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Catholic and Protestant Individuals in Nineteenth-Century German Missionary Periodicals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2013

Albert Wu
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Extract

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.

Type
Forum
Information
Church History , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 394 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2013 

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References

102 See the masthead of the Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote. Monatsschrift der Glaubensverbreitung [KHJB] 23, no. 1 (October 1895), 1.

103 See the masthead of the Berliner Missions-Berichte, no. 11 (1895), 161.

104 Drury, Marjule Anne, “Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 70, no. 1 (2001), 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 For more on Weber's anti-Catholic outlook, see Nipperdey, Thomas, “Max Weber, Protestantism, and the Context of the Debate around 1900,” in Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts, eds. Lehmann, Hartmut and Roth, Guenther (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

106 There has been a large literature on the relationship between missionary work and modernization. See, for example, van der Veer, Peter, Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York: Routledge, 1996)Google Scholar; Keane, Webb, Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Peel, J. D. Y., Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

107 Hubrig, Friedrich, Li-tshyung-yin, ein treuer Zeuge in der chinesischen Mission, vol. 57, Neue Missionsschriften (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1899), 1Google Scholar.

108 Hubrig, Li-tshyung-yin.

109 Ibid, 8.

110 See, Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John, Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Hubrig, Friedrich, Der Evangelist Sung-en-phui, vol. 15, Neue Missionsschriften (Berlin: Buchhandlung der Berliner evangelischen Missionsgesellschaft, 1891), 14Google Scholar.

112 Krampe, Heinrich, “Erstkommunion im Heidenlande,” KHJB 23, no. 2 (November 1895), 12Google Scholar.

113 This is not to say that hagiographic literature about Protestant missionaries did not exist, rather the focus of these hagiographies differed due to the different dominant historical narratives, with Catholic missionaries narratives focused primarily on situating the missionary work within a long tradition of Catholic missionary martyrs, which was evident from the early modern period. Many of the BMS's hagiographic literature highlighted the expertise and modern knowledge that the missionaries brought with them to China, beyond the simple suffering of the missionary.

114 “Sanguis martyrum, semen Christianorum,” KHJB 6, no. 2 (February 1879), 11Google Scholar.

115 There is a large amount of literature on the Chinese Rites Controversy. One good overview is Mungello, David E., ed., The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994)Google Scholar.