Publication details
The Christian concept of the afterlife in the early modern missions to East Asia
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The Christian (or, more specifically, Catholic) idea of the afterlife strongly differs from the indigenous religious traditions of East Asia. Christianity stresses the personal immortality of the soul and considers the post-mortal existence to be either an eternal reward or an eternal punishment for one’s actions during life. Furthermore, the Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints teaches that the living and the deceased remain connected to an extent: those in Heaven intercede for the living and the living pray for the souls in Purgatory. In the main religious traditions of East Asia, the idea of the afterlife either takes the form of reincarnation or is hardly considered at all due to a high degree of individual variations even within one tribe (as shown in the case of partly christianized Bahnars). At the same time, the continuing spiritual presence of the deceased ancestors is emphasized and ceremonially venerated. This difference was a major obstacle to the early modern missionary activities of the Catholic Church in the region (for example, those of Matteo Ricci in China and Alexandre de Rhodes in what is now Vietnam). Eventually, it became one of the causes of the bitter controversy over Chinese rites. The purpose of our contribution was to show how the Christian views on the afterlife were presented and defended by the early missionaries, opposed by the Confucian polemicists, and gradually incorporated into the East Asian religious traditions. |
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