Early Modern Catholic Global Missions and Cultural Accommodation

Keywords

Mission, Society of Jesus, Cultural relativism

Objectives

This study aims to bring out the historical significance of the missionary work of the Catholic Church in Asia and America from the 16th to the 18th centuries with attention to the policy of “accommodation”. The ways in which this policy was implemented in different localities are compared, and how Europeans viewed the world and human beings examined. Accommodation is defined as the policy for promoting the conversion of local people through missionaries’ study of local norms and customs and their adaptation to local societies. Accommodation covers a wide variety of aspects of local cultures, such as language, clothing, food and housing, manners, laws, and education. One famous case of accommodation is the policy adopted by the Society of Jesus in Asia. The missionary methods implemented by Alessandro Valignano in Japan and Matteo Ricci’s study of the Chinese classics are typical examples of this policy. Particularly noteworthy is the Rites Controversy caused by the policy in China, which led to a great division within the Catholic Church.
The accommodation of the early modern Catholic Church is often considered as a predecessor of today’s cultural relativism. However, the validity of this view must be questioned. What are the similarities and differences between these two modes of thought? Does the current concept of cultural relativism owe anything to the Catholic global missionary work in the early modern period? To answer these questions, this study examines the aspects of accommodation that stand as cross-cultural practices by placing the work of missionaries within their respective local context. At the same time, the rationales missionaries assigned to accommodation are examined against the background of the currents of European thought on the diversity of world’s cultures, thereby revealing the significance accommodation holds for intellectual history.

Research Results

Studies of global missions in the early modern era treat “accommodation” as a strategy used by European missionaries to accept local systems and practices or integrate them as new structural elements of the church when they were building communities of followers in those localities of the Americas or Asia to which they had been sent for missionary work. For example, Jesuits engaged in missionary work in Japan integrated Japanese customs into various dimensions of their activities, including church construction and decorative design, clothing and etiquette for monks, ritual ceremonies, and the language used in studies of religious doctrine. This accommodation of local culture resembles but is nevertheless not synonymous with the modern concept of cultural relativism. Local laws, political institutions, and customs were, if not fully respected as such, at least recognized as “good” things to the extent they were consistent with natural laws universally shared by humankind or tolerated as “neutral” elements provided they did not conflict with those natural laws. However, within a strictly defined “spiritual” context, missionaries did not make any compromises with local customs.
　
However, this is not to imply from our contemporary perspective that cultural accommodation as practiced by Catholic missionaries in the early modern era was not worthy of appraisal. Under the influences of early modern scholasticism, many missionaries viewed human nature in a favorable light; this was in contrast to the position that individuals who had fallen into depravity were incapable of doing good without earning the grace of God. From their perspective, even “heathen” individuals were fundamentally good at heart and possessed the will power and intellectual ability to perform good deeds, develop their moral compass, and ultimately know God. This is the reason why missionaries active in the Americas or Asia were interested in the laws, politics, and customs of their locales, harnessed them as foundations for the construction of new churches, and engaged in activities equivalent to modern-day programs of development assistance. Efforts in accommodation by missionaries were predicated on a favorable appraisal of the fundamental abilities of people in the secular dimension.
　
Attention to the above-noted factors provides insights into the limits and possibilities of cultural accommodation by Catholic missionaries during the early modern era. First, with regard to the limits, accommodation by missionaries was backed by a universalist view of human nature and for that reason, cultural diversity was tolerated only within “neutral” domains that did not clash with universal values. Furthermore, accommodation within the “spiritual” domain was out of the question. In no way were missionaries going to compromise on matters of “idolatry.” Next, with regard to the possibilities afforded by accommodation, we cannot ignore the achievements of those missionaries who held a favorable view of social and cultural activities in certain regions of the non-European world even if their perspectives were rooted in universalist standards. Even from a theological perspective, their re-evaluation of the fundamental abilities of people from the secular dimension was also a matter of significance. This latter potential is one of the legacies of the European Renaissance in the early modern era. That legacy, however, was inherited and carried beyond Europe by Catholic missionaries and passed on to contemporary society.