In the nineteenth century, both Christianity and Western medicine were brought into China by a group of medical missionaries. China was still a strong empire at that time. With thousands of years of culture, the Chinese did not accept the Western knowledge and religion easily. Nevertheless, after encountering some difficulties, the Western pioneers succeeded to spread the gospel in China, especially the Canton region.
At first, the missionaries were simply telling the Bible stories to the Chinese in streets or in churches, hoping them to believe in God. This was not an effective way of evangelizing in China since the Chinese did not make contact with any Westerners before and also they did not receive any Western education, so it was hard to convince them to believe anything when they were suspicious of the foreigners. They thought the evangelists had no difference with the simple storytellers in streets and the stories were just a kind of entertainment. Moreover, there were lots of traditional beliefs in China, for instance Buddhism. So, it was difficult to persuade the Chinese to give up their beliefs of thousands of years but trust in Christianity after listening to a few of the Bible stories told by foreigners. A medical missionary was another way to evangelize at that time.
Each of the medical missionaries had two roles, doctor and evangelist. (Chao, 1990) The medical missionaries that worked in the less developed countries were all qualified and they were trained at hospitals. (Chao, 1990) This shows that the missionaries were all professional that could bring good medical services to the Chinese. It also shows that the Westerns had a serious and organized plan to bring both medicine and Christianity into China.
This was because Christianity emphasizes spreading the gospel around and let people know the name of the God. It was a better idea to spread the gospel in China. Hospitals were built and the missionaries started curing the Chinese when they…
