Protestant missions in China 1807-1953
Encyclopedia
In the early 19th century, Western colonial expansion occurred at the same time as an evangelical
revival (often called the Great Awakening
) throughout the English-speaking world, leading to more overseas missionary activity. The nineteenth century became known as "The Great Century" of modern religious mission
s.
Beginning with the English missionary Robert Morrison in 1807, a new generation of Protestant men (and sometimes their wives) led an extended encounter between China and Western culture. They generally represented Protestant denominations. The missionaries entered China at a time of growing power by the British East India Company
, but for decades were restricted to a few areas. The British fleet attacked Canton and Nanking in the First Opium War
and extracted concessions in 1842. By 1860 France entered the military conflict with China and together the Europeans extracted more concessions following the Second Opium War
. At the same time, China had been suffering numerous internal rebellions, the most serious of which was the Taiping Rebellion
, which the Europeans helped suppress to protect their agreements with the Manchu
government. They forced the government to allow missionaries throughout China, and to allow the people to practice Christianity if they chose.
reached Canton
via the United States
, despite the opposition of the British East India Company
. The captain of his ship said, "And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect to make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese empire?." Morrison's reply was: "No, sir, I expect God will."
After 25 years of intense work, Morrison had translated the whole Bible
into Chinese, but only 10 Chinese agreed to baptism. The first was Tsae A-Ko
, the first known Chinese Protestant Christian. Protestant missionaries such as Morrison worked to distribute the translated Scriptures
as broadly as possible. They believed that earlier Roman Catholic translation work had never been published, and failed to appreciate the method of the seventeenth-century Portuguese
missionary, , who created works that used Chinese ideograms and pictures to present Christian concepts.
Morrison worked with contemporary missionaries Walter Henry Medhurst
and William Milne (the printers), Samuel Dyer
, Karl Gutzlaff
(the Prussia
n linguist), and Peter Parker
(China's first medical missionary). For years, the Chinese restricted them to Guangzhou
(Canton) and Macau
, where some foreigners were allowed. The missionaries concentrated on distributing their literature among members of the merchant class, gained a few converts, and laid the foundations for more educational and medical work.
Under the "fundamental laws" of China, one section is titled "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions, prohibited." The Jiaqing Emperor
in 1814 A.D. added a sixth clause in this section with reference to Christianity. It was modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the Daoguang Emperor
. It sentenced Europeans to death for spreading Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus (tartars). Christians who would not repent their conversion were sent to Muslim cities in Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and bey
s.
Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and Romanism, since the law was directed at Romanism, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835-6 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in "Canton who had supplied them with books." The foreign missionaries were strangled or expelled by the Chinese.
The British East India Company
was determined to force China to trade with the West. At an early date, they had found that opium
grown in British India to be a profitable export commodity. Although opium was known in China, the emperor
had forbidden its importation because of the effects of overuse. By circumventing the law, some Chinese traders prospered. In 1839, the Chinese court ordered the confiscation of all opium in Chinese warehouses and from British ships in Canton: 20,000 cases of opium were burned to destroy it. British merchants protested the interference with their trade. In 1841 the British fleet attacked Canton, demanding reparations, including the concession of Hong Kong
. This was the beginning of the First Opium War
. In 1842 the fleet attacked Nanjing
(Nanking) and defeated the Chinese.
By the Treaty of Nanking
(1842), the British forced the Chinese to grant Western nations five ports for residence and trade, plus several other concessions, including Hong Kong to British rule, indemnity for opium destroyed, and British monitoring of tariff rates. The following year (1843), the British forced the emperor to grant extraterritoriality
to all British citizens. This meant that Chinese officials no longer had jurisdiction over the British. Foreigners, "when they were defendants in any criminal action against Chinese, were to be tried under their own laws and by their own authority; in civil cases with Chinese they might invoke the aid of their consuls; and in controversies among themselves they were not to be subject either to Chinese laws or courts." China refused to permit foreigners to travel inland, and restricted missionaries to Canton, Amoy
, Fuzhou
, Ningbo
, and Shanghai
.
Due to the breakdown of the terms, however, the Second Opium War
broke out in 1856. The French
joined the British
and made the conflict more unequal than before. When peace was declared in 1860, the Europeans forced the Chinese government to increase its concessions. They objected to the "most favoured nation" clause, under which the Chinese had to grant the same privileges to all foreign nations alike. The Europeans were trying to prevent any one nation from gaining an upper hand in securing trade concessions. They also insisted on China's giving freedom to missionaries to proclaim their faith and allow them to travel inland. China had to grant its people the right to convert to Christianity.
At this time France
publicly championed the Catholic missions. The government forced China to restore church properties which had been appropriated during its repression of Catholicism
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, "regardless of how many Chinese owners had altered or used them for other purposes during the intervening years." While the British government did not sponsor any particular Protestants (the Anglican Church was the state religion), missionaries generally believed they would be aided in emergencies. The era of "missionary gunboat
policy" had begun. Religious leaders believed bringing Christianity to China was nothing but good.
Chinese leaders found these conditions outrageous. Within a period of nearly 30 years in the mid-nineteenth century, the country dealt with six major rebellions, the average duration of which was nearly 14 years. Widely scattered, the disturbances erupted in all parts of China except the northeast. At least 20 million people were estimated to have died in the Taiping Rebellion
(1848–1865), with associated social costs. The widespread unrest was due to the pressure of population growth in an agricultural economy, coupled with the inability of the government to provide adequate livelihood for all. China had not gone through an industrial revolution.
The Taiping Rebellion was said to begin with Hong Xiuquan
, an unsuccessful candidate for the civil service examinations, which were critical for entry into government. He read a lengthy Christian treatise. (It was compiled by Lung-Fan
, a Malacca
n convert of one of Morrison's colleagues). Hong Xiuquan claimed to have a vision and to be called by God to cleanse the country of idolatry and corruption. His goal was to establish a heavenly kingdom known as the Tài Píng (Great Peace).
In recent years, scholars have reviewed the Taiping Rebellion and its historical and religious context. They note the underlying conditions: the decay of the organized religions (Buddhism
and Taoism
) and the dominance of the official Confucian
cult by the Manchu dynasty
, resented as foreigners. The time was ripe for the emergence of a new religious movement to replace the older faiths and pave the way for a political renaissance
that would be Chinese through and through. It was the strongest rebellion to confront the Manchu dynasty, "a product of China's new contact with European civilization and the most positive consequence of Christian missionary enterprise, ignored by the missionaries themselves and finally destroyed by the armed intervention of the Christian powers."
Hong Xiuquan did not have a traditional view of the Gospel
, although he possessed a complete Bible
. Following his conversion, he served for some years as a missionary among his own clan. He taught his converts to oppose all existing religions, and particularly Buddhism, because he considered it idolatrous and to regard both Confucius and the Manchus as devils. The government charged Hung with promoting civil disorder. His supporter and police engaged in armed conflict.
During the early years of the Taiping Movement, prominent missionaries, such as William C. Burns
and William Alexander Parsons Martin
, encouraged what they saw as efforts to achieve religious and social reform. The Taiping followers forbade such practices as foot-binding of women and the use of opium, elevated the social position of women, lowered taxation, and made those who earned more pay more. Wanting China opened to Western trade and travel, they appeared more friendly to the foreigners than the Manchu government.
The Taiping Movement was pro-missionary. The Anglican bishop of Hong Kong "frequently asserted his conviction that the Taiping movement was a Christian crusade, if perhaps unorthodox and ill-instructed in certain doctrines." By 1860, however, following years of civil unrest and after the British and French authorities exacted their concessions from the Manchus, the missionary community had begun to feel threatened by the original religion of Taiping. They believed it was a superstitious distortion of proper Christianity.
In 1860 Protestant missions were confined to five coastal cities. By the end of the century, however, the picture had vastly changed. Scores of new societies had been organized, and several thousand missionaries were working in all parts of China. The 1859 Awakening
in Britain
and the example of J. Hudson Taylor
(1832–1905) helped increase missionaries in China. By 1865 when the China Inland Mission
began, there were already 30 different Protestant groups at work in China. In the seven provinces in which Protestant missionaries had already been working, there were an estimated 204 million people with only 91 workers. Inland China had eleven other provinces with a population estimated at 197 million, where there were no missionaries. Besides the London Missionary Society, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
, missionaries were affiliated with Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, American Reformed Mission
, Methodists, Episcopalians
, and Wesleyans
. Most 19th-century missionaries came from Great Britain
, the United States
, Sweden
, France
, Germany
, Switzerland
, or the Netherlands, primarily Protestant nations.
The Protestant missionary movement distributed numerous copies of the Bible, as well as other printed works of history and science. They established and developed schools, and introduced the latest techniques in medicine. Traditional Chinese teachers viewed the mission schools with suspicion; the schools offered basic education to poor Chinese, both boys and girls. In the days before the Chinese Republic, they would have otherwise received no formal schooling.
Hudson Taylor arrived in China in 1854 at the age of 21, affiliated with the Chinese Evangelization Society
. At first he worked mostly in Shanghai and Ningbo. By 1860 he was back in England
, broken in health and with little prospect of returning. His society had nearly dissolved through poor management. Taylor's future looked dark, but he was "challenged by the open Bible and the ever-accusing map."
Taylor was invited to write articles on the needs of the "Ningpo Mission", to be published in a Baptist magazine. He agreed, eager to promote this work and recruit people to work in the small clinic he had established. William Garrett Lewis
, the editor, liked the articles and asked for more. He told Taylor: "Add to them....Let them cover the whole field...as an appeal for inland China." Taylor agreed but his work prompted more concerns. His biographer gave the details:
The articles were collected and published as China's Spiritual Need and Claims
. It became a bestseller among the evangelicals of Victorian England. Taylor said his research showed
He wanted to arouse the churches of the West to reach out to the people in China. Soon, churches on both sides of the Atlantic were awakened. Many new societies were formed and hundreds of workers were recruited, largely from the thousands of university students influenced by the ministry of D. L. Moody. In 1865 Taylor founded the China Inland Mission
to implement his vision of widespread preaching of the Gospel in China. By 1895 this society counted 641 missionaries, 462 Chinese helpers, 260 stations and outstations, and 5,211 communicants. Non-denominational, evangelical and international, this society became the model for the worldwide "faith mission" movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Taylor has been called one of the significant figures in Chinese history in the 1800s.
Other influential Protestant missionaries of the nineteenth century included the Americans William Ament, Justus Doolittle
, Chester Holcombe
, Henry W. Luce
, William Alexander Parsons Martin
, Calvin Wilson Mateer, Lottie Moon
, John Livingstone Nevius
, and Arthur Henderson Smith. Prominent British missionaries included James Legge
, Walter Henry Medhurst
, and William Edward Soothill
.
In the Boxer Rebellion or Uprising, Chinese attacked Christians and foreigners. The Europeans and Americans counted 182 Protestant missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants killed in the attacks, but the numbers of native deaths was higher. The China Inland Mission lost more members than any other agency: 58 adults and 21 children were killed. In 1901, when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor refused to accept payment. He wanted to demonstrate "the meekness of Christ" to the Chinese.
Other missionaries, such as William Ament, gained support of United States Army troops to confiscate goods and property from Boxers and alleged Boxers to compensate Christian families. Critics of such actions included the writer Mark Twain
, who noted the "reverend bandits of the American Board."
Veteran missionary Griffith John
noted afterward:
After 1900 American missionary education changed its goals from saving individual Chinese souls to transforming Chinese society. Before 1890 schools were a supplement to evangelistic work, but missionary educators after 1900 generally committed to teaching for the sake of education. They tried to educate leaders in every field of society, who would play key roles in making China a Westernized, Christian society. The change reflected ideological and theological climates at home, as well as their accumulated field experience, and perception of new Chinese situations. The unique experiences of missionaries in China and the change of Chinese attitudes toward Western civilization also affected the new emphasis of missionary education.
In the 1890s, the effects of opium use were largely undocumented in scientific form. Protestant missionaries in China decided to compile data to demonstrate the harm of the drug, which they had fully observed. They were outraged that the British Royal Commission on Opium
visited India but not China. They organized the Anti-Opium League in China among their colleagues in every mission station, for which the American missionary Hampden Coit DuBose
served as the first president. This organization was instrumental in gathering data from every Western-trained medical doctor in China, most of whom were missionaries. They published their data and conclusions in 1899 as Opinions of Over 100 Physicians on the Use of Opium in China. The survey included doctors in private practices, particularly in Shanghai and Hong Kong, as well as Chinese who had been trained in medical schools in Western countries.
In England, the home director of the China Inland Mission, Benjamin Broomhall
was an active opponent of the opium trade; he wrote two books to promote banning opium smoking: "Truth about Opium Smoking" and "The Chinese Opium Smoker". In 1888 Broomhall formed and became secretary of the "Christian Union for the Severance of the British Empire with the Opium Traffic" and editor of its periodical, National Righteousness. He lobbied the British Parliament to stop the opium trade. He and James Laidlaw Maxwell
appealed to the London Missionary Conference of 1888 and the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 to condemn the trade. As he lay dying, the government signed an agreement to end the opium trade within two years.
The area of work expanded both geographically and socially. A musician and an engineer named James O. Fraser
was the first to bring the Gospel message to the Lisu tribes of Yunnan
in southwest China. This resulted in phenomenal church growth among the various tribes in the area that endured to the 21st century.
The Warlord
period brought widespread lawlessness to China, making missionary work more risky. The May Fourth Movement
criticized all religions and led to the Anti-Christian campaigns
of the early 1920s, and the Northern Expedition of 1925–1927 led to the unification of China under the Nationalist Party
. During this time, missionaries were attacked and Christian schools subjected to government regulation. Nationalist laws required that all organizations have Chinese leadership. Many missionaries left China, support in home countries waned, and the numbers of foreign missionaries never recovered.
Criticism and calls for reform came from within the missionary community as well. Partly as a result of the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy missions came under questioning. Pearl S. Buck
for instance, returned to the United States to ask "Is There a Case for Foreign Missionaries?" and the Layman's Inquiry Commission presented a culturally liberal critique. Buck's twin biographies of her parents, Fighting Angel
and The Exile
dramatized the charges that foreign missions were a form of imperialism.
In 1934 John and Betty Stam
were murdered by Communist soldiers. Their biography The Triumph of John and Betty Stam inspired a generation of missionaries to follow in service despite the warfare and persecution of missionaries during the 1930s and 1940s.
When the Japanese invaded China in World War II
, the China Inland Mission moved its headquarters up the Yangzi River to Chongqing
. The Japanese put many missionaries into concentration camps until the end of the war, for they were at war with their nations. One such camp was at Weifang
. The entire Chefoo School
run by the mission at Yantai
was imprisoned at a concentration camp.
In 1900 there were an estimated 100,000 Christians in China. By 1950 the number had increased to 700,000. Helped by strong leaders such as John Sung
, Wang Ming-Dao
, and Andrew Gih, the Chinese Christian church began to become an indigenous movement.
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
revival (often called the Great Awakening
Great Awakening
The term Great Awakening is used to refer to a period of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century...
) throughout the English-speaking world, leading to more overseas missionary activity. The nineteenth century became known as "The Great Century" of modern religious mission
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
s.
Beginning with the English missionary Robert Morrison in 1807, a new generation of Protestant men (and sometimes their wives) led an extended encounter between China and Western culture. They generally represented Protestant denominations. The missionaries entered China at a time of growing power by the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, but for decades were restricted to a few areas. The British fleet attacked Canton and Nanking in the First Opium War
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
and extracted concessions in 1842. By 1860 France entered the military conflict with China and together the Europeans extracted more concessions following the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
. At the same time, China had been suffering numerous internal rebellions, the most serious of which was the Taiping Rebellion
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...
, which the Europeans helped suppress to protect their agreements with 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...
government. They forced the government to allow missionaries throughout China, and to allow the people to practice Christianity if they chose.
Missionary activity, 1807–1839
In 1807, Robert Morrison of the London Missionary SocietyLondon Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...
reached Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
via the United States
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, despite the opposition of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. The captain of his ship said, "And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect to make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese empire?." Morrison's reply was: "No, sir, I expect God will."
After 25 years of intense work, Morrison had translated the whole 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 Chinese, but only 10 Chinese agreed to baptism. The first was Tsae A-Ko
Tsae A-Ko
Tsae A-Ko was the first known Chinese Protestant Christian. He was baptized by Robert Morrison at Macau about 1814. Morrison acknowledged the imperfection of this man's knowledge, but he relied on the words, " If thou believest with all thy heart ! " and then he administered the rite...
, the first known Chinese Protestant Christian. Protestant missionaries such as Morrison worked to distribute the translated Scriptures
Chinese Bible Translations
Chinese Bible translations mean all works on translating whole or parts of the Bible into the many dialects of Chinese language. The creation of Chinese Bible Translations began in the nineteenth century, but availability only became widespread in the early twentieth century.-Catholic translation...
as broadly as possible. They believed that earlier Roman Catholic translation work had never been published, and failed to appreciate the method of the seventeenth-century Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
missionary, , who created works that used Chinese ideograms and pictures to present Christian concepts.
Morrison worked with contemporary missionaries Walter Henry Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst , was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School, was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese language editions.-Early life:...
and William Milne (the printers), Samuel Dyer
Samuel Dyer
Samuel Dyer 台約爾 , was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China in the Congregationalist tradition, who worked among the Chinese in Malaysia. He arrived in Penang in 1827. Dyer, his wife Maria, and their family lived in Malacca and then finally in Singapore...
, Karl Gutzlaff
Karl Gützlaff
Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff , anglicised as Charles Gutzlaff, was a German missionary to the Far East, notable as one of the first Protestant missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand and for his books about China. He was one of the first Protestant missionaries in China to dress like a Chinese...
(the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n linguist), and Peter Parker
Peter Parker (physician)
Peter Parker was an American physician and a missionary who introduced Western medical techniques into Qing Dynasty China. It was said that Parker "opened China to the gospel at the point of a lancet."- Early life :...
(China's first medical missionary). For years, the Chinese restricted them to Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
(Canton) and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, where some foreigners were allowed. The missionaries concentrated on distributing their literature among members of the merchant class, gained a few converts, and laid the foundations for more educational and medical work.
Under the "fundamental laws" of China, one section is titled "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions, prohibited." The Jiaqing Emperor
Jiaqing Emperor
The Jiaqing Emperor was the seventh emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and the fifth Qing emperor to rule over China, from 1796 to 1820....
in 1814 A.D. added a sixth clause in this section with reference to Christianity. It was modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the Daoguang Emperor
Daoguang Emperor
The Daoguang Emperor was the eighth emperor of the Manchurian Qing dynasty and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China, from 1820 to 1850.-Early years:...
. It sentenced Europeans to death for spreading Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus (tartars). Christians who would not repent their conversion were sent to Muslim cities in Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and bey
Baig
- History & Origins:The name Baig originates from a Turkic clan called Barlas . They played a pivotal role in Turko-Persian empires in Central Asia, Middle East and South Asia....
s.
The clause stated: "People of the Western Ocean, [Europeans or Portuguese,] should they propagate in the country the religion of heaven's Lord, [name given to Christianity by the Romanists,] or clandestinely print books, or collect congregations to be preached to, and thereby deceive many people, or should any Tartars or Chinese, in their turn, propagate the doctrines and clandestinely give names, (as in baptism,) inflaming and misleading many, if proved by authentic testimony, the head or leader shall be sentenced to immediate death by strangulations : he who propagates the religion, inflaming and deceiving the people, if the number be not large, and no names be given, shall be sentenced to strangulation after a period of imprisonment. Those who are merely hearers or followers of the doctrine, if they will not repent and recant, shall be transported to the Mohammedan cities (in Turkistan) and given to be slaves to the beys and other powerful Mohammedans who are able to coerce them. . . . All civil and military officers who may fail to detect Europeans clandestinely residing in the country within their jurisdiction, and propagating their religion, thereby deceiving the multitude, shall be delivered over to the Supreme Board and be subjected to a court of inquiry."
Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and Romanism, since the law was directed at Romanism, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835-6 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in "Canton who had supplied them with books." The foreign missionaries were strangled or expelled by the Chinese.
Two Opium Wars, 1839–1860
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
was determined to force China to trade with the West. At an early date, they had found that opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
grown in British India to be a profitable export commodity. Although opium was known in China, the emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
had forbidden its importation because of the effects of overuse. By circumventing the law, some Chinese traders prospered. In 1839, the Chinese court ordered the confiscation of all opium in Chinese warehouses and from British ships in Canton: 20,000 cases of opium were burned to destroy it. British merchants protested the interference with their trade. In 1841 the British fleet attacked Canton, demanding reparations, including the concession of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. This was the beginning of the First Opium War
First Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
. In 1842 the fleet attacked Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
(Nanking) and defeated the Chinese.
By the Treaty of Nanking
Treaty of Nanking
The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China...
(1842), the British forced the Chinese to grant Western nations five ports for residence and trade, plus several other concessions, including Hong Kong to British rule, indemnity for opium destroyed, and British monitoring of tariff rates. The following year (1843), the British forced the emperor to grant extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Extraterritoriality can also be applied to physical places, such as military bases of foreign countries, or offices of the United Nations...
to all British citizens. This meant that Chinese officials no longer had jurisdiction over the British. Foreigners, "when they were defendants in any criminal action against Chinese, were to be tried under their own laws and by their own authority; in civil cases with Chinese they might invoke the aid of their consuls; and in controversies among themselves they were not to be subject either to Chinese laws or courts." China refused to permit foreigners to travel inland, and restricted missionaries to Canton, Amoy
Amoy
Xiamen, or Amoy, is a city on the southeast coast of China.Amoy may also refer to:*Amoy dialect, a dialect of the Hokkien lects, which are part of the Southern Min group of Chinese languages...
, 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....
, Ningbo
Ningbo
Ningbo is a seaport city of northeastern Zhejiang province, Eastern China. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, the municipality has a population of 7,605,700 inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 3,089,180 in the built up area made of 6 urban districts. It lies south of the Hangzhou Bay,...
, and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
.
Due to the breakdown of the terms, however, the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
broke out in 1856. The French
French colonial empires
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
joined the British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and made the conflict more unequal than before. When peace was declared in 1860, the Europeans forced the Chinese government to increase its concessions. They objected to the "most favoured nation" clause, under which the Chinese had to grant the same privileges to all foreign nations alike. The Europeans were trying to prevent any one nation from gaining an upper hand in securing trade concessions. They also insisted on China's giving freedom to missionaries to proclaim their faith and allow them to travel inland. China had to grant its people the right to convert to Christianity.
At this time France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
publicly championed the Catholic missions. The government forced China to restore church properties which had been appropriated during its repression of Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, "regardless of how many Chinese owners had altered or used them for other purposes during the intervening years." While the British government did not sponsor any particular Protestants (the Anglican Church was the state religion), missionaries generally believed they would be aided in emergencies. The era of "missionary gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
policy" had begun. Religious leaders believed bringing Christianity to China was nothing but good.
Chinese leaders found these conditions outrageous. Within a period of nearly 30 years in the mid-nineteenth century, the country dealt with six major rebellions, the average duration of which was nearly 14 years. Widely scattered, the disturbances erupted in all parts of China except the northeast. At least 20 million people were estimated to have died in the Taiping Rebellion
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...
(1848–1865), with associated social costs. The widespread unrest was due to the pressure of population growth in an agricultural economy, coupled with the inability of the government to provide adequate livelihood for all. China had not gone through an industrial revolution.
Taiping Rebellion
Hong Xiuquan
Hong Xiuquan , born Hong Renkun, style name Huoxiu , was a Hakka Chinese who led the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, establishing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom over varying portions of southern China, with himself as the "Heavenly King" and self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ.-Early...
, an unsuccessful candidate for the civil service examinations, which were critical for entry into government. He read a lengthy Christian treatise. (It was compiled by Lung-Fan
Liang Fa
Liang Fa was the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist. He was ordained by Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China....
, a Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
n convert of one of Morrison's colleagues). Hong Xiuquan claimed to have a vision and to be called by God to cleanse the country of idolatry and corruption. His goal was to establish a heavenly kingdom known as the Tài Píng (Great Peace).
In recent years, scholars have reviewed the Taiping Rebellion and its historical and religious context. They note the underlying conditions: the decay of the organized religions (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...
and Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
) and the dominance of the official Confucian
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...
cult by the Manchu 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....
, resented as foreigners. The time was ripe for the emergence of a new religious movement to replace the older faiths and pave the way for a political renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
that would be Chinese through and through. It was the strongest rebellion to confront the Manchu dynasty, "a product of China's new contact with European civilization and the most positive consequence of Christian missionary enterprise, ignored by the missionaries themselves and finally destroyed by the armed intervention of the Christian powers."
Hong Xiuquan did not have a traditional view of the Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
, although he possessed a complete 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...
. Following his conversion, he served for some years as a missionary among his own clan. He taught his converts to oppose all existing religions, and particularly Buddhism, because he considered it idolatrous and to regard both Confucius and the Manchus as devils. The government charged Hung with promoting civil disorder. His supporter and police engaged in armed conflict.
During the early years of the Taiping Movement, prominent missionaries, such as William C. Burns
William Chalmers Burns
William Chalmers Burns was a Scottish Evangelist and Missionary to China with the English Presbyterian Mission who originated from Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire. He was the coordinator of the Overseas missions for the English Presbyterian church...
and William Alexander Parsons Martin
William Alexander Parsons Martin
William Alexander Parsons Martin was an American Presbyterian missionary to China and translator, famous for having translated a number of important Western treatises into Chinese, such as Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law.He graduated from Indiana University in 1846, known at that...
, encouraged what they saw as efforts to achieve religious and social reform. The Taiping followers forbade such practices as foot-binding of women and the use of opium, elevated the social position of women, lowered taxation, and made those who earned more pay more. Wanting China opened to Western trade and travel, they appeared more friendly to the foreigners than the Manchu government.
The Taiping Movement was pro-missionary. The Anglican bishop of Hong Kong "frequently asserted his conviction that the Taiping movement was a Christian crusade, if perhaps unorthodox and ill-instructed in certain doctrines." By 1860, however, following years of civil unrest and after the British and French authorities exacted their concessions from the Manchus, the missionary community had begun to feel threatened by the original religion of Taiping. They believed it was a superstitious distortion of proper Christianity.
Missionary activity, 1860–1900
Great Awakening
The term Great Awakening is used to refer to a period of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century...
in Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the example of J. Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor , was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission . Taylor spent 51 years in China...
(1832–1905) helped increase missionaries in China. By 1865 when the 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:...
began, there were already 30 different Protestant groups at work in China. In the seven provinces in which Protestant missionaries had already been working, there were an estimated 204 million people with only 91 workers. Inland China had eleven other provinces with a population estimated at 197 million, where there were no missionaries. Besides the London Missionary Society, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was the first American Christian foreign mission agency. It was proposed in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College and officially chartered in 1812. In 1961 it merged with other societies to form the United Church Board for World...
, missionaries were affiliated with Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, American Reformed Mission
American Reformed Mission
American Reformed Mission was an American Protestant Christian missionary society of the Dutch Reformed Church , that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty.- See also:...
, Methodists, Episcopalians
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...
, and Wesleyans
Wesleyan Church
"Wesleyan" has been used in the title of a number of historic and current denominations, although the subject of this article is the only denomination to use that specific title...
. Most 19th-century missionaries came from Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, or the Netherlands, primarily Protestant nations.
The Protestant missionary movement distributed numerous copies of the Bible, as well as other printed works of history and science. They established and developed schools, and introduced the latest techniques in medicine. Traditional Chinese teachers viewed the mission schools with suspicion; the schools offered basic education to poor Chinese, both boys and girls. In the days before the Chinese Republic, they would have otherwise received no formal schooling.
Chinese Evangelization Society
The Chinese Evangelization Society was an early British Protestant Christian missionary society that was involved in sending workers to China during the late Qing Dynasty. It was founded by Karl Gützlaff. Hudson Taylor was the first missionary to be sent overseas in 1853...
. At first he worked mostly in Shanghai and Ningbo. By 1860 he was back in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, broken in health and with little prospect of returning. His society had nearly dissolved through poor management. Taylor's future looked dark, but he was "challenged by the open Bible and the ever-accusing map."
Taylor was invited to write articles on the needs of the "Ningpo Mission", to be published in a Baptist magazine. He agreed, eager to promote this work and recruit people to work in the small clinic he had established. William Garrett Lewis
William Garrett Lewis
William Garrett Lewis was a Baptist preacher and pastor of Westbourne Grove Church in Bayswater, London for 33 years. He was an apologist author of two books, Westbourne Grove Sermons and The Trades and Industrial Occupations of the Bible, published by the Religious Tract Society.- Influence...
, the editor, liked the articles and asked for more. He told Taylor: "Add to them....Let them cover the whole field...as an appeal for inland China." Taylor agreed but his work prompted more concerns. His biographer gave the details:
The articles were collected and published as China's Spiritual Need and Claims
China's Spiritual Need and Claims
China’s Spiritual Need and Claims is a book written by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, in October, 1865. It is arguably the most significant work regarding Christian missions to China in the 19th century...
. It became a bestseller among the evangelicals of Victorian England. Taylor said his research showed
He wanted to arouse the churches of the West to reach out to the people in China. Soon, churches on both sides of the Atlantic were awakened. Many new societies were formed and hundreds of workers were recruited, largely from the thousands of university students influenced by the ministry of D. L. Moody. In 1865 Taylor founded the 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:...
to implement his vision of widespread preaching of the Gospel in China. By 1895 this society counted 641 missionaries, 462 Chinese helpers, 260 stations and outstations, and 5,211 communicants. Non-denominational, evangelical and international, this society became the model for the worldwide "faith mission" movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Taylor has been called one of the significant figures in Chinese history in the 1800s.
Other influential Protestant missionaries of the nineteenth century included the Americans William Ament, Justus Doolittle
Justus Doolittle
Justus Doolittle was an American Board missionary to China.-Life:Justus Doolittle was born in Rutland, New York on June 23, 1824. In 1846 he graduated from Hamilton College, and in 1849 from Auburn Theological Seminary. Having deliberately chosen China as his field of labor, he sailed for Fuhchau...
, Chester Holcombe
Chester Holcombe
Chester Holcombe was an American missionary to China, diplomat, and author. Holcombe graduated from Union College, where he was selected to Phi Beta Kappa. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he performed missionary work in China. In 1884, S...
, Henry W. Luce
Henry W. Luce
Henry Winters Luce was an American missionary and educator in China. He was the father of the publisher Henry R. Luce.Henry W. Luce graduated from Yale University in 1892...
, William Alexander Parsons Martin
William Alexander Parsons Martin
William Alexander Parsons Martin was an American Presbyterian missionary to China and translator, famous for having translated a number of important Western treatises into Chinese, such as Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law.He graduated from Indiana University in 1846, known at that...
, Calvin Wilson Mateer, Lottie Moon
Lottie Moon
Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon was a Southern Baptist missionary to China with the Foreign Mission Board who spent nearly forty years living and working in China...
, John Livingstone Nevius
John Livingstone Nevius
John Livingston Nevius was, for forty years, a pioneering American Protestant missionary in China, appointed by the American Presbyterian Mission; his missionary ideas were also very important in the spread of the church in Korea...
, and Arthur Henderson Smith. Prominent British missionaries included James Legge
James Legge
James Legge was a noted Scottish sinologist, a Scottish Congregationalist, representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong , and first professor of Chinese at Oxford University...
, Walter Henry Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst
Walter Henry Medhurst , was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School, was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese language editions.-Early life:...
, and William Edward Soothill
William Edward Soothill
William Edward Soothill was a Methodist missionary to China who later became Professor of Chinese at Oxford University and a leading British sinologist.Born in Halifax, Yorkshire in January 1861, Soothill matriculated at London University...
.
Boxer Rebellion
The Chinese recognized the rights of the missionaries only because of the superiority of Western naval and military power. Many Chinese associated the missionaries with Western imperialism and resented them, especially the educated classes who feared changes that might threaten their position. After the Boxer rising, a new era began; many missionaries became apologetic about imperialism and began to support the Chinese government.In the Boxer Rebellion or Uprising, Chinese attacked Christians and foreigners. The Europeans and Americans counted 182 Protestant missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants killed in the attacks, but the numbers of native deaths was higher. The China Inland Mission lost more members than any other agency: 58 adults and 21 children were killed. In 1901, when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, Hudson Taylor refused to accept payment. He wanted to demonstrate "the meekness of Christ" to the Chinese.
Other missionaries, such as William Ament, gained support of United States Army troops to confiscate goods and property from Boxers and alleged Boxers to compensate Christian families. Critics of such actions included the writer Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, who noted the "reverend bandits of the American Board."
Veteran missionary Griffith John
Griffith John
Griffith John was a British Christian missionary and translator in China. A member of the Congregational church, he was a pioneer evangelist with the London Missionary Society , a writer and a translator of the Holy Bible into the Chinese language.-Biography:Griffith John was born on 14 December...
noted afterward:
After 1900 American missionary education changed its goals from saving individual Chinese souls to transforming Chinese society. Before 1890 schools were a supplement to evangelistic work, but missionary educators after 1900 generally committed to teaching for the sake of education. They tried to educate leaders in every field of society, who would play key roles in making China a Westernized, Christian society. The change reflected ideological and theological climates at home, as well as their accumulated field experience, and perception of new Chinese situations. The unique experiences of missionaries in China and the change of Chinese attitudes toward Western civilization also affected the new emphasis of missionary education.
Abolition of opium trade
Royal Commission on Opium
The Royal Opium Commission of 1895 was a commission of the British Government set up to investigate the Anglo-Asian opium trade.-History:Throughout the 19th century opium sent to China was one of British India's most valuable exports...
visited India but not China. They organized the Anti-Opium League in China among their colleagues in every mission station, for which the American missionary Hampden Coit DuBose
Hampden Coit DuBose
Hampden Coit DuBose was a Presbyterian missionary in China with the American Presbyterian Mission and founder of the Anti-Opium League in China.-Career:...
served as the first president. This organization was instrumental in gathering data from every Western-trained medical doctor in China, most of whom were missionaries. They published their data and conclusions in 1899 as Opinions of Over 100 Physicians on the Use of Opium in China. The survey included doctors in private practices, particularly in Shanghai and Hong Kong, as well as Chinese who had been trained in medical schools in Western countries.
In England, the home director of the China Inland Mission, Benjamin Broomhall
Benjamin Broomhall
Benjamin Broomhall was a British advocate of foreign missions, administrator of the China Inland Mission, and author. Broomhall served as the General Secretary of the China Inland Mission ,...
was an active opponent of the opium trade; he wrote two books to promote banning opium smoking: "Truth about Opium Smoking" and "The Chinese Opium Smoker". In 1888 Broomhall formed and became secretary of the "Christian Union for the Severance of the British Empire with the Opium Traffic" and editor of its periodical, National Righteousness. He lobbied the British Parliament to stop the opium trade. He and James Laidlaw Maxwell
James Laidlaw Maxwell
James Laidlaw Maxwell Senior was the first Presbyterian missionary to Taiwan . He served with the English Presbyterian Mission....
appealed to the London Missionary Conference of 1888 and the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 to condemn the trade. As he lay dying, the government signed an agreement to end the opium trade within two years.
Expansion, setbacks, questioning, and war 1912–1945
The early 1900s saw great expansion of missionary activity following the Boxer Uprising, and during the Revolution of 1912 and the founding of the Chinese Republic.The area of work expanded both geographically and socially. A musician and an engineer named James O. Fraser
James O. Fraser
James Outram Fraser was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He pioneered work among the Lisu people of Southwestern China in the early part of the 20th century.- First years in Yunnan:...
was the first to bring the Gospel message to the Lisu tribes of Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
in southwest China. This resulted in phenomenal church growth among the various tribes in the area that endured to the 21st century.
The Warlord
Warlord
A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
period brought widespread lawlessness to China, making missionary work more risky. The May Fourth Movement
May Fourth Movement
The May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement growing out of student demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919, protesting the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, especially the Shandong Problem...
criticized all religions and led to the Anti-Christian campaigns
Anti-Christian Movement (China)
The Anti-Christian Movement was an intellectual and political movement in China in the 1920s. The May Fourth Movement for a New Culture attacked religion of all sorts, including Confucianism and Buddhism as well as Christianity, rejecting all as superstition...
of the early 1920s, and the Northern Expedition of 1925–1927 led to the unification of China under the Nationalist Party
Kuomintang
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...
. During this time, missionaries were attacked and Christian schools subjected to government regulation. Nationalist laws required that all organizations have Chinese leadership. Many missionaries left China, support in home countries waned, and the numbers of foreign missionaries never recovered.
Criticism and calls for reform came from within the missionary community as well. Partly as a result of the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy missions came under questioning. Pearl S. Buck
Pearl S. Buck
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu , was an American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932...
for instance, returned to the United States to ask "Is There a Case for Foreign Missionaries?" and the Layman's Inquiry Commission presented a culturally liberal critique. Buck's twin biographies of her parents, Fighting Angel
Fighting Angel
Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul is a memoir, sometimes called a "creative non-fiction novel," written by Pearl S. Buck about her father, Absalom Sydenstricker as a companion to her memoir of her mother, The Exile...
and The Exile
The Exile (1936)
The Exile is a memoir/ biography, or work of creative non-fiction, written by Pearl S. Buck about her mother, Caroline Stulting Sydenstricker , describing her life growing up in West Virginia and life in China as the wife of the Presbyterian missionary Absalom Sydenstricker...
dramatized the charges that foreign missions were a form of imperialism.
In 1934 John and Betty Stam
John and Betty Stam
John Cornelius Stam and Elisabeth Alden Scott Stam, aka, "Betty" were American Christian missionaries to China, with the China Inland Mission, during the Chinese Civil War...
were murdered by Communist soldiers. Their biography The Triumph of John and Betty Stam inspired a generation of missionaries to follow in service despite the warfare and persecution of missionaries during the 1930s and 1940s.
When the Japanese invaded China in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the China Inland Mission moved its headquarters up the Yangzi River to Chongqing
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...
. The Japanese put many missionaries into concentration camps until the end of the war, for they were at war with their nations. One such camp was at Weifang
Weifang
Weifang is a prefecture-level city in central Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It borders Dongying to the northwest, Zibo to the west, Linyi to the southwest, Rizhao to the south, Qingdao to the east, and looks out to the Laizhou Bay to the north.-History:Weifang is a historical city...
. The entire Chefoo School
Chefoo School
The Chefoo School a.k.a. Protestant Collegiate School or China Inland Mission School was a Christian boarding school established by the China Inland Mission - under James Hudson Taylor- at Chefoo , in Shandong province in northern China, in 1880...
run by the mission at Yantai
Yantai
Yantai is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. Located on the southern coast of the Bohai Sea and the eastern coast of the Laizhou Bay, Yantai borders the cities of Qingdao and Weihai to the southwest and east respectively.The largest fishing...
was imprisoned at a concentration camp.
Final exodus 1945–1953
After the victory of the Chinese Communist armies and its efforts to suppress religion, all of the members of the China Inland Mission departed. They were the last Protestant missionary society to leave China.In 1900 there were an estimated 100,000 Christians in China. By 1950 the number had increased to 700,000. Helped by strong leaders such as John Sung
John Sung
John Sung Shang Chieh a.k.a. John Sung was a renowned Chinese Christian evangelist who played an instrumental role in the revival movement among the Chinese in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s.-Career:Sung was born in Hinghwa , Fujian, China.He grew up with a...
, Wang Ming-Dao
Wang Ming-Dao
File:WangMingdao.jpgWang Mingdao was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980.-Childhood and conversion:...
, and Andrew Gih, the Chinese Christian church began to become an indigenous movement.
See also
- Christianity in ChinaChristianity in ChinaChristianity in China is a growing minority religion that comprises Protestants , Catholics , and a small number of Orthodox Christians. Although its lineage in China is not as ancient as the institutional religions of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism, and the social system and ideology of...
- Chinese house churchChinese house churchChinese house churches are a religious movement of unregistered assemblies of Christians in the People's Republic of China, which operate independently of the government-run Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China Christian Council for Protestant groups and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic...
- Chinese Union VersionChinese Union VersionThe Chinese Union Version is the predominant Chinese language translation of the Bible used by Chinese Protestants. It is considered by many to be the Chinese Protestant’s Bible....
of the Bible - Chinese New HymnalChinese New HymnalThe Chinese New Hymnal was published during the early 1980s and is the predominantly most used hymn book at the worship of the Protestant churches in the present-day China.-Chinese New Hymnal:...
- China Christian CouncilChina Christian CouncilThe China Christian Council or CCC was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles , hymnals , and other religious...
- Timeline of Christian missionsTimeline of Christian missionsThis timeline of Christian missions chronicles the global expansion of Christianity through a listing of the most important missionary outreach events.-Apostolic Age:.Earliest dates must all be considered approximate...