Christianity in Taiwan
Encyclopedia
Taiwan (known to the Dutch as Formosa) was seized by the Dutch
in 1624. It is a densely populated, mountainous island, about 240 miles (386.2 km) long, lying 100 miles (160.9 km) off the China coast, between Japan and the Philippines
.
(VOC) concluded a tacit agreement with the Ming authorities that permitted them to establish a trading post to which Chinese merchant
s might freely come.
The Dutch
occupied the island of Taiwan for about thirty-five years (1626–1661) and also gave opportunity for many evangelicals to come and preach the gospel. The island's inhabitants had little contact with any of the major organized religions. Muslim expansion had not reached that far north, nor had the Chinese religions, Confucianism
and Buddhism
, made an impact. Formosa, as the island was known, but was still outside the traditional boundaries of the Chinese empire.
In 1624, the Dutch built a fort and trading depot named Fort Zeelandia
off southwestern Formosa.
The following year, the Spanish
from the Philippines
responded in kind by establishing a fort and trading post
at Keelung. Here, they acted as a counterweight to the spread of Dutch control over Formosa and the trade of the region. A small Spanish
Roman Catholic enclave was planted for a short time in the north but had never been able to expand and was soon driven out by the Dutch in 1642, who concentrated their own settlements on the west coast of the island. The Protestant Dutch
were the first to enter into sustained conversion of the indigenous people.
On the island, where local society was less systematically organized, Dutch control was direct and immediate. The more important reason for the growth of the church was the missionaries themselves who, in Formosa, were farther from the Dutch East Indies Company's center at Batavia and were less intimidated by its commercial and political power. They moved into the villages of the coastal interior from the base Fort Zeelandia on Formosa's southwest coast. They soon found out that the inhabitants of the countryside outside the villages were still engaging in the cultural practice of headhunting
. The missionaries took up residence in the villages, most of which were within one or two days travel from Zeelandia. There they recognized at once the importance of learning the native languages and began to translate the Bible
. However only the Gospels of Matthew and John were completed.
The first ordained minister to visit the island, Georgius Candidius, came to Taiwan in 1627. Candidius felt strongly that chaplains should promise to stay for at least ten years in order to learn the language of the natives, without which they would never be more than superficially effective. Candidius advised that missionaries, including himself, who came out unmarried should find and marry suitable native women to render them more sensitive to the customs and needs of the people whom they hoped to convert. He later wrote, presumably in 1628,
In one large village where Candidius preached, the villagers initially did not believe in Candidius' claim that Christianity was more powerful than their old religions—instead they proposed that he accept a contest against their old religions by making one house in their village a Christian house to let them see if, over time, it really prospered more than the others. In great frustration Candidius wondered if it would not be better to ask the Company government simply to order all the women and children to attend his instruction classes for the Christian faith. The government refused, however, and four years later without a contest or a government order, it was happily reported that all the inhabitants of the village "have cast away their idols and called upon one and the same Almighty and true God."
Candidius was soon joined by another missionary from Rotterdam
named Robert Junius
, son of a Dutch father and a Scottish
mother, who for the next fourteen years (1629–1643) continued the preaching of Christianity in Formosa. An early account of an interview with Junius gives a glowing account of the spread of Christianity along the eastern coastal plains through seven villages north of Zeelandia, and some twenty-three to the south. The work was titled, "Of the Conversion of Five Thousand nine hundred East Indians In the Isle of Formosa near China". Upon arrival on the island, like most early Company
ministers he began preaching in the Dutch language
to the mystification of the natives, but after two fruitless years, Junius had "learnt the barbarous language and rude idiom of those heathen." By the time Junius left Formosa in 1643, there were over seventeen-thousand Christian Formosans, of whom he had baptized more than fifty-four hundred adults in twenty-nine villages
A presbytery had been formed, and in six villages north of Zeelandia Christian schools were flourishing, with about six hundred schoolchildren taught by eight Dutch and fifty-four native Christian schoolmasters. Instruction was in one of the five major Formosan tribal dialects (Sinkan
).
The rapid growth of groups of Christians in the villages prompted the formation of another consistory (organized church session of elders and deacons) by dividing the original "Consistory of Formosa" into two, the consistories of Zeelandia and Soulang. While still in Formosa, Robert Junius had gathered about seventy boys, aged ten to thirteen, in a school, teaching them the Christian religion in their own Sinkan language
, writing the words in a Romanized alphabet. About sixty girls were taught in another class. In 1636 he pleaded for permission to take four or six of the most promising men to Holland for ministerial training. "We believe," he wrote to the governor in Zeelandia, "that such a native clergyman could effect more than all our Dutch ministers together could do".
. The locals fled to the hills when they heard the sound of Spanish cannon
s. A Chinese who was married to a Formosan girl was among those who had fled but, after learning that some of the intruders were religious personnel, he came down to meet Father Martinez. The locals believed in Martinez's preaching and attended church services. A church was built in Keelung for the Chinese community residing there.
By 1629, a Spanish fort was erected in present-day Tamsui. After hearing of the Spanish intrusion, the Dutch attacked the fort but were repelled. However, Father Martínez lost his life during his trip back to Siaryo.another church was erected in Taparri (near present-day Keelung
) by Father Jacinto Esquivel and two villages were converted in the course of two years. Things did not always go smoothly for the missionaries. At a village named Pantaos, Father Vaez de Santo Domingo was pierced by arrows and beheaded by Senaar tribesmen, some of whom were still hostile towards the invaders.
Despite being exposed to constant perils, these Dominicans were still determined to enter the mountain areas and spread the "Divine Word" to the natives. They also established towns such as San Lorenzo, Santa Catalina and Santiago.
In March, 1636 the Keelung Governor sent troops to Paktau to buy rice from the locals. However, Father Luis Muro needed to be accompanied with troops since Paktau was the place where former assassins of Father Vaez de Santo Domingo had taken refuge. Although his intention was to notify the assassins that they had been pardoned, a misunderstanding took place and hence Father Muro along with twenty-five others were murdered. the Keelung governor was enraged and the resulting retaliatory measures led to peace in Northern Formosa. Now the Dominicans were able to move about without fear of attacks.
Nevertheless by 1635, the newly installed Governor of the Spanish Philippines, Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera
regarded the presence of the Spanish troops and missionaries in Formosa as undesirable and unnecessary; hence the island was gradually abandoned to the Dutch.
In 1638, Sebastián ordered the Spanish fort
in Tamsui to be destroyed and abandoned. The following year, three of the four companies' troops at Keelung
were ordered to return to Manila
, rendering Keelung vulnerable to any possible Dutch attack. Four and a half thousand Christians existed by 1639.
A three-hundred strong Dutch reconnaissance
force arrived in 1641 and the fort was briefly pounded with cannon
.
In 1642, they returned to Keelung with a large force and the thirty Spaniards garrisoned there offered token resistance before surrendering.
Among the prisoners were brothers Basilio del Rosario and Pedro Ruiz, priests Juan de los Angeles and Fr. Teodoro Quiros. They were brought to Fort Zeelandia and shipped to Jakarta where they received sympathetic treatment by a Dutch general. The Dutch general showed them kindness and eventually secured an arrangement for them to be repatriated to Manila. The Catholics were prohibited from entering Formosa for the next twenty years.
. The Dutch authorities in Formosa also warned of Koxinga's planned invasion, which was dismissed by the Dutch authorities in Batavia as speculation.
The man who drove the Dutch out of Formosa was Chinese patriot Koxinga
(Cheng Ch'eng-kung), son of a Chinese pirate and a Japanese mother, fiercely loyal to the fallen Ming dynasty
, which he had served as an admiral until the victory of the Manchu
Qing Dynasty
. Needing a base for his sea-raiders he chose Taiwan and attacked the small Dutch garrison at Zeelandia with twenty-five thousand men, first craftily protesting that he had no use for "such a small, grass-producing country as Formosa." Among the Dutch killed in the conflict was Bible translator Antonius Hambroek and his wife and daughters.
Antonius Hambroek
was nominated as principal of the seminary which never had the opportunity open. He was captured at his country station and paraded with his wife and several children in view of the besieged fort with the threat that all would be killed unless the Dutch immediatedly surrendered. When that falied, Koxinga sent Hambroek into the fort to urge his countrymen to surrender. Instead, Hambroek urged his countrymen to stand fast even though that would mean not only his own death but that of his family and all other prisoners. Two of his daughters were in the fort at the time after having escaped capture, but when the governor told him he need not go back, and urged him to stay with his daughters in safety, he refused and returned to face Koxinga with the news. Hambroek was beheaded publicly along with several other missionaries, including some of the women and children. To this day, the Dutch regard Hambroek as a martyr
. Four or five other missionaries are known to have suffered the same fate as Hambroek, some by beheading, others by crucifixion.
Martyr or not, Hambroek deserves honourable mention among the thirty-two ordained missionaries who preached, taught, and planted churches during the brief flowering of Protestantism on Formosa between 1627 and 1662.
Fort Zeelandia had held out against the far superior forces of the Ming loyalist for almost a year, but finally surrendered to Koxinga
in 1662; the Dutch surrender brought an abrupt end to the mission.
Two hundred years following the defeat and expulsion of the Dutch in Taiwan, the next wave of Protestant Christianity to reach the island late in the 19th century, was English, not Dutch.
(VOC). These native Christians were left without teachers or religious works printed in their own language.
In 1662, Father Victorio Ricci, a Dominican
priest, visited Taiwan and during his second visit to Keelung
in 1666, some natives asked for him to administer the sacraments to them. Although his stay was brief, he managed to baptise a many children and receive their confessions.
After Ricci's visit, the Dominicans attempted to send missionaries to continue the work of their forerunners. The first attempt occurred in 1673 when they arrived in Tainan
but they received maltreatment by Koxinga's successors and seven months later they were forced to return to Manila.
Despite the defeat of the Koxinga regime in 1683 and the conquest of Taiwan by Manchu soldiers of the Qing Dynasty
, Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, were denied entry into Taiwan.
The second attempt by the Catholics in 1694 to resume work in Taiwan also met with opposition from the new regime and had to be abandoned.
Still, as late as 1715, the French Jesuit Joseph de Mailla met several Formosans who could understand Dutch and write their own language in Latin letters. Use of the romanised forms of the vernacular endured until the latter half of the 19th century.
, opening them to western merchants.
In 1858 the Spanish Dominican Father Antonio Orge was authorised to restore the Formosan mission. Father Orge notified Manila
of these events and within a few weeks, Father Fernando Sainz was sent to Formosa along with Father Angel Bofurull via Fujian
in 1859. Accompanied by three Chinese catechists, they arrived in Takao/Kaohsiung
.
It was not until March 1861 that Sainz and a catechist made their way to the Makatao plains aborigine village of Bankimcheng or Wanjin. It was along and dangerous journey from Takao, through hostile Hakka
territory. Sainz correctly surmised that the non-Chinese natives of Bankimcheng would be more receptive to the gospel and less hostile. The first Wanjin converts were baptised in 1862. The following year, Sainz bought a site and built a small church at Wanjin. In December 1863, another forty-seven were baptised.
During 1867, a band of Hakkas kidnapped Father Sainz and held him for ransom. His fellow priests enlisted the help of the English consul and demanded that the Taiwan mandarins obtain Sainz's release. The Fengshan County magistrate, fearing an international incident, ordered the Hakka to release Sainz. Forewarned of the magistrate's action, the Hakka kidnappers tricked Sainz by promising immediate release if he would pay a smaller ransom. The plains aborigines
saw Sainz's capitulation as a serious blow to their hope of gaining advantage over the Hakka through a connection with the Catholics. The events marked the low ebb for the Dominican
mission in Wanjin.
More troubles came in 1868, bu these troubles ultimately brought a reversal in the fortunes of the mission. A dispute between the foreign merchant community and the local Qing intendant over the latter's attempt to monopolise the trade in camphor
escalated into a general antiforeign disturbance. In April 1868, mobs wrecked both the Spanish Dominican chapel in Kaoakhi and the Presbyterian mission station in Fengshan. Attacks on and accusations against the missionaries were made again in July and September. This confrontation between the Chinese establishment and the foreign community was not resolved until a British Gunboat
landed troops
at Anping (the port of Tainan) in November 1868. Faced with superior firepower, the Qing mandarins were forced to pay indemnities for the destroyed property of both the merchants and the missions, and to issue proclamations denying slanders against the Christian missionaries and recognising their right to work in the island.
This application of foreign military power to humiliate the Qing mandarins transformed the political climate in which the Dominicans worked. The Hakka, no longer able to assume the acquiescence of the mandarins and now having reason to fear the Dominicans, became less brazen in their harassment at Wanjin. thus, when Father Herce was robbed on his way to Wanjin in the summer of 1869, the head of the town from which the bandits came took steps to ensure that the stolen articles were returned. The humiliation of the Mandarins had created an aura of power that now adhered to the Dominicans and their religion and endowed them with a newfound prestige.
Because the villagers hoped to gain by seeking the protection of the Dominicans, the demonstration of superior power by the British in 1868 led to a surge in the villagers' enthusiasm for the religion of the foreigners.
By September 1869, Father Colomer could report a flourishing mission and rapid growth in the number of Catechumen
s.
, opening them to western merchants. These same treaties also contained so-called missionary clauses that had the effect of opening all of China to the missionaries.
Arriving under the protection of the Beijing agreement, members of the British Presbyterian mission came to the island to establish a new mission station. They settled on Tainan
in the southwestern part of the island, near the original site of the Dutch Reformed
mission community of the 17th century. A decade later, in 1873, a second group of Presbyterians, this time representing the Canadian Presbyterian Church
, settled in Tamsui in the northwestern corner of the island, a few miles distant from the Taipei basin
.
The two Presbyterian missions worked along similar lines but with varied degrees of success. The British mission had more resources and personnel and was able to establish itself first among the Taiwanese
and then the plains aborigines
. The British Presbyterians under the leadership of Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell
set up hospitals and introduced Western medicine to Tainan and its environs.
In the 1870s, they established primary and secondary schools. George Ede, one of the missionaries
who arrived in the 1870s founded the Tainan Zhangzhong High School in 1885. the school became a major educational force in southern Taiwan and continues to this day to serve the community of that city. When Taiwanese Presbyterian membership had grown large enough, the missionaries opened a theological seminary to train a Taiwanese clergy and, by 1885, the missionaries were publishing a weekly newspaper in Romanized Taiwanese.
The Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay
upon his arrival in 1872, worked tirelessly to make Tamsui and then the Taipei basin
the home of a number of viable Presbyterian churches. Like his counterparts in the south, he was as much a modernizer as a Christianizer. In the decades he lived and worked in Taiwan he was able to set up a hospital, schools, and a theological seminary. The first period in Presbyterian history drew to a close in 1895 when the Japanese claimed Taiwan after their victory over the Qing state in the first modern war between China and Japan
.
as a spoil of war but discovered that the Taiwanese were unwilling to hand over the island peacefully. Although this resistance proved short-lived in the north, southern leaders based in Tainan, fought the Japanese for the remainder of 1895. The new Japanese rulers considered Taiwan as valuable property and transformed Taiwan from a neglected Chinese province—a backwater with a closed economy—into a colony with a strong infrastructure, an island ready for rapid development.
The Japanese saw what the Presbyterians had achieved through their romanization of the spoken Taiwanese dialect, in the sphere of education, and in the introduction of Western medical techniques and practices. They also knew, from their experiences with Christian missionaries in Japan
, the problems caused by allowing many denominations to work at evangelization. Thus for the first thirty years of their rule they refused entry to all other Protestant denominations. This resulted in the development of a single Protestant church without "any of the complications of denominational diversity".
For at least the first four decades, the church prospered under these conditions and the Presbyterian church grew in strength in every part of the island. By 1910, the Presbyterians had set up synods in northern and southern Taiwan and the missionaries and Taiwanese church leaders talked in terms of a single islandwide Presbytery. Even more important than these ecclesiological
structures was the progress the missionaries were making toward fostering the creation of an independent, Taiwanese-run Presbyterian church, which was largely in place by 1920.
The Presbyterians remained the island's only Protestant Church until 1925.
-based non-denominational church, the True Jesus Church
, came to work among the Chinese inhabitants of the island. That same year, Taiwanese
and Japanese missionaries from the Japan Holiness Church
, a church that had been founded by American Holiness missionaries in Tokyo in 1905, also arrived in Taiwan
. Both groups found a receptive population in Taiwan, and the sixty-year Presbyterian monopoly ended. It was in this period from 1926 to 1945 that a many-sided Taiwanese Protestant community began to emerge. The True Jesus evangelists and Holiness ministers competed with each other and the larger Presbyterian Church for the attention of the Taiwanese and Hakka populations and also made furtive attempts to work with the Taiwanese aborigines
.
had been founded in Beijing in 1917, and by the early 1920s its churches could be found as far south as the northern borders of Guangdong
. The roots of the evangelization effort in Taiwan are found not on the island but in Fujian
, the province on the mainland China side of the Taiwan Strait
s. It was here in the city of Zhangzhou
, that a number of Taiwanese heard sermons by Barnabas Zhang, one of the founders of the True Jesus Church. Some joined the church during the early 1920s and, by 1924, were considering returning to their home island to spread the new doctrines.
A preliminary evangelical trip in the fall of 1925 proved most encouraging. The following spring, one of these new converts, Huang Zhengcong, invited Barnabas Zhang to Taiwan. Zhang was the most dynamic, and certainly the most controversial, of the three men who founded the church, the others being Paul Wei and Zhang Xinsheng. Barnabas Zhang made the journey in March 1926, accompanied by Huang and Yang Yelimei, another of the Zhangzhou-based Taiwanese converts. Weeks of intense evangelism followed. Zhang and his Taiwanese coworkers visited a number of cities, towns and villages and preached the new doctrines. Officials and other members of the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church protested the evangelists methods in what proved to be the beginning of a conflict between the mainline denomination and the indigenouis Chinese church that continues even to this day..
A few months after this initial evangelistic campaign, a number of Taiwanese church members, then living in Fujian
, were appointed to carry forward the work in Taichung
. They returned to Taichung, a city that occupies the centre point of the island's north/south axis. Philemon, a deacon in the Presbyterian Church, "came forward" and was baptised. he then helped establish a True Jesus congregation in Taichung.
In the spring of 1927, other True Jesus evangelists, such as Jian Yabo and Kuo Meidu, made the journey across the Taiwan Straits to "broadcast the true doctrine." These preachers again targeted their message to Christians rather than to the non-Christian Chinese majority. Member of the Presbyterian Church proved responsive to this type of evangelism.
That same year, another Taiwanese evangelist, John Wu, traveled from Xiamen
to Tainan
, and, using such methods as the laying on of hands, he convinced many people of the power of the new doctrines. His techniques and his ardent preaching proved so effective that he was able to plant a True Jesus Church in Tainan, an important southern city, in April 1927. Over the next eight years, this core of evangelists, joined by many new converts, continued to preach and spread the doctrines of the church. A headquarters for southern Taiwan was set up in Tainan, which was the headquarters of the southern Synod of the Presbyterian Church.
From Tainan to Taichung, the church workers moved out into the countryside and into the towns and villages. Many of the converts that were made during these years were members of the Presbyterian Church. The True Jesus histories of these years often make mention of elders, deacon
s, and ordinary members of the Presbyterian Church who recognized the "truth" of True Jesus beliefs and were baptized anew to eventually receive the "gift of the Spirit." In the course of 1928, for example, new converts were won in such towns as Talin, Xiazhai, and Chiayi
. Taipei
, the administrative capital of the Japanese, saw the founding of its first True Jesus Church in 1930 and, in that same year, a church was set up in the city of Hualian, along Taiwan's eastern shore. By 1934, even Taitung
, the largest city in the southeastern part of the island, had its own True Jesus congregation.
There was one major population that had not yet been reached by True Jesus evangelists—the aborigines
. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the church tried to reach out to these non-Chinese people. There was one formidable obstacle—the Japanese colonial government. Its officials tried to keep the Chinese and mountain people apart, going so far as to set up zones or reservations for the tribal people and erecting a long fence of electrified barbed wire to separate the two often antagonistic populations.
When the Presbyterians had attempted to continue efforts begun in the 1880s and plant churches among the mountain people, the Japanese authorities decided that only Japanese Christian groups could work with the aborigines in the mountain reservations.
The True Jesus evangelists settled for working with those mountain people who had already been Sinified and lived among the plains people,, as the Taiwanese sometimes called themselves. The first convert they made was a man named Tian Sando. He had been in a sanatorium
, suffering from the effects of tuberculosis
, when he came into contact with church evangelists. According to church historians, "He was cured by the Lord in the True Jesus Church and became the first one of the mountain believers."
returned home, accompanied by Japanese Holiness pastors, and began to spread their new-found religion.
Holiness efforts in Japan had begun in 1901 when American missionaries of the Oriental Mission Society arrived in Tokyo and preached their beliefs among the Japanese. In 1905, these missionaries had gained enough converts to be able to establish the Far Eastern Church. over the next two decades, the missionaries and their Japanese converts began to consider Taiwan as a site for mission work. They visited th eisland in 1913 and again in 1917 but on neither occasion felt that the time was right to begin the evangelistic effort. But in 1926, they were ready to move ahead.
Led by Pastor Zhong Tianjing, the converts settled in Taipei
in January and launched their campaign. Within a few days, a Holiness Church was organised in a building on Zhongshan Road
. It served as the home of the new congregation.
Pastor Zhong then moved to Kaohsiung, a bustling port in the island's southwest. Within a few months, a core of believers had emerged to found a church on the city's Gaishang Street.
Zhong continued to itinerate and to attract an audience. November saw him on the island's east coast, in the port city of Hualian. Once again, those who heard him proved receptive, and still another church was founded. thus in less than a year, Holiness evangelists had planted three churches in Taiwan.
Pastor Zhong returned to Tokyo at the end of 1926 but came back to Taiwan in November 1927. Again he met with success. He planted a church that month in Taitung
, in the southeast corner of the island. December 1927 found him in the Japanese-developed port of Keelung
, just northeast of Taipei. There he delivered a powerful series of sermons heard by attentive and receptive audiences. Some of the city's Protestant converts joined forces and founded the Keelung Holiness Church.
Holiness leaders in Tokyo reviewed the Taiwan situation in early 1928. Much had been accomplished in two years. Congregations were functioning in eight areas of the island, and the Japanese believed they had to train a core of leaders for this growing church community. A month after the church leaders assessed the progress of their movement, Pastor Wang Xiyuan preached in the harbour area near Tainan and from his work grew the Xigang Holiness Church.
When Holiness leaders, both Western missionaries and their East Asian brethren, met in Tokyo in the spring of 1929, they could point to a Japanese Holiness Church that was becoming more and more indigenous, and to their newest creation, a Taiwanese Holiness community that could be found throughout the Japanese-controlled island.
By 1930, there were sixteen areas in which Holiness churches could be found. The next year saw a new church planted in Chiayi
and a second Holiness congregation established in Taitung
, the most remote of Taiwan's cities.
, provided Taiwanese with a higher level of education than that available to them in the Japanese schools. Because the Presbyterians provided social services, the church was able to gain adherents among the emerging Taiwanese middle classes. The church leaders felt secure that the greatest problems they faced were from the Japanese, not from their Protestant rivals.
's history during this decade. As Japan turned more towards nationalism and militarism
, it also demonstrated a strong hostility towards foreign influences. However, the Holiness Church, though Western in origin and tied to an American denomination, had been a part of Japanese life for over thirty years and was thus more acceptable. Japanese Holiness evangelists found that their government was allowing them to carry on their work in Taiwan.
The advantage enjoyed by the Holiness Church was demonstrated in 1930 with the planting of churches not only in Hsinchu
, Yuli
, and Xizi
, but also in the large central metropolis of Taichung
. The mid-1930s were witness to contraction as the church lost members. However, the Holiness church was able to recover its losses and, by the late 1930s, there bgan a period of renewd expansion. This renewal was demonstrated in 1939 with the establishment of the Hsinchu
Holiness Church.
As World War Two
began in the Pacific, leaders of each of these churches discovered that thery faced a struggle for their very survival.
Japan's accelerating movement toward ultranationalism altered the structure of religious life in Taiwan. From 1937 to 1945, the Japanese government suppressed Taiwanese folk religion and introduced Japanese religious institutions
and patterns of worship. Christian institutions were also affected. Historians of the Taiwan Holiness Church
suggest that one reason for the Japanese attack on Christianity was that Christians did not worship kami
, the deities central to National Shinto
. A second was that Christians believed in a God-person who was Jewish by birth. Finally, Christians believed in the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ, and this heavenly kingdom was contrary to Japanese perceptions of the future.
The wartime authorities in Taiwan hand-picked Japanese officials to serve as leaders of the True Jesus Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Holiness Church. The True Jesus Church became the "Japanese True Jesus Church" in 1941. The Japanese also restructured the Presbyterian establishment. The next year, a Japan Christian Kyodan (church) was formed combining the Presbyterians with the Japanese Holiness Church. The government took over all the property the Presbyterians had controlled, thus completing the Japanization of Taiwan's churches.
This restructuring of Christianity in Taiwan proved to be short-lived, however, for in October 1945 Japanese rule came to an end. Japan had lost its bid for military supremacy in East Asia. It had lost its empire, and its home islands were in ruins. The Japanese left Taiwan in the months following October 25, 1945, the day of the formal surrender of the island. In their place came the Chinese Nationalists.
officials made it clear that they looked upon the Taiwanese as suspect—as tainted by the long years of Japanese control. They also saw the island as ripe for the picking and began to systematically strip away those industrial resources that the Japanese had helped the Taiwanese develop, in order to fund the Chinese Civil War
that was being fought in mainland China. The troops had their way, as well; thus the Taiwanese quickly learned to hate them as much as the vast majority of mainland China's population hated and feared the Nationalist armies
. Taiwan was now learning what it was like to be a part of the Republic of China
. The result of these policies that treated Taiwan as occupied territory resulted in the February 28 Incident
. A year later, 1948, Nationalists admitted that the bureaucrats and military men had gone too far and some attempts were made to clean up the worst corruption.
The three churches—the Presbyterian Church, the True Jesus Church, and the Taiwanese Holiness Church—saw the new conditions on the island from very different viewpoints. These different perspectives led in turn to distinctly different courses of action. The Presbyterians looked upon themselves as a Taiwanese church that represented Taiwanese, Hakkas and mountain people. Their missionaries had translated the Bible
into Taiwanese, and they sang their hymns and conducted their services in Taiwanese. The Holiness Church, now cut off from its Japanese roots, had to effect a major readjustment. The True Jesus Church, on the other hand, still had strong ties with the mainland China and did not conceive of itself in any ethnic terms other than that of "Chinese." These differences in outlook colored the way each church experienced the events of Retrocession
.
Underlying these differences were also differences in the way each church defined the church-state relationship. Presbyterians were activists in the political realm as well as in the realm of the spirit and spoke out against oppression. The other churches were more willing to distance themselves from politics.
Two of the three churches, the True Jesus Church and the Presbyterian Church, made the most progress during these years of the new regime.
's programs and philosophies.
From 1945 to 1948, the Presbyterian Church withstood the KMT onslaught, reorganized itself, and redefined its working relationship with Western missions. Its house in order, it was able to seek expansion once again. Its leaders strengthened their ties with the Taiwanese community while the Western missionaries began to work on a greater scale with he mountain people, who proved very responsive. The church's new expansion reached dramatic levels in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s.
had formally begun, the church reorganized itself, much as the Presbyterian church had done. During the war, their church had existed as a Japanese-run entity, something its members had openly acknowledged during their general assembly meetings of 1942–1945. Now they once again called themselves the True Jesus Church, not the Japanese True Jesus Church. Their offices in Taichuing, confiscated during the war, were returned to them, and the city once again became the administrative and evangelical headquarters of the church's Taiwan board, which it is to this day. During September 1945, even before the Nationalists had taken formal control of the island, church activists had begin working to reestablish themselves. they held an emergency meeting at which they planned church strategy and rededicated themselves to the expansion of the church.
At that same meeting they also decided to formally renew their contacts with the parent church in mainland China. The mainlanders responded to these overtures as the various regional offices at Hunan
, Xiamen
, and Guangdong
, as well as the central headquarters in Shanghai, all made contact with the True Jesus Taiwanese leadership. They communicated by mail and in person, discussing various matters of mutual concern and questions of church unity. The Taiwanese headquarters soon formalized relations with the mother church by becoming part of the mother church's general assembly that had been reestablished in 1945.
, and developed and staffed medical facilities. The missionaries' benevolent efforts served to supplement the system that the government was constructing.
Many missionaries who had witnessed the loss of their beloved China and were searching for a new place of refuge and a place to pursue their God-defined tasks came to the island during the 1950s. As the missionaries hoped and prayed, the conversion of many thousands of Chinese began. The Nationalist regime welcomed hundreds of Western missionaries who fled to Taiwan
from mainland China. Now that the Nationalists were in Taiwan, and only in Taiwan, the regime's leaders realized that the missionaries had to be accommodated, if only to please America. In return, these missionaries, many of whom belonged to such politically conservative and anti-communist denominations as the Southern Baptists, lobbied in Washington for President Chiang Kaishek's cause and helped create the image of Taiwan as a vital bastion against "Red Chinese aggression".
In the brief span of five years, the number of mission boards with mission stations on ths island increased dramatically. In early 1948, the only missionaries on the island were Roman Catholics and British and Canadian Presbyterians. Neoevangelicals had yet to take their first step.
Later that same year, however, a lone Southern Baptist
worker, Bertha Smith, took it upon herself to move from mainland China to Taiwan and begin organizing a church among newly arrived mainlander, Mandarin-speaking refugees.
A couple representing the Assemblies of God
, the major Pentecostal denomination, also moved to the island from Shanghai in 1948. Finally, the Assembly Hall Church sent its own representatives to the island. Witness Lee
, Watchman Nee
's lieutenant, came to the island with other members of this large indigenous Chinese church. Under Lee's watchful eye, they set to work among the new refugees. By 1954, the total missionary community stood at over three hundred. Twenty-five denominations and independent churches that had not been engaged in evangelical and church plantiung work in Taiwan before 1945 were now represented on the island.
Seven conciliar churches took part in this new endeavour. These included the Episcopalian
, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed
(Congregationalist) churches. While conciliar denominations and mission boards joined in this expanded enterprise, the majority of missionaries sent to Taiwan came from the neoevangelical, the Pentecostal, and the Holiness churches. Southern Baptists, Conservative Baptists
, Bible Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Assemblies of God, and Christian and Mission Alliance and Oriental Mission Society missionaries all converged on this small island.
Many of the missions were quite small; one missionary
or a single missionary family might represent one denomination. But certain major bodies or categories of churches did send large numbers of men and women into the newly opened field This Western mission community continued to expand over the course of the 1950s. By 1959, there were more than six hundred Protestant missionaries in place. By 1960, churches representing most of the major denominations had managed to root themselves in the island's life.
The Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, had only a handful of members in the early 1950s but, by 1959, church leaders counted 7,315 Chinese in their church. Seventh Day Adventist membership reached twenty-thousand during this same period, and other denominational churches also experienced similar growth.
who had fled their homeland. By 1949, had its first Baptist congregation.
Many Taiwanese, in 1949, expected that an invasion by the new Communist regime
was at hand. The Korean War had not yet broken out and the island was seen many Americans and Chinese as unprotected and vulnerable. Accordingly, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Foreign Mission Board decided not to commit its personnel or its resources to a mission and to assign any missionaries who wanted to work with Chinese to one of the overseas Chinese communities in Hong Kong or the Philippines
.
The Korean War
, launched early in the summer of 1950, changed the course of American policy. The United States began treating the Nationalist regime as the legitimate government of China. As the Seventh Fleet began patrolling the Taiwan Strait
, military advisors arrived and both military and humanitarian aid
was provided. The administrators of the SBC Foreign Mission Board, then realizing that the Republic of China
was likely to continue to exist, began committing its personnel and resources to a missionary enterprise in Taiwan.
The Southern Baptists' Taiwan Mission enjoyed an impressive first decade, and the Taiwanese Baptist community began to grow. The reasons are varied but a central thread is the Baptists' willingness to use the classical time-proven techniques that they had developed in their decades in mainland China. Again, they used the pulpit
and public gathering places to make their faith known. They distributed tracts. They set up reading centres and bookstores. They held large-scale revival meetings. They organized summer retreats and Bible camps. They set up a seminary to instruct Chinese church workers and future administrators and to train Chinese Baptist ministers. Finally, they helped their Chinese brethren organize a Taiwan Baptist Convention.
Mission. It established itself in Taiwan in 1952 when eight missionaries arrived on the island. The members of the Conservative Baptist Mission decided to work with Taiwanese rather than with mainlanders, as the Southern Baptists had. They focused their efforts on Nantou
and Yulin
counties and eventually were able to extend their efforts to Changhwa and Taichung
. By 1960 they were able to plant five congregations. They also established preaching stations that helped to further the outreach process. They built a Bible school in Xilo and thus were able to train church workers, Sunday School
teachers and pastor
s. Ralph Covell, the leader of this mission, helped publish a magazine, Voice of Evangel and promoted the idea of reading centres. He stressed outreach to mountain people
as well as to Taiwanese
, as demonstrated by his attempt to translate Christian works into Sediq
, one of the aborigine languages. He became one of the most famous missionaries on the island and the converts he and his fellow pioneers gathered in numbered more than four hundred. Thus, it may be said that these first years were successful ones and demonstrated that neoevangelical missionaries could work with the majority of Taiwanese as well as mainlanders.
neared its climax, there were eighty eight Assemblies of God missionaries in China. One hundred and forty eight churches had been planted and the total number of converts was seven thousand five hundred. The missionaries also worked in education. Six Bible schools were in operation by the late 1940s. The Assemblies of God, so well established throughout mainland China, decided that these efforts were being threatened and, in 1948, took a tentative step toward developing another rehion of China. Taiwan
, they thought, would prove a safe haven for their missionaries and would serve as a starting point for evangelism. Two families of missionaries from the Assemblies of God arrived in Taiwan from Shanghai in 1948.
These missionaries launched revivals and held weekly services to build a new Pentecostal community among the mainland Chinese on the island. They managed to attract both Taiwanese
as well as mainlander and in just two years, from 1948 to 1950, they established the core of a church community. But just as the missionaries began to make progress, they were ordered out by a cautious foreign mission board for fear of a communist invasion of the island.
A year later, the Pentecostal missionaries returned to the island and regressed the situation. In 1952, the Assemblies of God decided to recommit itself to Taiwan, the now militarily secure Republic of China. Thus, this year marks the true beginning of the Assemblies' enterprise in Taiwan. The missionaries based themselves in Taipei
and worked with the mainlander refugee population. Here they met with some success for they were able to reach Chinese who had been AG church members in mainland China. The missionaries created the Taukang Bible School in Taipei specifically to train a core of Chinese workers who could lead the Taiwan Assemblies of God
. Construction began in 1953, and the school opened its doors in the fall of 1954 . By 1957, seven churches had been established in the Taipei basin, and chapels had been established in several areas.
s were able to develop a presence in Taiwan in the 1950s. Missionaries who had worked in mainland China settled in the Taiwan's major cities and began working with Mandarin-speaking Chinese. the first Lutheran congregation was established in Kaohsiung in 1951. By 1954, a few more congregations had been established and together these developed into the Taiwan Lutheran Church
. While missionaries did play a role in the life of this church, it was from the start a self-governing body with Chinese serving as president and members of the administration.
By 1960, there were twenty Lutheran
congregations in Taiwan. both a Bible school and a theological seminary had been established. There, Chinese were trained to work in the congregations, in church reading centres, and in preaching stations. The church had been able to find a home in Taiwan and looked ahead to future growth and expansion.
ic leader of this church was Watchman Nee
. He had been a student in the Anglican-run Trinity College in Fujian
when he began attending home worship services Leland Wang, a lay evangelist. Wang created an informal and understructured form of Christianity that used the home rather than the church as the centre of worship. Fuzhou
, a treaty port
city in Fujian Province, became the initial centre of this movement. In 1928, after serving Wang as an evangelist outsie of China, Ni broke away from this church and founded his own Assembly Hall Church.
The church, born in the midst of nationalist revolution and anti-Christian feeling, at first rejected missionaries and the Anglo-American thrust of Chinese Protestantism as it then existed. Church leaders preached a new Sinified Christianity.
But Nee realised that there were still lessons to be learned. He developed a relationship with members of the Exclusive Brethren
. Nee had been taught by a China Inland Mission
member who belonged to the Brethren, and this woman greatly affected his subsequent development as a Christian leader. In 1947, he went to Taiwan to establish a pharmaceutical factory, to train church workers, and buy land for the church on the island. He returned to mainland China, handing over the leadership of the new Taiwan church to Witness Lee
.
Witness Lee, Nee's hand-picked Lieutenant, became leader of the émigré
church in Taiwan. By August 1949, there was a small Assembly Hall Church established in Taipei
and, within three months, its membership increased from three hundred to a thousand. The church was seen by many as a Mandarin church, and thus, many refugees considered it a church home. The 1950s saw the church expand dramatically in the major cities of Taiwan
where populations of the newly arrived mainlanders could be found. Many evangelistic techniques that had been developed in mainland China were put to good use in the church's new home base. Evangelistic crusades were held, tracts were published, and new church centres were organised. Lee also visited the Philippines
, where he obtained funds and helped to spread the word of his church.
, Chiang Ching-kuo
, former President Lee Teng-hui
, and previous dissident/senior democracy-independence leader and previous presidential candidate Peng Ming-Min
.
Dutch Empire
The Dutch Empire consisted of the overseas territories controlled by the Dutch Republic and later, the modern Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire, but based on military conquest of already-existing...
in 1624. It is a densely populated, mountainous island, about 240 miles (386.2 km) long, lying 100 miles (160.9 km) off the China coast, between Japan and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
Dutch Protestant missions (1624–1652)
The Dutch East India CompanyDutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC) concluded a tacit agreement with the Ming authorities that permitted them to establish a trading post to which Chinese merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s might freely come.
The Dutch
Dutch Empire
The Dutch Empire consisted of the overseas territories controlled by the Dutch Republic and later, the modern Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire, but based on military conquest of already-existing...
occupied the island of Taiwan for about thirty-five years (1626–1661) and also gave opportunity for many evangelicals to come and preach the gospel. The island's inhabitants had little contact with any of the major organized religions. Muslim expansion had not reached that far north, nor had the Chinese religions, Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, made an impact. Formosa, as the island was known, but was still outside the traditional boundaries of the Chinese empire.
In 1624, the Dutch built a fort and trading depot named Fort Zeelandia
Fort Zeelandia (Taiwan)
Fort Zeelandia was a fortress built over ten years from 1624–1634 by the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, in the town of Anping on the island of Formosa, present day Taiwan, during their 38-year rule over the western part of it...
off southwestern Formosa.
The following year, the Spanish
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
from the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
responded in kind by establishing a fort and trading post
Trading post
A trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....
at Keelung. Here, they acted as a counterweight to the spread of Dutch control over Formosa and the trade of the region. A small Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Roman Catholic enclave was planted for a short time in the north but had never been able to expand and was soon driven out by the Dutch in 1642, who concentrated their own settlements on the west coast of the island. The Protestant Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
were the first to enter into sustained conversion of the indigenous people.
On the island, where local society was less systematically organized, Dutch control was direct and immediate. The more important reason for the growth of the church was the missionaries themselves who, in Formosa, were farther from the Dutch East Indies Company's center at Batavia and were less intimidated by its commercial and political power. They moved into the villages of the coastal interior from the base Fort Zeelandia on Formosa's southwest coast. They soon found out that the inhabitants of the countryside outside the villages were still engaging in the cultural practice of headhunting
Headhunting
Headhunting is the practice of taking a person's head after killing them. Headhunting was practised in historic times in parts of China, India, Nigeria, Nuristan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Borneo, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Micronesia, Melanesia, New Zealand, and the Amazon Basin, as...
. The missionaries took up residence in the villages, most of which were within one or two days travel from Zeelandia. There they recognized at once the importance of learning the native languages and began to translate the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. However only the Gospels of Matthew and John were completed.
The first ordained minister to visit the island, Georgius Candidius, came to Taiwan in 1627. Candidius felt strongly that chaplains should promise to stay for at least ten years in order to learn the language of the natives, without which they would never be more than superficially effective. Candidius advised that missionaries, including himself, who came out unmarried should find and marry suitable native women to render them more sensitive to the customs and needs of the people whom they hoped to convert. He later wrote, presumably in 1628,
"I confidently believe that on this island of Formosa there may be established that which will become...the leading Christian community in all India [the Dutch East Indies]...there does not exist in all India a more tractable nation and one more willing to accept the Gospel."
In one large village where Candidius preached, the villagers initially did not believe in Candidius' claim that Christianity was more powerful than their old religions—instead they proposed that he accept a contest against their old religions by making one house in their village a Christian house to let them see if, over time, it really prospered more than the others. In great frustration Candidius wondered if it would not be better to ask the Company government simply to order all the women and children to attend his instruction classes for the Christian faith. The government refused, however, and four years later without a contest or a government order, it was happily reported that all the inhabitants of the village "have cast away their idols and called upon one and the same Almighty and true God."
Candidius was soon joined by another missionary from Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
named Robert Junius
Robert Junius
Robert Junius, also recorded as Robertus Junius , was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary to Taiwan from 1629 to 1643...
, son of a Dutch father and a Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
mother, who for the next fourteen years (1629–1643) continued the preaching of Christianity in Formosa. An early account of an interview with Junius gives a glowing account of the spread of Christianity along the eastern coastal plains through seven villages north of Zeelandia, and some twenty-three to the south. The work was titled, "Of the Conversion of Five Thousand nine hundred East Indians In the Isle of Formosa near China". Upon arrival on the island, like most early Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
ministers he began preaching in the Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
to the mystification of the natives, but after two fruitless years, Junius had "learnt the barbarous language and rude idiom of those heathen." By the time Junius left Formosa in 1643, there were over seventeen-thousand Christian Formosans, of whom he had baptized more than fifty-four hundred adults in twenty-nine villages
A presbytery had been formed, and in six villages north of Zeelandia Christian schools were flourishing, with about six hundred schoolchildren taught by eight Dutch and fifty-four native Christian schoolmasters. Instruction was in one of the five major Formosan tribal dialects (Sinkan
Sinckan Manuscripts
The Sinckan Manuscripts refers to a series of leases, mortgages, and other commerce contracts written in the Sinckan language; they are commonly referred to as the "fanzi contracts." Some are written only in a romanized script, while others were bilingual with adjacent Han writing...
).
The rapid growth of groups of Christians in the villages prompted the formation of another consistory (organized church session of elders and deacons) by dividing the original "Consistory of Formosa" into two, the consistories of Zeelandia and Soulang. While still in Formosa, Robert Junius had gathered about seventy boys, aged ten to thirteen, in a school, teaching them the Christian religion in their own Sinkan language
Sinckan Manuscripts
The Sinckan Manuscripts refers to a series of leases, mortgages, and other commerce contracts written in the Sinckan language; they are commonly referred to as the "fanzi contracts." Some are written only in a romanized script, while others were bilingual with adjacent Han writing...
, writing the words in a Romanized alphabet. About sixty girls were taught in another class. In 1636 he pleaded for permission to take four or six of the most promising men to Holland for ministerial training. "We believe," he wrote to the governor in Zeelandia, "that such a native clergyman could effect more than all our Dutch ministers together could do".
Spanish Catholic missions
On May 1626, Bartolomé Martínez and five Dominicans were the first Spanish missionaries to arrive in Formosa alongside a Spanish expeditionary force. A house was built on Siaryo island near present-day KeelungKeelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
. The locals fled to the hills when they heard the sound of Spanish cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s. A Chinese who was married to a Formosan girl was among those who had fled but, after learning that some of the intruders were religious personnel, he came down to meet Father Martinez. The locals believed in Martinez's preaching and attended church services. A church was built in Keelung for the Chinese community residing there.
By 1629, a Spanish fort was erected in present-day Tamsui. After hearing of the Spanish intrusion, the Dutch attacked the fort but were repelled. However, Father Martínez lost his life during his trip back to Siaryo.another church was erected in Taparri (near present-day Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
) by Father Jacinto Esquivel and two villages were converted in the course of two years. Things did not always go smoothly for the missionaries. At a village named Pantaos, Father Vaez de Santo Domingo was pierced by arrows and beheaded by Senaar tribesmen, some of whom were still hostile towards the invaders.
Despite being exposed to constant perils, these Dominicans were still determined to enter the mountain areas and spread the "Divine Word" to the natives. They also established towns such as San Lorenzo, Santa Catalina and Santiago.
In March, 1636 the Keelung Governor sent troops to Paktau to buy rice from the locals. However, Father Luis Muro needed to be accompanied with troops since Paktau was the place where former assassins of Father Vaez de Santo Domingo had taken refuge. Although his intention was to notify the assassins that they had been pardoned, a misunderstanding took place and hence Father Muro along with twenty-five others were murdered. the Keelung governor was enraged and the resulting retaliatory measures led to peace in Northern Formosa. Now the Dominicans were able to move about without fear of attacks.
Nevertheless by 1635, the newly installed Governor of the Spanish Philippines, Don Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera
Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera
Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera was a Spanish soldier and colonial official. From 1632 to 1634 he was governor of Panama. From June 25, 1635 to August 11, 1644 he was governor of the Philippines. And from 1659 to his death in 1660 he was governor of the Canary Islands...
regarded the presence of the Spanish troops and missionaries in Formosa as undesirable and unnecessary; hence the island was gradually abandoned to the Dutch.
In 1638, Sebastián ordered the Spanish fort
Fort Santo Domingo
Fuerte Santo Domingo or Fort San Domingo was originally a wooden fort built by the Spanish in 1629 at Tamsui on the northwestern coast of Taiwan.-History:...
in Tamsui to be destroyed and abandoned. The following year, three of the four companies' troops at Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
were ordered to return to Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, rendering Keelung vulnerable to any possible Dutch attack. Four and a half thousand Christians existed by 1639.
A three-hundred strong Dutch reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
force arrived in 1641 and the fort was briefly pounded with cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
.
In 1642, they returned to Keelung with a large force and the thirty Spaniards garrisoned there offered token resistance before surrendering.
Among the prisoners were brothers Basilio del Rosario and Pedro Ruiz, priests Juan de los Angeles and Fr. Teodoro Quiros. They were brought to Fort Zeelandia and shipped to Jakarta where they received sympathetic treatment by a Dutch general. The Dutch general showed them kindness and eventually secured an arrangement for them to be repatriated to Manila. The Catholics were prohibited from entering Formosa for the next twenty years.
Late Dutch Missions (1653–1661)
The last decade of the Dutch mission's existence in Taiwan was plagued by controversies with Batavia over personnel and money, and by the mounting threat by Koxinga and his Chinese supporters on Formosa. Despite these depressing conditions, the church of Formosa was kept alive by Antonious Hambroek and a number of younger ministers, three of whom were prepared by Junius in Holland. the new missionaries, discouraged by the many native languages prevailing on this island, proposed that religious instructions should be imparted in the Dutch, a language known to the younger Formosans and many of the Chinese tradersMerchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
. The Dutch authorities in Formosa also warned of Koxinga's planned invasion, which was dismissed by the Dutch authorities in Batavia as speculation.
The man who drove the Dutch out of Formosa was Chinese patriot Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
(Cheng Ch'eng-kung), son of a Chinese pirate and a Japanese mother, fiercely loyal to the fallen Ming dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
, which he had served as an admiral until the victory of the Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. Needing a base for his sea-raiders he chose Taiwan and attacked the small Dutch garrison at Zeelandia with twenty-five thousand men, first craftily protesting that he had no use for "such a small, grass-producing country as Formosa." Among the Dutch killed in the conflict was Bible translator Antonius Hambroek and his wife and daughters.
Antonius Hambroek
Antonius Hambroek
Antonius Hambroek was a Dutch missionary to Formosa from 1648 to 1661 during the Dutch colonial era. He was martyred by Koxinga as the Chinese-Japanese warlord wrested Taiwan from the Dutch...
was nominated as principal of the seminary which never had the opportunity open. He was captured at his country station and paraded with his wife and several children in view of the besieged fort with the threat that all would be killed unless the Dutch immediatedly surrendered. When that falied, Koxinga sent Hambroek into the fort to urge his countrymen to surrender. Instead, Hambroek urged his countrymen to stand fast even though that would mean not only his own death but that of his family and all other prisoners. Two of his daughters were in the fort at the time after having escaped capture, but when the governor told him he need not go back, and urged him to stay with his daughters in safety, he refused and returned to face Koxinga with the news. Hambroek was beheaded publicly along with several other missionaries, including some of the women and children. To this day, the Dutch regard Hambroek as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
. Four or five other missionaries are known to have suffered the same fate as Hambroek, some by beheading, others by crucifixion.
Martyr or not, Hambroek deserves honourable mention among the thirty-two ordained missionaries who preached, taught, and planted churches during the brief flowering of Protestantism on Formosa between 1627 and 1662.
Fort Zeelandia had held out against the far superior forces of the Ming loyalist for almost a year, but finally surrendered to Koxinga
Koxinga
Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong , a military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa .A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of...
in 1662; the Dutch surrender brought an abrupt end to the mission.
Two hundred years following the defeat and expulsion of the Dutch in Taiwan, the next wave of Protestant Christianity to reach the island late in the 19th century, was English, not Dutch.
Persecution under the Koxinga and Manchu regimes
The Formosan Christians, officially the allies of the Dutch, slowly gave up the foreign faith in the absence of the missionaries and other servants of the Dutch East India CompanyDutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC). These native Christians were left without teachers or religious works printed in their own language.
In 1662, Father Victorio Ricci, a Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
priest, visited Taiwan and during his second visit to Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
in 1666, some natives asked for him to administer the sacraments to them. Although his stay was brief, he managed to baptise a many children and receive their confessions.
After Ricci's visit, the Dominicans attempted to send missionaries to continue the work of their forerunners. The first attempt occurred in 1673 when they arrived in Tainan
Tainan
Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...
but they received maltreatment by Koxinga's successors and seven months later they were forced to return to Manila.
Despite the defeat of the Koxinga regime in 1683 and the conquest of Taiwan by Manchu soldiers of the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, were denied entry into Taiwan.
The second attempt by the Catholics in 1694 to resume work in Taiwan also met with opposition from the new regime and had to be abandoned.
Still, as late as 1715, the French Jesuit Joseph de Mailla met several Formosans who could understand Dutch and write their own language in Latin letters. Use of the romanised forms of the vernacular endured until the latter half of the 19th century.
Spanish Catholic Missions
The signing of the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858 made major Taiwanese cities into treaty portsTreaty ports
The treaty ports was the name given to the port cities in China, Japan, and Korea that were opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties.-Chinese treaty ports:...
, opening them to western merchants.
In 1858 the Spanish Dominican Father Antonio Orge was authorised to restore the Formosan mission. Father Orge notified Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
of these events and within a few weeks, Father Fernando Sainz was sent to Formosa along with Father Angel Bofurull via Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
in 1859. Accompanied by three Chinese catechists, they arrived in Takao/Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung is a city located in southwestern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into thirty-eight districts. The city is one of five special municipalities of the Republic of China...
.
It was not until March 1861 that Sainz and a catechist made their way to the Makatao plains aborigine village of Bankimcheng or Wanjin. It was along and dangerous journey from Takao, through hostile Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
territory. Sainz correctly surmised that the non-Chinese natives of Bankimcheng would be more receptive to the gospel and less hostile. The first Wanjin converts were baptised in 1862. The following year, Sainz bought a site and built a small church at Wanjin. In December 1863, another forty-seven were baptised.
During 1867, a band of Hakkas kidnapped Father Sainz and held him for ransom. His fellow priests enlisted the help of the English consul and demanded that the Taiwan mandarins obtain Sainz's release. The Fengshan County magistrate, fearing an international incident, ordered the Hakka to release Sainz. Forewarned of the magistrate's action, the Hakka kidnappers tricked Sainz by promising immediate release if he would pay a smaller ransom. The plains aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
saw Sainz's capitulation as a serious blow to their hope of gaining advantage over the Hakka through a connection with the Catholics. The events marked the low ebb for the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
mission in Wanjin.
More troubles came in 1868, bu these troubles ultimately brought a reversal in the fortunes of the mission. A dispute between the foreign merchant community and the local Qing intendant over the latter's attempt to monopolise the trade in camphor
Camphor
Camphor is a waxy, white or transparent solid with a strong, aromatic odor. It is a terpenoid with the chemical formula C10H16O. It is found in wood of the camphor laurel , a large evergreen tree found in Asia and also of Dryobalanops aromatica, a giant of the Bornean forests...
escalated into a general antiforeign disturbance. In April 1868, mobs wrecked both the Spanish Dominican chapel in Kaoakhi and the Presbyterian mission station in Fengshan. Attacks on and accusations against the missionaries were made again in July and September. This confrontation between the Chinese establishment and the foreign community was not resolved until a British Gunboat
Gunboat diplomacy
In international politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power — implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force....
landed troops
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
at Anping (the port of Tainan) in November 1868. Faced with superior firepower, the Qing mandarins were forced to pay indemnities for the destroyed property of both the merchants and the missions, and to issue proclamations denying slanders against the Christian missionaries and recognising their right to work in the island.
This application of foreign military power to humiliate the Qing mandarins transformed the political climate in which the Dominicans worked. The Hakka, no longer able to assume the acquiescence of the mandarins and now having reason to fear the Dominicans, became less brazen in their harassment at Wanjin. thus, when Father Herce was robbed on his way to Wanjin in the summer of 1869, the head of the town from which the bandits came took steps to ensure that the stolen articles were returned. The humiliation of the Mandarins had created an aura of power that now adhered to the Dominicans and their religion and endowed them with a newfound prestige.
Because the villagers hoped to gain by seeking the protection of the Dominicans, the demonstration of superior power by the British in 1868 led to a surge in the villagers' enthusiasm for the religion of the foreigners.
By September 1869, Father Colomer could report a flourishing mission and rapid growth in the number of Catechumen
Catechumen
In ecclesiology, a catechumen , “‘down’” + ἠχή , “‘sound’”) is one receiving instruction from a catechist in the principles of the Christian religion with a view to baptism...
s.
British and Canadian Presbyterian Missions
The signing of the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 made major Taiwanese cities into treaty portsTreaty ports
The treaty ports was the name given to the port cities in China, Japan, and Korea that were opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties.-Chinese treaty ports:...
, opening them to western merchants. These same treaties also contained so-called missionary clauses that had the effect of opening all of China to the missionaries.
Arriving under the protection of the Beijing agreement, members of the British Presbyterian mission came to the island to establish a new mission station. They settled on Tainan
Tainan
Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...
in the southwestern part of the island, near the original site of the Dutch Reformed
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
mission community of the 17th century. A decade later, in 1873, a second group of Presbyterians, this time representing the Canadian Presbyterian Church
Canadian Presbyterian Mission
Canadian Presbyterian Mission was a Canadian Presbyterian Church in Canada missionary society that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty...
, settled in Tamsui in the northwestern corner of the island, a few miles distant from the Taipei basin
Taipei Basin
Taipei Basin is a geographic region in northern Taiwan. It is the second largest basin in Taiwan. The basin is bounded by Yangmingshan to the north, Linkou mesa to the west, and the Ridge of Xueshan Range to the southeast. The shape of the basin is close to a triangle...
.
The two Presbyterian missions worked along similar lines but with varied degrees of success. The British mission had more resources and personnel and was able to establish itself first among the Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
and then the plains aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
. The British Presbyterians under the leadership of Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell
James Laidlaw Maxwell
James Laidlaw Maxwell Senior was the first Presbyterian missionary to Taiwan . He served with the English Presbyterian Mission....
set up hospitals and introduced Western medicine to Tainan and its environs.
In the 1870s, they established primary and secondary schools. George Ede, one of the missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
who arrived in the 1870s founded the Tainan Zhangzhong High School in 1885. the school became a major educational force in southern Taiwan and continues to this day to serve the community of that city. When Taiwanese Presbyterian membership had grown large enough, the missionaries opened a theological seminary to train a Taiwanese clergy and, by 1885, the missionaries were publishing a weekly newspaper in Romanized Taiwanese.
The Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay
George Leslie Mackay
George Leslie Mackay was the first Presbyterian missionary to northern Formosa . He served with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission. Mackay is among the best known Westerners to have lived in Taiwan.-Early life:...
upon his arrival in 1872, worked tirelessly to make Tamsui and then the Taipei basin
Taipei Basin
Taipei Basin is a geographic region in northern Taiwan. It is the second largest basin in Taiwan. The basin is bounded by Yangmingshan to the north, Linkou mesa to the west, and the Ridge of Xueshan Range to the southeast. The shape of the basin is close to a triangle...
the home of a number of viable Presbyterian churches. Like his counterparts in the south, he was as much a modernizer as a Christianizer. In the decades he lived and worked in Taiwan he was able to set up a hospital, schools, and a theological seminary. The first period in Presbyterian history drew to a close in 1895 when the Japanese claimed Taiwan after their victory over the Qing state in the first modern war between China and Japan
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...
.
1895 to 1925
The Japanese received TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
as a spoil of war but discovered that the Taiwanese were unwilling to hand over the island peacefully. Although this resistance proved short-lived in the north, southern leaders based in Tainan, fought the Japanese for the remainder of 1895. The new Japanese rulers considered Taiwan as valuable property and transformed Taiwan from a neglected Chinese province—a backwater with a closed economy—into a colony with a strong infrastructure, an island ready for rapid development.
The Japanese saw what the Presbyterians had achieved through their romanization of the spoken Taiwanese dialect, in the sphere of education, and in the introduction of Western medical techniques and practices. They also knew, from their experiences with Christian missionaries in Japan
Christianity in Japan
Christianity is a minority religion in Japan, with less than one percent claiming Christian belief or affiliation. Nearly all known traditional denominations of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity are represented in Japan today.The root of the Japanese...
, the problems caused by allowing many denominations to work at evangelization. Thus for the first thirty years of their rule they refused entry to all other Protestant denominations. This resulted in the development of a single Protestant church without "any of the complications of denominational diversity".
For at least the first four decades, the church prospered under these conditions and the Presbyterian church grew in strength in every part of the island. By 1910, the Presbyterians had set up synods in northern and southern Taiwan and the missionaries and Taiwanese church leaders talked in terms of a single islandwide Presbytery. Even more important than these ecclesiological
Ecclesiology
Today, ecclesiology usually refers to the theological study of the Christian church. However when the word was coined in the late 1830s, it was defined as the science of the building and decoration of churches and it is still, though rarely, used in this sense.In its theological sense, ecclesiology...
structures was the progress the missionaries were making toward fostering the creation of an independent, Taiwanese-run Presbyterian church, which was largely in place by 1920.
The Presbyterians remained the island's only Protestant Church until 1925.
1925 to mid-1930s
In 1925, the Japanese permitted Chinese Protestants from mainland China to enter their rapidly developing showplace colony. Evangelists from a mainland ChinaMainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
-based non-denominational church, the True Jesus Church
True Jesus Church
The True Jesus Church is a non-denominational Christian church that originated in Beijing, China, in 1917. The current elected chairman of the TJC International Assembly is Preacher Yong-Ji Lin. Today, there are approximately 2.5 million members in fifty three countries and six continents...
, came to work among the Chinese inhabitants of the island. That same year, Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
and Japanese missionaries from the Japan Holiness Church
Japan Holiness Church
The Japan Holiness Church traces its origins to the early evangelistic work of the Oriental Missionary Society, organized by Juji Nakada and by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowman in 1901. Nakada had become acquainted with the Cowmans during a period he spent at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago...
, a church that had been founded by American Holiness missionaries in Tokyo in 1905, also arrived in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Both groups found a receptive population in Taiwan, and the sixty-year Presbyterian monopoly ended. It was in this period from 1926 to 1945 that a many-sided Taiwanese Protestant community began to emerge. The True Jesus evangelists and Holiness ministers competed with each other and the larger Presbyterian Church for the attention of the Taiwanese and Hakka populations and also made furtive attempts to work with the Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
.
True Jesus Church in Taiwan
The True Jesus ChurchTrue Jesus Church
The True Jesus Church is a non-denominational Christian church that originated in Beijing, China, in 1917. The current elected chairman of the TJC International Assembly is Preacher Yong-Ji Lin. Today, there are approximately 2.5 million members in fifty three countries and six continents...
had been founded in Beijing in 1917, and by the early 1920s its churches could be found as far south as the northern borders of Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
. The roots of the evangelization effort in Taiwan are found not on the island but in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, the province on the mainland China side of the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...
s. It was here in the city of Zhangzhou
Zhangzhou
Zhangzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Fujian province, People's Republic of China. Located on the banks of the Jiulong River , Zhangzhou borders the cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou to the northeast, Longyan City to the northwest and the province of Guangdong to the southwest.Zhangzhou...
, that a number of Taiwanese heard sermons by Barnabas Zhang, one of the founders of the True Jesus Church. Some joined the church during the early 1920s and, by 1924, were considering returning to their home island to spread the new doctrines.
A preliminary evangelical trip in the fall of 1925 proved most encouraging. The following spring, one of these new converts, Huang Zhengcong, invited Barnabas Zhang to Taiwan. Zhang was the most dynamic, and certainly the most controversial, of the three men who founded the church, the others being Paul Wei and Zhang Xinsheng. Barnabas Zhang made the journey in March 1926, accompanied by Huang and Yang Yelimei, another of the Zhangzhou-based Taiwanese converts. Weeks of intense evangelism followed. Zhang and his Taiwanese coworkers visited a number of cities, towns and villages and preached the new doctrines. Officials and other members of the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church protested the evangelists methods in what proved to be the beginning of a conflict between the mainline denomination and the indigenouis Chinese church that continues even to this day..
A few months after this initial evangelistic campaign, a number of Taiwanese church members, then living in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, were appointed to carry forward the work in Taichung
Taichung
-Demographics:Taichung’s population was an estimated 1,040,725 in August 2006. There are slightly more females in the city than males.24.32% of residents are children, while 16.63% are young people, 52.68% are middle-age, and 6.73% are elderly....
. They returned to Taichung, a city that occupies the centre point of the island's north/south axis. Philemon, a deacon in the Presbyterian Church, "came forward" and was baptised. he then helped establish a True Jesus congregation in Taichung.
In the spring of 1927, other True Jesus evangelists, such as Jian Yabo and Kuo Meidu, made the journey across the Taiwan Straits to "broadcast the true doctrine." These preachers again targeted their message to Christians rather than to the non-Christian Chinese majority. Member of the Presbyterian Church proved responsive to this type of evangelism.
That same year, another Taiwanese evangelist, John Wu, traveled from Xiamen
Xiamen
Xiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...
to Tainan
Tainan
Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...
, and, using such methods as the laying on of hands, he convinced many people of the power of the new doctrines. His techniques and his ardent preaching proved so effective that he was able to plant a True Jesus Church in Tainan, an important southern city, in April 1927. Over the next eight years, this core of evangelists, joined by many new converts, continued to preach and spread the doctrines of the church. A headquarters for southern Taiwan was set up in Tainan, which was the headquarters of the southern Synod of the Presbyterian Church.
From Tainan to Taichung, the church workers moved out into the countryside and into the towns and villages. Many of the converts that were made during these years were members of the Presbyterian Church. The True Jesus histories of these years often make mention of elders, deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
s, and ordinary members of the Presbyterian Church who recognized the "truth" of True Jesus beliefs and were baptized anew to eventually receive the "gift of the Spirit." In the course of 1928, for example, new converts were won in such towns as Talin, Xiazhai, and Chiayi
Chiayi
-Administration:-City attractions:*Chiayi Park*Sun Shooting Tower *Lantan *Historic Archives Building of Chiayi City*University of Chiayi*Chiayi Museum...
. Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
, the administrative capital of the Japanese, saw the founding of its first True Jesus Church in 1930 and, in that same year, a church was set up in the city of Hualian, along Taiwan's eastern shore. By 1934, even Taitung
Taitung City
Taitung City is the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean.The city is served by Taitung Airport. Taitung is a gateway to Green Island and Orchid Island, both of which are very popular among Taiwanese tourists.-History:Taitung...
, the largest city in the southeastern part of the island, had its own True Jesus congregation.
There was one major population that had not yet been reached by True Jesus evangelists—the aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the church tried to reach out to these non-Chinese people. There was one formidable obstacle—the Japanese colonial government. Its officials tried to keep the Chinese and mountain people apart, going so far as to set up zones or reservations for the tribal people and erecting a long fence of electrified barbed wire to separate the two often antagonistic populations.
When the Presbyterians had attempted to continue efforts begun in the 1880s and plant churches among the mountain people, the Japanese authorities decided that only Japanese Christian groups could work with the aborigines in the mountain reservations.
The True Jesus evangelists settled for working with those mountain people who had already been Sinified and lived among the plains people,, as the Taiwanese sometimes called themselves. The first convert they made was a man named Tian Sando. He had been in a sanatorium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
, suffering from the effects of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, when he came into contact with church evangelists. According to church historians, "He was cured by the Lord in the True Jesus Church and became the first one of the mountain believers."
Holiness Church in Taiwan
During the years of the Japanese occupation, some Taiwanese living in Japan converted to the Holiness Church. In 1926, Taiwanese who had converted to the Holiness Church in JapanJapan Holiness Church
The Japan Holiness Church traces its origins to the early evangelistic work of the Oriental Missionary Society, organized by Juji Nakada and by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowman in 1901. Nakada had become acquainted with the Cowmans during a period he spent at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago...
returned home, accompanied by Japanese Holiness pastors, and began to spread their new-found religion.
Holiness efforts in Japan had begun in 1901 when American missionaries of the Oriental Mission Society arrived in Tokyo and preached their beliefs among the Japanese. In 1905, these missionaries had gained enough converts to be able to establish the Far Eastern Church. over the next two decades, the missionaries and their Japanese converts began to consider Taiwan as a site for mission work. They visited th eisland in 1913 and again in 1917 but on neither occasion felt that the time was right to begin the evangelistic effort. But in 1926, they were ready to move ahead.
Led by Pastor Zhong Tianjing, the converts settled in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
in January and launched their campaign. Within a few days, a Holiness Church was organised in a building on Zhongshan Road
Zhongshan Road
Zhongshan, Jhongshan or Chung Shan is a common name of Chinese roads, usually in honour of Sun Yat-sen, better-known in Chinese as "Sun Zhongshan", who is considered by many to be the "Father of modern China"....
. It served as the home of the new congregation.
Pastor Zhong then moved to Kaohsiung, a bustling port in the island's southwest. Within a few months, a core of believers had emerged to found a church on the city's Gaishang Street.
Zhong continued to itinerate and to attract an audience. November saw him on the island's east coast, in the port city of Hualian. Once again, those who heard him proved receptive, and still another church was founded. thus in less than a year, Holiness evangelists had planted three churches in Taiwan.
Pastor Zhong returned to Tokyo at the end of 1926 but came back to Taiwan in November 1927. Again he met with success. He planted a church that month in Taitung
Taitung City
Taitung City is the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean.The city is served by Taitung Airport. Taitung is a gateway to Green Island and Orchid Island, both of which are very popular among Taiwanese tourists.-History:Taitung...
, in the southeast corner of the island. December 1927 found him in the Japanese-developed port of Keelung
Keelung
Keelung City is a major port city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. It borders New Taipei and forms the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, along with the Taipei and New Taipei. Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport...
, just northeast of Taipei. There he delivered a powerful series of sermons heard by attentive and receptive audiences. Some of the city's Protestant converts joined forces and founded the Keelung Holiness Church.
Holiness leaders in Tokyo reviewed the Taiwan situation in early 1928. Much had been accomplished in two years. Congregations were functioning in eight areas of the island, and the Japanese believed they had to train a core of leaders for this growing church community. A month after the church leaders assessed the progress of their movement, Pastor Wang Xiyuan preached in the harbour area near Tainan and from his work grew the Xigang Holiness Church.
When Holiness leaders, both Western missionaries and their East Asian brethren, met in Tokyo in the spring of 1929, they could point to a Japanese Holiness Church that was becoming more and more indigenous, and to their newest creation, a Taiwanese Holiness community that could be found throughout the Japanese-controlled island.
By 1930, there were sixteen areas in which Holiness churches could be found. The next year saw a new church planted in Chiayi
Chiayi
-Administration:-City attractions:*Chiayi Park*Sun Shooting Tower *Lantan *Historic Archives Building of Chiayi City*University of Chiayi*Chiayi Museum...
and a second Holiness congregation established in Taitung
Taitung City
Taitung City is the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean.The city is served by Taitung Airport. Taitung is a gateway to Green Island and Orchid Island, both of which are very popular among Taiwanese tourists.-History:Taitung...
, the most remote of Taiwan's cities.
Taiwanese Presbyterian Church
The Presbyterian Church recognized the existence of its new rivals, but its leader continued to work along the well-defined lines they had developed in the earlier decades, and their church continued to grow even as its rivals gained members. There were a number of reasons for this. For example, the Presbyterian Church was the oldest and most firmly established of the three churches. Moreover, it could provide the Taiwanese with practical services, such as education and health care, something the new arrivals, with their limited resources, could not do yet. The Japanese did not yet see the Presbyterian system as a rival to their own networks of schools and thus allowed them to remain open. The Presbyterian schools, especially the high school TainanTainan
Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...
, provided Taiwanese with a higher level of education than that available to them in the Japanese schools. Because the Presbyterians provided social services, the church was able to gain adherents among the emerging Taiwanese middle classes. The church leaders felt secure that the greatest problems they faced were from the Japanese, not from their Protestant rivals.
Mid-1930s to 1945
In the mid-1930s, conditions began to change for the Presbyterians because of their ties to the Canadian and English Presbyterian churches. the True Jesus Church, tied as it was to mainland China, also faced new restrictions. The reasons are to be found in JapanEmpire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
's history during this decade. As Japan turned more towards nationalism and militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
, it also demonstrated a strong hostility towards foreign influences. However, the Holiness Church, though Western in origin and tied to an American denomination, had been a part of Japanese life for over thirty years and was thus more acceptable. Japanese Holiness evangelists found that their government was allowing them to carry on their work in Taiwan.
The advantage enjoyed by the Holiness Church was demonstrated in 1930 with the planting of churches not only in Hsinchu
Hsinchu
Hsinchu City is a city in northern Taiwan. Hsinchu is popularly nicknamed "The Windy City" for its windy climate.Hsinchu City is administered as a special municipality within Taiwan . The city is bordered by Hsinchu County to the north and east, Miaoli County to the south, and the Taiwan Strait...
, Yuli
Yuli
Yuli may refer to:*Yuli , a fictional race from the sci-fi Star Control computer game series*Yuli County , of Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, PR China*Yuli, Rushan , town in Rushan City, Shandong, PR China...
, and Xizi
Xizi
Xizi was a book of I Ching written during the fifth century BC. Its origins are unknown, but it is suspected of being the product of scholars who did not believe prevailing Daoist thought. Among the mythologies stressed in the book is that of Fuxi, the emperor-god.Xizi is also a nickname for the...
, but also in the large central metropolis of Taichung
Taichung
-Demographics:Taichung’s population was an estimated 1,040,725 in August 2006. There are slightly more females in the city than males.24.32% of residents are children, while 16.63% are young people, 52.68% are middle-age, and 6.73% are elderly....
. The mid-1930s were witness to contraction as the church lost members. However, the Holiness church was able to recover its losses and, by the late 1930s, there bgan a period of renewd expansion. This renewal was demonstrated in 1939 with the establishment of the Hsinchu
Hsinchu
Hsinchu City is a city in northern Taiwan. Hsinchu is popularly nicknamed "The Windy City" for its windy climate.Hsinchu City is administered as a special municipality within Taiwan . The city is bordered by Hsinchu County to the north and east, Miaoli County to the south, and the Taiwan Strait...
Holiness Church.
As World War Two
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
began in the Pacific, leaders of each of these churches discovered that thery faced a struggle for their very survival.
Japan's accelerating movement toward ultranationalism altered the structure of religious life in Taiwan. From 1937 to 1945, the Japanese government suppressed Taiwanese folk religion and introduced Japanese religious institutions
State Shinto
has been called the state religion of the Empire of Japan, although it did not exist as a single institution and no "Shintō" was ever declared a state religion...
and patterns of worship. Christian institutions were also affected. Historians of the Taiwan Holiness Church
Taiwan Holiness Church
The Taiwan Holiness Church was established in 1926 when some Taiwanese youths who had converted to the Japan Holiness Church whilst studying in Japan, returned home to Taiwan and began evangelizing in the country along with fellow Japanese pastors.-Historical background:American Holiness...
suggest that one reason for the Japanese attack on Christianity was that Christians did not worship kami
Kami
is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...
, the deities central to National Shinto
State Shinto
has been called the state religion of the Empire of Japan, although it did not exist as a single institution and no "Shintō" was ever declared a state religion...
. A second was that Christians believed in a God-person who was Jewish by birth. Finally, Christians believed in the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ, and this heavenly kingdom was contrary to Japanese perceptions of the future.
The wartime authorities in Taiwan hand-picked Japanese officials to serve as leaders of the True Jesus Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Holiness Church. The True Jesus Church became the "Japanese True Jesus Church" in 1941. The Japanese also restructured the Presbyterian establishment. The next year, a Japan Christian Kyodan (church) was formed combining the Presbyterians with the Japanese Holiness Church. The government took over all the property the Presbyterians had controlled, thus completing the Japanization of Taiwan's churches.
This restructuring of Christianity in Taiwan proved to be short-lived, however, for in October 1945 Japanese rule came to an end. Japan had lost its bid for military supremacy in East Asia. It had lost its empire, and its home islands were in ruins. The Japanese left Taiwan in the months following October 25, 1945, the day of the formal surrender of the island. In their place came the Chinese Nationalists.
1945-1948
The Chinese military and civilian forces that came to Taiwan in 1945 were, in many ways, all too representative of the Nationalist government as it existed in 1945. The KuomintangKuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
officials made it clear that they looked upon the Taiwanese as suspect—as tainted by the long years of Japanese control. They also saw the island as ripe for the picking and began to systematically strip away those industrial resources that the Japanese had helped the Taiwanese develop, in order to fund the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
that was being fought in mainland China. The troops had their way, as well; thus the Taiwanese quickly learned to hate them as much as the vast majority of mainland China's population hated and feared the Nationalist armies
Nationalist army
Nationalist army may refer* The Nationalist Army of Africa in Spain under Franco* The National Revolutionary Army in the Republic of China...
. Taiwan was now learning what it was like to be a part of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
. The result of these policies that treated Taiwan as occupied territory resulted in the February 28 Incident
228 Incident
The 228 Incident, also known as the 228 Massacre, was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that began on February 27, 1947, and was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang government. Estimates of the number of deaths vary from 10,000 to 30,000 or more...
. A year later, 1948, Nationalists admitted that the bureaucrats and military men had gone too far and some attempts were made to clean up the worst corruption.
The three churches—the Presbyterian Church, the True Jesus Church, and the Taiwanese Holiness Church—saw the new conditions on the island from very different viewpoints. These different perspectives led in turn to distinctly different courses of action. The Presbyterians looked upon themselves as a Taiwanese church that represented Taiwanese, Hakkas and mountain people. Their missionaries had translated the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
into Taiwanese, and they sang their hymns and conducted their services in Taiwanese. The Holiness Church, now cut off from its Japanese roots, had to effect a major readjustment. The True Jesus Church, on the other hand, still had strong ties with the mainland China and did not conceive of itself in any ethnic terms other than that of "Chinese." These differences in outlook colored the way each church experienced the events of Retrocession
Retrocession Day
Retrocession Day is an annual observance in the Republic of China to commemorate the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan on October 25, 1945.-Background:...
.
Underlying these differences were also differences in the way each church defined the church-state relationship. Presbyterians were activists in the political realm as well as in the realm of the spirit and spoke out against oppression. The other churches were more willing to distance themselves from politics.
Two of the three churches, the True Jesus Church and the Presbyterian Church, made the most progress during these years of the new regime.
Presbyterian Church
Because the Kuomindang had shown itself hostile to the aspirations of the Taiwanese, the Presbyterian leaders outspokenly opposed the new regime. As a result, church leaders and members suffered at the hands of the island's liberators. Church leaders continued to oppose the state even after the February 28th incident. Government repression forced them to adopt a low profile but they continued to speak out when circumstances permitted or when the government did something so outrageous that they could not hold their tempers. Furthermore, their members are active in defining the Democratic Progressive PartyDemocratic Progressive Party
The Democratic Progressive Party is a political party in Taiwan, and the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition. Founded in 1986, DPP is the first meaningful opposition party in Taiwan. It has traditionally been associated with strong advocacy of human rights and a distinct Taiwanese identity,...
's programs and philosophies.
From 1945 to 1948, the Presbyterian Church withstood the KMT onslaught, reorganized itself, and redefined its working relationship with Western missions. Its house in order, it was able to seek expansion once again. Its leaders strengthened their ties with the Taiwanese community while the Western missionaries began to work on a greater scale with he mountain people, who proved very responsive. The church's new expansion reached dramatic levels in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s.
True Jesus Church
The True Jesus leaders took a variety of steps to strengthen their church and its outreach but were careful to stay clear of politics. Once RetrocessionRetrocession Day
Retrocession Day is an annual observance in the Republic of China to commemorate the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule of Taiwan on October 25, 1945.-Background:...
had formally begun, the church reorganized itself, much as the Presbyterian church had done. During the war, their church had existed as a Japanese-run entity, something its members had openly acknowledged during their general assembly meetings of 1942–1945. Now they once again called themselves the True Jesus Church, not the Japanese True Jesus Church. Their offices in Taichuing, confiscated during the war, were returned to them, and the city once again became the administrative and evangelical headquarters of the church's Taiwan board, which it is to this day. During September 1945, even before the Nationalists had taken formal control of the island, church activists had begin working to reestablish themselves. they held an emergency meeting at which they planned church strategy and rededicated themselves to the expansion of the church.
At that same meeting they also decided to formally renew their contacts with the parent church in mainland China. The mainlanders responded to these overtures as the various regional offices at Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...
, Xiamen
Xiamen
Xiamen , also known as Amoy , is a major city on the southeast coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with an area of and population of 3.53 million...
, and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
, as well as the central headquarters in Shanghai, all made contact with the True Jesus Taiwanese leadership. They communicated by mail and in person, discussing various matters of mutual concern and questions of church unity. The Taiwanese headquarters soon formalized relations with the mother church by becoming part of the mother church's general assembly that had been reestablished in 1945.
Holiness Church
During this immediate postwar period, the Holiness Church found itself facing great difficulties that may have contributed to the decision to remain removed from politics and from ethnic conflicts. Severed from its Japanese mother church, it had few leaders and little financial support to survive on its own. Both new leaders and money had to be found if its church was to continue to exist as a viable entity within the larger community.Missionary Period (1949–1959)
In October 1949, the Nationalist regime collapsed on the Chinese mainland and a million and a half people, some with their families but many without, made the move to the Kuomindang's new island base. From 1949 until 1959, the government reorganized itself. American advisors worked with the Nationalist officials to introduce reforms in the political and economic sectors. Furthermore, they provided large amounts of money. With heavy infusions of American aid in hand and the advisors by their side, the KMT bureaucrats began reshaping the island's economic structure. The period of political, economic and educational reform helped to create an open climate to Western missionary endeavours. One reason was that the missionaries often served as agents of social change. Missionaries established relief agencies, set up primary and secondary school systems, built colleges and universitiesUniversity
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, and developed and staffed medical facilities. The missionaries' benevolent efforts served to supplement the system that the government was constructing.
Many missionaries who had witnessed the loss of their beloved China and were searching for a new place of refuge and a place to pursue their God-defined tasks came to the island during the 1950s. As the missionaries hoped and prayed, the conversion of many thousands of Chinese began. The Nationalist regime welcomed hundreds of Western missionaries who fled to Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
from mainland China. Now that the Nationalists were in Taiwan, and only in Taiwan, the regime's leaders realized that the missionaries had to be accommodated, if only to please America. In return, these missionaries, many of whom belonged to such politically conservative and anti-communist denominations as the Southern Baptists, lobbied in Washington for President Chiang Kaishek's cause and helped create the image of Taiwan as a vital bastion against "Red Chinese aggression".
In the brief span of five years, the number of mission boards with mission stations on ths island increased dramatically. In early 1948, the only missionaries on the island were Roman Catholics and British and Canadian Presbyterians. Neoevangelicals had yet to take their first step.
Later that same year, however, a lone Southern Baptist
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
worker, Bertha Smith, took it upon herself to move from mainland China to Taiwan and begin organizing a church among newly arrived mainlander, Mandarin-speaking refugees.
A couple representing the Assemblies of God
Assemblies of God
The Assemblies of God , officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 140 autonomous but loosely-associated national groupings of churches which together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination...
, the major Pentecostal denomination, also moved to the island from Shanghai in 1948. Finally, the Assembly Hall Church sent its own representatives to the island. Witness Lee
Witness Lee
Witness Lee was a Chinese Christian preacher associated with the Local Churches movement, and the founder of the Living Stream Ministry. He was born in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a born again Christian in 1925 after hearing the...
, Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee was a Chinese Christian author and church leader during the early 20th century. He spent the last 20 years of his life in prison and was severely persecuted by the Communists in China. Together with Wangzai, Zhou-An Lee, Shang-Jie Song, and others, Nee founded The Church Assembly...
's lieutenant, came to the island with other members of this large indigenous Chinese church. Under Lee's watchful eye, they set to work among the new refugees. By 1954, the total missionary community stood at over three hundred. Twenty-five denominations and independent churches that had not been engaged in evangelical and church plantiung work in Taiwan before 1945 were now represented on the island.
Seven conciliar churches took part in this new endeavour. These included the Episcopalian
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
, Lutheran, Methodist, and Reformed
Reformed Church in America
The Reformed Church in America is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 170,000 members, with the total declining in recent decades. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1819, it...
(Congregationalist) churches. While conciliar denominations and mission boards joined in this expanded enterprise, the majority of missionaries sent to Taiwan came from the neoevangelical, the Pentecostal, and the Holiness churches. Southern Baptists, Conservative Baptists
Conservative Baptists
Conservative Baptists is a name used to describe members of the Conservative Baptist Association of America , used loosely as the larger "Conservative Baptist Movement", or used as a description of Baptists that hold a "conservative" viewpoint of theology in contrast to "liberals"...
, Bible Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Assemblies of God, and Christian and Mission Alliance and Oriental Mission Society missionaries all converged on this small island.
Many of the missions were quite small; one missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
or a single missionary family might represent one denomination. But certain major bodies or categories of churches did send large numbers of men and women into the newly opened field This Western mission community continued to expand over the course of the 1950s. By 1959, there were more than six hundred Protestant missionaries in place. By 1960, churches representing most of the major denominations had managed to root themselves in the island's life.
The Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, had only a handful of members in the early 1950s but, by 1959, church leaders counted 7,315 Chinese in their church. Seventh Day Adventist membership reached twenty-thousand during this same period, and other denominational churches also experienced similar growth.
Southern Baptists in Taiwan
In conditions born of the chaos of the Nationalist defeat in mainland China, the Taiwan mission was born. Southern Baptist misisonaries who had come to the island in 1948, along with other Mandarin-speaking refugees, soon started to work with a small group of Chinese BaptistsChinese Baptist Convention
The Chinese Baptist Convention is a cooperative association of Baptist churches in Taiwan and the territories administered by the Republic of China.- Background :...
who had fled their homeland. By 1949, had its first Baptist congregation.
Many Taiwanese, in 1949, expected that an invasion by the new Communist regime
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
was at hand. The Korean War had not yet broken out and the island was seen many Americans and Chinese as unprotected and vulnerable. Accordingly, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Foreign Mission Board decided not to commit its personnel or its resources to a mission and to assign any missionaries who wanted to work with Chinese to one of the overseas Chinese communities in Hong Kong or the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
The Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, launched early in the summer of 1950, changed the course of American policy. The United States began treating the Nationalist regime as the legitimate government of China. As the Seventh Fleet began patrolling the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...
, military advisors arrived and both military and humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
was provided. The administrators of the SBC Foreign Mission Board, then realizing that the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
was likely to continue to exist, began committing its personnel and resources to a missionary enterprise in Taiwan.
The Southern Baptists' Taiwan Mission enjoyed an impressive first decade, and the Taiwanese Baptist community began to grow. The reasons are varied but a central thread is the Baptists' willingness to use the classical time-proven techniques that they had developed in their decades in mainland China. Again, they used the pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
and public gathering places to make their faith known. They distributed tracts. They set up reading centres and bookstores. They held large-scale revival meetings. They organized summer retreats and Bible camps. They set up a seminary to instruct Chinese church workers and future administrators and to train Chinese Baptist ministers. Finally, they helped their Chinese brethren organize a Taiwan Baptist Convention.
Conservative Baptist Mission
Another Baptist group that began its work in Taiwan during the missionary invasion of the 1950s was the Conservative BaptistConservative Baptists
Conservative Baptists is a name used to describe members of the Conservative Baptist Association of America , used loosely as the larger "Conservative Baptist Movement", or used as a description of Baptists that hold a "conservative" viewpoint of theology in contrast to "liberals"...
Mission. It established itself in Taiwan in 1952 when eight missionaries arrived on the island. The members of the Conservative Baptist Mission decided to work with Taiwanese rather than with mainlanders, as the Southern Baptists had. They focused their efforts on Nantou
Nantou County
Nantou County is the second largest county of Taiwan. It is also the only landlocked county in Taiwan. Its name derives from the Hoanya Taiwanese aboriginal word Ramtau. Nantou County is officially administered as a county of Taiwan....
and Yulin
Yulin
Yulin may refer to the following locations in China:* Yulin, Guangxi , prefecture-level city* Yulin, Shaanxi , prefecture-level city** Yulin Xisha Airport , serving Yulin, Shaanxi* Yulin Port , port in Sanya, Hainan...
counties and eventually were able to extend their efforts to Changhwa and Taichung
Taichung
-Demographics:Taichung’s population was an estimated 1,040,725 in August 2006. There are slightly more females in the city than males.24.32% of residents are children, while 16.63% are young people, 52.68% are middle-age, and 6.73% are elderly....
. By 1960 they were able to plant five congregations. They also established preaching stations that helped to further the outreach process. They built a Bible school in Xilo and thus were able to train church workers, Sunday School
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
teachers and pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
s. Ralph Covell, the leader of this mission, helped publish a magazine, Voice of Evangel and promoted the idea of reading centres. He stressed outreach to mountain people
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
as well as to Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
, as demonstrated by his attempt to translate Christian works into Sediq
Seediq people
The Seediq are a Taiwanese aboriginal people who live primarily in Nantou County and Hualien County. Their language is also known as Seediq. They were officially recognised as Taiwan's 14th indigenous group on 23 April 2008...
, one of the aborigine languages. He became one of the most famous missionaries on the island and the converts he and his fellow pioneers gathered in numbered more than four hundred. Thus, it may be said that these first years were successful ones and demonstrated that neoevangelical missionaries could work with the majority of Taiwanese as well as mainlanders.
Assemblies of God in Taiwan
By 1948, as the Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
neared its climax, there were eighty eight Assemblies of God missionaries in China. One hundred and forty eight churches had been planted and the total number of converts was seven thousand five hundred. The missionaries also worked in education. Six Bible schools were in operation by the late 1940s. The Assemblies of God, so well established throughout mainland China, decided that these efforts were being threatened and, in 1948, took a tentative step toward developing another rehion of China. Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, they thought, would prove a safe haven for their missionaries and would serve as a starting point for evangelism. Two families of missionaries from the Assemblies of God arrived in Taiwan from Shanghai in 1948.
These missionaries launched revivals and held weekly services to build a new Pentecostal community among the mainland Chinese on the island. They managed to attract both Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...
as well as mainlander and in just two years, from 1948 to 1950, they established the core of a church community. But just as the missionaries began to make progress, they were ordered out by a cautious foreign mission board for fear of a communist invasion of the island.
A year later, the Pentecostal missionaries returned to the island and regressed the situation. In 1952, the Assemblies of God decided to recommit itself to Taiwan, the now militarily secure Republic of China. Thus, this year marks the true beginning of the Assemblies' enterprise in Taiwan. The missionaries based themselves in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
and worked with the mainlander refugee population. Here they met with some success for they were able to reach Chinese who had been AG church members in mainland China. The missionaries created the Taukang Bible School in Taipei specifically to train a core of Chinese workers who could lead the Taiwan Assemblies of God
Taiwan Assemblies of God
The Taiwan Assemblies of God is a Chinese Pentecostal church that was established in Taiwan since 1952. The church was founded by and continues to have strong ties to the Springfield, Missouri based Assemblies of God, the largest of the American Pentecostal denominations .-Historical background:In...
. Construction began in 1953, and the school opened its doors in the fall of 1954 . By 1957, seven churches had been established in the Taipei basin, and chapels had been established in several areas.
Lutheran Church in Taiwan
As was true of the other major refugee missions, the LutheranLutheran Church of China
The Lutheran Church of China or LCC was a Lutheran church body in China from 1920 to 1951. It was established as a result of the consultations between the various Lutheran missionary bodies in China that was initiated during the China Centenary Missionary Conference held in Shanghai in 1907...
s were able to develop a presence in Taiwan in the 1950s. Missionaries who had worked in mainland China settled in the Taiwan's major cities and began working with Mandarin-speaking Chinese. the first Lutheran congregation was established in Kaohsiung in 1951. By 1954, a few more congregations had been established and together these developed into the Taiwan Lutheran Church
Taiwan Lutheran Church
The Taiwan Lutheran Church was started by the work of former LCC members and expelled missionaries from China who had worked with the LCC. In April 1950, Chin Chung-an, a medical doctor from Xian conducted family meetings in his residence in Kaoshiung. On June 3, 1951, the Kaoshiung congregation...
. While missionaries did play a role in the life of this church, it was from the start a self-governing body with Chinese serving as president and members of the administration.
By 1960, there were twenty Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
congregations in Taiwan. both a Bible school and a theological seminary had been established. There, Chinese were trained to work in the congregations, in church reading centres, and in preaching stations. The church had been able to find a home in Taiwan and looked ahead to future growth and expansion.
Assembly Hall Church in Taiwan
The Assembly Hall Church was founded on the Chinese mainland in the 1920s. The dynamic and iconoclastIconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
ic leader of this church was Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee was a Chinese Christian author and church leader during the early 20th century. He spent the last 20 years of his life in prison and was severely persecuted by the Communists in China. Together with Wangzai, Zhou-An Lee, Shang-Jie Song, and others, Nee founded The Church Assembly...
. He had been a student in the Anglican-run Trinity College in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
when he began attending home worship services Leland Wang, a lay evangelist. Wang created an informal and understructured form of Christianity that used the home rather than the church as the centre of worship. Fuzhou
Fuzhou
Fuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area....
, a treaty port
Treaty ports
The treaty ports was the name given to the port cities in China, Japan, and Korea that were opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties.-Chinese treaty ports:...
city in Fujian Province, became the initial centre of this movement. In 1928, after serving Wang as an evangelist outsie of China, Ni broke away from this church and founded his own Assembly Hall Church.
The church, born in the midst of nationalist revolution and anti-Christian feeling, at first rejected missionaries and the Anglo-American thrust of Chinese Protestantism as it then existed. Church leaders preached a new Sinified Christianity.
But Nee realised that there were still lessons to be learned. He developed a relationship with members of the Exclusive Brethren
Exclusive Brethren
The Exclusive Brethren are a subset of the Christian evangelical movement generally described as the Plymouth Brethren. They are distinguished from the Open Brethren from whom they separated in 1848....
. Nee had been taught by a China Inland Mission
China Inland Mission
OMF International is an interdenominational Protestant Christian missionary society, founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.-Overview:...
member who belonged to the Brethren, and this woman greatly affected his subsequent development as a Christian leader. In 1947, he went to Taiwan to establish a pharmaceutical factory, to train church workers, and buy land for the church on the island. He returned to mainland China, handing over the leadership of the new Taiwan church to Witness Lee
Witness Lee
Witness Lee was a Chinese Christian preacher associated with the Local Churches movement, and the founder of the Living Stream Ministry. He was born in the city of Yantai, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He became a born again Christian in 1925 after hearing the...
.
Witness Lee, Nee's hand-picked Lieutenant, became leader of the émigré
Émigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
church in Taiwan. By August 1949, there was a small Assembly Hall Church established in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
and, within three months, its membership increased from three hundred to a thousand. The church was seen by many as a Mandarin church, and thus, many refugees considered it a church home. The 1950s saw the church expand dramatically in the major cities of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
where populations of the newly arrived mainlanders could be found. Many evangelistic techniques that had been developed in mainland China were put to good use in the church's new home base. Evangelistic crusades were held, tracts were published, and new church centres were organised. Lee also visited the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, where he obtained funds and helped to spread the word of his church.
Notable Christian politicians in Taiwan
Several high-profile leaders in Taiwan have been Christians including the late President Chiang Kai-shekChiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo , Kuomintang politician and leader, was the son of President Chiang Kai-shek and held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China...
, former President Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui is a politician of the Republic of China . He was the 7th, 8th, and 9th-term President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000. He presided over major advancements in democratic reforms including his own re-election which marked the first direct...
, and previous dissident/senior democracy-independence leader and previous presidential candidate Peng Ming-Min
Peng Ming-min
Peng Ming-min is a noted Taiwan independence activist and politician. Arrested for sedition in 1964 for printing a manifesto advocating Taiwanese independence, he dramatically escaped from Taiwan to the United States and after 22 years in exile, returned to became the Democratic Progressive...
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Further reading
- Formosa under the Dutch, Taipei, Ch'eng-wen Pub. Co., 1967, by Wm Campbell.
- Hallington K. Tong, Christianity in Taiwan.
- Day Journal of Commander Caeuw, Zeelandia, October 21, 1661.