Redefining heresy : governance of Muslims and Christians in the Qing Empire, from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century

Abstract

This research examines how the Qing Empire (1616 - 1912) restricted Confucian scholar-bureaucrats from intervening in the religious life of Muslims and Christians from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. In the early eighteenth century, Emperor Yongzheng 雍正帝 (r.1722 - 1735) discovered that his views on Muslims and Christians were quite different from those of his ministers. The imperial bureaucrats maintained their strong religious concerns in their offices. In political philosophy of Confucianism, ‘governing and teaching were not two things; the roles of official and teacher were united’ (zhijiao wuer, guanshi heyi 治􏰀無二，官師合一). Nevertheless, Emperor Yongzheng insisted that ‘heresies’, in his new definition, are those who are against the state, instead of holding different worldviews and ethics from the state supported religions. This became the principle to govern Islam and Christianity of the Qing Empire until the 1820s. The political experience in the Qing Empire led to major changes in the Confucians’ views on Islam, Christianity, and also their concepts of religion. Throughout the seventeenth to early eighteenth century, religion had been marginalized from imperial politics. The marginalization of religion from political arrangements had two levels. First, religious identity and connection were marginalized at the policy level. This was to avoid the positional conflicts out of value differences and a strong and untameable network which the Empire feared. Second, religion was marginalized from discussions at the intellectual level. This refers to the reluctance to include religious issues in political discussions among the intellectual and political elites of the Qing Empire. Confucian scholar-bureaucrats eventually developed the thought that religious differences should be tolerated because men are born with differences. Some of them even suggested that most religions are, by nature, same as Confucianism, which is a blessing from the Way of Heaven (tiandao 天道). Following these discourses, Confucianism, remaining the supreme religion, is no longer the sole revelation of the Heaven. The political thoughts of these scholar-bureaucrats derived from their worldviews thus transformed to a more inclusive form in the early eighteenth century. In this sense, with the marginalization of religion in imperial politics, Confucian scholar-bureaucrats had reshaped not just their views on Islam and Christianity but also their views on ‘religion’, ‘state’, and Confucianism.