Leviticus and Numbers

13 Reading Iconoclastic Stipulations in Numbers 33:50-56 from the Pluralistic Religious Context of China

13 Reading Iconoclastic Stipulations in Numbers 33:50-56 from the Pluralistic Religious Context of China Archie C. C. Lee Introduction Christian evangelical missionary work in the religiously plural Asian context is more often than not characterized by iconoclastic polemics for undermining the value and integrity of Asian religious cultures.1 Missionaries, regardless of their religious persuasion as either liberal or conservative, have the ultimate goal of converting the so-called pagans. Though practically impossible, conversion is said to be complete only when it involves severing oneself from the native culture and its religious beliefs and practices. Most missionaries still see it as their mission to endeavor to convert. Paul Cohen, a well-known scholar in Chinese missionary history, raises the question as to why the missionary, who came not to take but to give and intended to serve the interest of the Chinese, had “inspired the greatest fear and hatred.” Cohen points to the answer in the missionary’s negative attitude toward Chinese culture and religion and unbending iconoclastic position: The vast majority of missionaries, Protestant and Catholic, were intolerant of Chinese culture and unwilling or unable to make meaningful adjustments to it. They devoted themselves tirelessly to religious proselytizing and tended to relegate secular change to a position of secondary importance. Although narrowly conservative in personal and religious outlook, their impact on the Chinese scene was the very opposite of conservative. For these were the missionaries whose demands on the native culture were the most 213 unyielding—and hence, from a Chinese standpoint, the most overly iconoclastic. (Cohen 1978: 543) Cohen goes on to suggest that this Western cultural imperialism posts a revolutionary challenge and threat to the traditional Chinese order. He further claims: “It is for this reason, more than any other, that so many Chinese felt so threatened” (p. 544). The bitter experience of the painful conflicts between the Chinese Christian converts and the so-called idolatrous Chinese during the missionary era in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries supplies ardent testimonies to the religious and cultural war brought about by the Christian iconoclastic commitment. In the Thirty-fourth Annual and Public Meeting of the Religious Tracts Society, held in London on May 7, 1833, it was reported that the operation of the society should continue till the visions which our faith may regard as about to take place, shall be fully realized; when the idolatry which now darkens and covers the earth shall be no more, when the last triumphs of the cross shall be celebrated in the demolition of the last heathen temple, or in the burning of the last heathen book, the pile of which we may conceived to be set fire to by the hand of the last convert from idolatry, and which shall be accomplished by the shoutings of the triumphant multitude who shall be assembled on that day, and who shall exclaim Hosanna! (Drew 1833: 294) Such condemnation of idolatry and its vanity has been widespread in missionary writings and addresses. Indigenous communities would have great difficulty identifying themselves with this kind of imperial attitude toward other religions and the triumphal celebration of their destruction. Missionaries, however, have great confidence in the divine order to remove idolatry, based on biblical iconoclastic stipulations embodied in biblical passages such as Num. 33:52, “You must drive out all the inhabitants as you advance, destroy all their carved figures and their images of cast metal, and lay their hill-shrines in ruins.”2 Local inhabitants, however, are dismayed to read this and other similar passages advocating iconoclastic polemical attitudes toward their religion and the people of their native land. In this essay, I intend to understand the charge of the Israelites to expel the Canaanite inhabitants and destroy their religious practices in Numbers 33 in the context of the religious and political schism between communities in the exilic environment, and the aspiration to strengthen the monotheistic faith of the desperate Israelites. In order to understand the impact of the iconoclastic 214 | Leviticus and Numbers movement in a particular context, we will proceed by first looking at the missionary Christian understanding about the prohibition of idolatry, which inspired the Taiping Rebellion in China. The insurgence brought about tremendous destruction to Chinese religions and communities of faith. It is perhaps an extreme case of actually implementing the biblical command in a political context. But, in converting believers from pagan and heathen religions, the basic...