in Takao (present-day Kaohsiung).  Their initial contact with the magistrates was not cordial.  Only by the intercession of a European opium dealer, then living on a barge in the harbor, were they permitted to stay and to commence religious work (Covell, p. 112).

The beginning of missionary work in Taiwan at this particular time after nearly 200 years of Christian silence is related closely to the situation in China.  Modern Protestant missionary work outside of Europe and America, apart from that which grew out of the chaplaincy of the Danish mission in India in the early 1700's, and the Dutch in Taiwan in the 1600's, did not really develop until the late 1700's or early 1800's (Ibid., p. 113).

Since the prohibition of Christianity in 1724, and the temporary disbanding of the Jesuits in 1773, Chinese Catholic Christians had undergone periods of severe persecution.  No new missionaries were able to enter the country.  When Protestant missionaries, beginning with Robert Morrison in 1807, sought to evangelize China, they had to be content to build a "wall of light" about China from their bases in Macau, Canton, Malacca, Singapore, Penang, Bangkok, and Batavia.  They were not able to enter China proper (Ibid., pp. 113-114).

English Presbyterians commenced their missionary activity in China in Amoy along the South China Sea coast in 1847.  When by the treaties of 1858, Taiwan was "opened" to foreigners , Douglas Carstairs and H.L Mackensie, English Presbyterian missionaries in Amoy, made an exploratory trip to Tanshui in the north.  They brought two Amoy Christians as well as a large supply of books and tracts with them.  Since the language of Amoy and of the local Chinese on Taiwan was the same, it was easy for them to evangelize.  They were unaware of the earlier Dutch efforts and assumed that they were preaching the Gospel for the first time there (Ibid.).

A question which is in order for us today is the following: If Christians comprise only 3% of the population in Taiwan, do we need to redefine what it means to "win Taiwan for Christ?"  Does the Christian Church have to find a way to coexist with the other communities of faith on the island?  Can Christians work in unity for the good of the people of Taiwan by putting aside their theological differences?  In the next paper, we will seek to address how Taiwanese Liberation Theology addresses the issues of sovereignty, land rights, etc.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona
Visiting Professor of Theology
Tainan Theological College