Strive for a healthy “body”: investigating the Christian anti-opium discourses in the late Qing New Age novels=富國．強身 - 清末時新小說的基督教治鴉片害表述

Abstract

After the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), John Fryer (1839– 1928) advertised to call for “New Age Novel” written in “Christian tone” concerning three late Qing social problems: opium smoking, eight-legged essay, and foot binding. The manuscripts, being rediscovered in 2006, can enhance our understanding of how Chinese Christians in late Qing thought about the issue of national survival. In this paper, the anti-opium discourses in Christian tone of the entries will be discussed under several themes. It aims to show how Christianity has shaped the interpretation of reality, and how the social contexts have shaped the interpretation of the Bible, among the participants. This paper is expected to contribute to the study of contextualization of Christianity and contextual interpretation of the Bible in China.