Guido F. Verbeck; 新教=Protestant; 傳教士=Missionary; 幕末明治=Bakumatsu-Meiji; 獲得聘用=oyatoi
摘要
Protestant missionaries fi rst arrived in Japan in 1859, and one of the earliest to arrive was Guido F. Verbeck, a Dutch-American missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church in Nagasaki. Verbeck was highly praised by the Japanese leaders in his day, and hailed by the Western missionary literature as a “missionary of missionaries,” particularly after William Elliot Griffi s’ 1900 biography of Verbeck. But, in light of the less than one percent of Japanese Christians in Japan throughout the past century and a half, should he still be considered such a successful pioneer missionary? In examining Verbeck’s life and impact, it is necessary to move beyond a focus simply on conversion, and see early missionaries like Verbeck as religious and cultural ambassadors during this formative period in Japanese history. Throughout his four decades in Japan, Verbeck embodied the idea of a “living epistle” as a respected teacher, advisor, translator, evangelist and friend of Japan. He succeeded in developing a remarkable level of trust and a virtually unrivaled ability to communicate with the Japanese people. With these qualities and contributions, Verbeck became a respected interpreter of the West and of Christianity in 19th century Japan, and remained a respected fi gure in Japan even after his death in 1898. Verbeck, therefore, can be seen as an eff ective pioneer Protestant missionary in Bakumatsu-Meiji Japan.
