Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity (Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue) 3030730689, 9783030730680

Citation preview

Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity

Edited by Alexander Chow · Easten Law

Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue Series Editor Mark Chapman Ripon College University of Oxford Oxford, UK

Building on the important work of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network to promote ecumenical and inter-faith encounters and dialogue, the Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue series publishes scholarship on such engagement in relation to the past, present, and future. It gathers together a richly diverse array of voices in monographs and edited collections that speak to the challenges, aspirations, and elements of ecumenical and interfaith conversation. Through its publications, the series allows for the exploration of new ways, means, and methods of advancing the wider ecumenical cause with renewed energy for the twenty-first century. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14561

Alexander Chow  •  Easten Law Editors

Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity

Editors Alexander Chow School of Divinity University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, UK

Easten Law Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, NJ, USA

ISSN 2634-6591     ISSN 2634-6605 (electronic) Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue ISBN 978-3-030-73068-0    ISBN 978-3-030-73069-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In memory of Gerard Mannion (1970–2019)

Acknowledgments

This collection of essays is the first of two volumes of theological and ecclesial reflection based on the tenth annual gathering of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network, hosted in Hong Kong from July 20 to 24, 2016. Gathered under the theme of “Christianity and Religions in China: Past—Present—Future,” a global community of scholars met to discuss questions of ecclesiology and interreligious relations in the context of what we now know to be a potent interregnum in Hong Kong’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China. In 2014, just two years before the conference, Hong Kong’s streets were filled with protesters, and multiple parts of the city were occupied. Demands were being made for universal suffrage in the election of the region’s chief executive. These events raised numerous questions around how the Chinese church ought to be present and engaged with these increasingly complex geopolitical, social, and cultural challenges. The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network aims to foster a collaborative ecclesiology that continually presses toward an inclusive vision of the church in the world. In that spirit, two of Hong Kong’s most prominent clergy offered introductory remarks that set the stage for the 2016 conference. Despite contrasting perspectives regarding church-state relations in the Hong Kong context, words of welcome and theological reflection from both Archbishop Paul Kwong, of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Communion), and Bishop Michael Yeung, at the time an auxiliary bishop of the Catholic diocese of Hong Kong, signaled the importance of dialogue and bridgebuilding as critical values in the ecclesial tasks of the Chinese churches in particular and the vii

viii 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

world church as a whole. Their remarks gave way to a memorable four days of conversation on topics ranging from Sino-Vatican negotiations to protestant ethics and public theology to inter-religious learning among China’s diverse faith traditions. We are thankful for their presence and framing of the matters that animate our inquiry and imagination. Archbishop Kwong, in particular, provided significant financial resources to ensure the conference’s success. At that time, few likely anticipated the sociopolitical earthquake that began in Hong Kong during 2019. In light of these recent events, the questions of ecclesial presence and mission explored during the 2016 conference are more pertinent than ever, including the growing diversity of Chinese Christianity’s ecclesial landscape. As China’s role in the world changes, the visions and structures of churches in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the broader Chinese diaspora will shift with it. This volume presents a window into some of these changes, bringing together a selection of conference papers with additions that extend the scope of these emerging shifts. We hope and pray this volume will elicit a more robust conversation about Chinese Christian ecclesiology that includes the histories and futures of multiple theological and ecclesial traditions. While none of these essays addresses the challenges facing Hong Kong in this current moment of precarity, there is little doubt that what has and will take place in this contentious region will have profound implications for Chinese Christianity’s ecclesial vision. While the church shall forever rest upon the steady foundation of Christ, we must nevertheless be ever mindful of the changing ecologies in which we grow. It is in this spirit that we so intentionally acknowledge the Hong Kong church and its robust theological institutions. The editors must give a debt of thanks to the leadership, faculty, students, and staff of Minghua Theological College of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui and the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Chung Chi College for their hospitality and organization. Special thanks are due to Gareth Jones, Ivy Lam, Funny Ng, and Matthew Jones at Minghua College, as well as to Louis Ha and the Centre for Catholic Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. These important institutions of theological education are at the forefront of Chinese ecclesial and interreligious reflection. We lift them up in our prayers as they continue to pursue their missions of training ministers and scholars of the church during an increasingly tumultuous and uncertain time. Gareth Jones greatly strengthened the research network’s relationships with host institutions. In addition, we

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

ix

would also like to thank Rebecca Wong and Stephen Miller of the Hong Kong Mission to Seafarers for their hospitality and organization. This volume would also not be possible without the leadership of Vladimir Latinovic (Tübingen University), Mark Chapman (Ripon College Cuddesdon), and Martyn Percy (Christ Church, University of Oxford). Each of them played key roles in organizing the 2016 Hong Kong conference. In particular, Mark Chapman helped tremendously in the earliest phases of this volume, editing several essays and providing critical feedback on its organization and direction. Most importantly, this volume is one of many dedicated to the life and memory of Dr. Gerard Mannion, the founder and leader of the Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network, who unexpectedly passed in 2019. Mindful of the larger vision of the research network he founded, Gerard believed the blurring of distinctions between philosophy and religion in Asian faith communities had much to teach “post-Enlightenment” Western countries that had “compartmentalized” their faith. For Gerard, the 2016 Hong Kong conference was a long overdue gathering meant to help bring the world church into closer conversation with the often unnoticed riches of Asian Christianity. Even though I was just a first-year doctoral student at the time, Gerard took the initiative to mentor and involve me in the 2016 conference’s planning and the editorial process that brings this volume to press. His passion for building a participatory ecclesiology was not limited to the institutional church. He sought to be just as inclusive in his teaching and scholarship, encouraging curious young minds to contribute as colleagues rather than students. Gerard didn’t just teach me about ecclesiology; he challenged me to help steward new conversations on a Chinese ecclesiology that was mindful of China’s unique socio-cultural traditions and historical contingencies. I pray that this humble volume honors Gerard’s convictions and his charge to me, a modest but hopefully generative introduction to the diversity of Chinese Christianity and the many lessons it contains for the world church.

Praise for Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity “Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity critically examines China’s Christian legacy both inside and out of China’s geopolitical margins by convening an impressive array of scholars and disciplines. Prodigiously researched and filled with nuanced insights, this volume brings into sharp focus the historical, theological, and cultural contrasts of a variety of Christian expressions that emerged from and flowed into China’s diverse Christianities.” —Anthony E.  Clark, Professor of Chinese History, Whitworth University, and editor of China’s Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church (Brill, 2017) “Here, highlighted in a single volume, is the glorious if frustrating heterogeneity of modern Chinese Christianity—as it is perceived and conceived by centers of ecclesiastical power in London and the Vatican, or as it morphs into distinct social spaces in ultramodern cities like Shanghai, or as it reinvents itself as ethnic-communal enclaves in Malaysia, Great Britain, and Vancouver. Anyone dissatisfied with the old linear models will welcome this more complex yet more authentic account of Chinese churches. Not to be missed, especially, are the magisterial introduction and the hopeful afterword.” —Sze-kar Wan, Professor of New Testament, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA.  He’s the author of Romans: Empire and Resistance (T&T Clark, 2021) and co-editor of The Bible and Modern China (Monumenta Serica, 1999)

Contents

1 Introduction: Ecclesial Diversity and Theology in Chinese Christianity  1 Alexander Chow Part I Missionary Encounters in China  25 2 Christian Missions’ Encounter with High Chinese Culture 1900–1914 27 Mark Chapman 3 Catholic Apologetic Mission in Pre-Vatican II China: A Study of Two Chinese Catholic Texts 53 Connie Au Part II New Concerns and New Chinese Churches  75 4 Diasporic Chinese (Huaqiao 華僑) or Multicultural Malaysian? The Challenges of Being Chinese and Christian in Malaysia Today 77 Jonathan Y. Tan

xiii

xiv 

Contents

5 British Immigration Policies and British Chinese Christianity 99 Alexander Chow 6 The Politics of Jesus’ Love: K. H. Ting, Contextual Interpretation of the Gospels and Images of Jesus in Modern China121 Zhixi Wang Part III Chinese Churches and Urban Identity 139 7 The Politics of Space: Affect, Church Membership, and Ecclesial Identity in Contemporary Chinese Reformed Churches141 Steven Hu 8 Isolation and Outreach: Christian Churches in Shanghai and Beyond167 Benoît Vermander 9 “Fraught” Chineseness: “Chinese Christians” in the Vancouver Sun183 Justin K. H. Tse 10 Afterword: Christianity in China—Pathways, Problems, and Prospects209 Philip L. Wickeri Index219

List of Contributors

Connie Au  Chinese Christian Literature Council, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China Mark Chapman  Ripon College, Oxford, UK Alexander  Chow School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Steven  Hu  Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Easten  Law Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC), Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, USA Jonathan Y. Tan  Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA Justin  K.  H.  Tse Singapore Management University, Singapore, Singapore Benoît  Vermander Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Zhixi  Wang College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University, Shantou, People’s Republic of China Philip L. Wickeri  Ming Hua Theological College, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

xv

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Ecclesial Diversity and Theology in Chinese Christianity Alexander Chow

The history of Chinese Christianity is often described by way of eras or waves of foreign missionary activities and indigenous Christian growth. Most volumes cannot ignore the first recorded Christian mission to China from the Church of the East in 635—though this is usually dismissed as “Nestorian” and therefore deemed heretical.1 The story swiftly traverses a millennium to the Jesuit mission in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with mentions of the erudite missionary-scholar Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). Roman Catholicism would have some success, before eventually being banned by the Chinese Emperor in 1724 due to the Chinese

1  Sebastian Brock has strongly argued that the so-called Nestorian Church has, in antiquity, preferred to self-describe itself as the “Church of the East.” He explains, “The association between the Church of the East and Nestorius is of a very tenuous nature, and to continue to call that church ‘Nestorian’ is, from a historical point of view, totally misleading and incorrect.” Sebastian P. Brock, “The ‘Nestorian’ Church: A Lamentable Misnomer,” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 78, no. 3 (1996): 35.

A. Chow (*) School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_1

1

2 

A. CHOW

rites controversy. The attention then turns to Protestant developments, in the nineteenth century from Robert Morrison (1782–1834) and the first Protestant translation of the Bible, through the Opium Wars (1839–1842, 1856–1860) and the Boxer Rebellion, before turning to the twentiethcentury life, death, and resurrection of the Chinese church. Such a telling of history is limited in a number of ways. It simplistically presumes that these three major branches of Christianity began and ended their work in China in separate periods, somewhat isolated from one another. But this has not always been the case. We may consider Li Zhizao (李之藻, 1565/71–1630), the Chinese Catholic who was one of the first to recognize the significance of the eighth-century stele discovered in Xi’an as the earliest evidence for the religion of the Jesuits in China.2 By the nineteenth century, while Robert Morrison was applauded for producing the first Protestant translation of the New Testament, it was largely based on an earlier Catholic translation from the Latin Vulgate produced by Jean Basset (1662–1707) of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris).3 We also cannot forget the nineteenth-­ century debate around the “term question,” whereby James Legge (1815–1897) based part of his rationale for why he saw Shangdi 上帝 as the preferred name for God by relying on the seventeenth-century incarnation of the debate, chiefly between Jesuits and Dominicans in China.4 These are but a few examples which highlight how those who had come before—despite differences across the ecclesial and theological diversity— serve as inspiration for the continued development of Chinese Christianity. Another limitation of a periodization that focuses on waves of frontier missions and Christian growth is the suggestion that only one form of Chinese Christianity existed at any given time. If we consider the period after the Opium Wars, missionaries from every major branch of Christianity 2  Li Zhizao 李之藻, “Du ‘Jingjiao bei’ shuhou” 讀《景教碑》書後 [Postscript to the “Church of the East Stele”], in Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu: Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun lunjiao wenji 明末天主教三柱石文箋注: 徐光啟, 李之藻, 楊廷筠論教 文集 [Catholic Documents of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun: An Exposition of Three Great Ming Thinkers in China], edited by Li Tiangang 李天綱 (Hong Kong: Logos and Pneuma, 2007), 188–92. 3  Christopher Daily, Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 132–140. 4  James Legge, The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits: With an Examination of the Defense of an Essay, on the Proper Rendering of the Words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese Language (Hongkong: Hongkong Register, 1852), 129–39.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

3

flooded into the country—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox. Due in part to their numbers, conflicts between missionaries were chiefly between Protestants and Roman Catholics, whereby the former regarded “Popery” and “Romanism” as anathema and the latter saw Protestants as doing no more than “tossing Bibles from shipside upon the beach.”5 Linguistically, the three branches eventually adopted three separate names for their form of Christianity: Jidu jiao 基督教 (“Christ teaching” or Protestantism), Tianzhu jiao 天主教 (“Heavenly Lord teaching” or Catholicism), and Dongzheng jiao 東正教 (“Eastern Orthodox teaching” or Orthodoxy).6 Even to this day, the three are treated by the Chinese government as three separate religions, with only the first two having officially sanctioned national entities. The ecclesial diversity, however, has not always translated to diversity in the theology or the practice of Chinese Christians. Themes such as nationalism, modernity, paternalism, and independency were alive in the early twentieth century, as much as they continue to be alive later in the early twenty-first century. Chinese Christians of every stripe have needed to wrestle with what it means to be both “Chinese” and “Christian,” a tension Andrew Walls identifies throughout time and space as one between the “indigenizing” principle and the “pilgrim” principle.7 While ecclesial diversity has been quite prominent throughout the history of Chinese Christianity, common concerns have brought rise to some convergence across the spectrum of Chinese Christians—although never to the full ecumenical ideal of “visible unity.”8

5  Jean-Paul Wiest, “Roman Catholic Perceptions of British and American Protestant Missionaries (1807–1920),” Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia 6 (2015): 22. 6  It is informative that the conventional translation of “Christianity” into Chinese is Jidu jiao—the term for Protestantism. An alternative term for Protestantism is Xin jiao 新教 (“New teaching”), but this is rarely used unless one is distinguishing Protestantism from Catholicism. Some scholars have attempted to introduce a new term, Jidu zongjiao 基督宗教 (“Christ religion”) as a generic term for Christianity, but this has not yet been taken up at the popular level. 7  Andrew F. Walls, “The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture,” in The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996), 3–15. 8  Some of what follows is related to a previously published article, but significantly expanded from its Protestant focus and adapted for the purposes of this volume. See Alexander Chow, “Protestant Ecumenism and Theology in China Since Edinburgh 1910,” Missiology: An International Review 42, no. 2 (2014): 167–80.

4 

A. CHOW

Foreign Missionaries and Building the Chinese Church In the 1840s, the first of a series of unequal treaties was signed between the Chinese Empire and foreign powers. With most of these treaties coming to an end only with the conclusion of World War II, in Chinese discourse, this period is often termed the “century of national humiliation” (bainian guochi 百年國恥).9 Christian missionaries, however, benefited from these treaties, which mandated extraterritoriality rights and the ability for foreigners to build churches, schools, and missionary residences.10 Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Nanking (or Treaty of Nanjing; 1842), Protestant missionaries had limited access to the Chinese mainland. Robert Morrison was based in Canton (Guangzhou) under the auspices of the British East India Company,11 and other missionaries of the London Missionary Society like William Milne (1785–1822) and Walter Medhurst (1796–1857) were working in the so-called Ultra-Ganges Mission, based in Southeast Asia. The 1842 Anglo-Chinese treaty changed this, allowing Medhurst to move the mission’s press to Shanghai. Two years later, the Franco-Chinese Treaty of Whampoa (or Treaty of Huangpu; 1844) opened up opportunities for Catholic missionaries to return to China and to reclaim church properties which existed prior to the 1724 prohibition of Catholicism. Russia followed suit in the Treaty of Tientsin (or Treaty of Tianjin; 1858), which included a clause that guaranteed the freedom to propagate Eastern Orthodoxy, given that the Russian negotiator “was convinced that the British and French resolved to transform China into a Protestant and Catholic country.”12 We do not have the space 9  For a discussion of how this has shaped China’s national consciousness, see Wang Zheng, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 10  Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 47–8. 11  In Canton, the Thirteen Factories was the sole legal site for Western trade prior to the Opium Wars. During that time, the few Protestant missionaries in Canton were beneficiaries of various trading companies. Along with Morrison, another notable missionary based in Canton was the American Congregationalist Elijah C. Bridgman, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, arriving in 1830 with the support of the American trading company, Olyphant & Co. See Michael C.  Lazich, E. C. Bridgman (1801–1861), American’s First Missionary to China (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2000). 12  Alexander Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume Two, 1800 to the Present, edited by R. G. Tiedemann (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 201.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

5

to discuss the erroneous “religious cases” (jiao’an 教案)13 or the Boxer Rebellion.14 But it is no wonder that Chinese Christians were—and still often are—seen as running dogs of imperialism. By the early twentieth century, with the rise of nationalism and antiforeignism leading into the May Fourth and Anti-Christian movements, relations between Chinese and foreign Christians became increasingly tense. For Protestants, it would be Cheng Jingyi (1881–1939) at the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh who would set the stage, declaring: [Chinese Christians] hope to see, in the near future, a united Christian Church without any denominational distinctions. This may seem somewhat peculiar to some of you, but, friends, do not forget to view us from our standpoint, and if you fail to do that, the Chinese will remain always as a mysterious people to you! … Speaking generally, denominationalism has never interested the Chinese mind. He finds no delight in it, but sometimes he suffers for it!15

In seven minutes, Cheng captured the sentiments of many Chinese Protestants of his day: China needs a unified church—run by the Chinese and freed from the confusion of foreign denominationalism. In contrast to other branches of Christianity, Protestantism has the challenge of having a proliferation of denominations. Were Chinese Protestants to be baptized by immersion or by sprinkling? Should they have worship services on Sunday or Saturday? Should they use Shangdi 上帝 or shen 神 to speak about God?16 The Western Protestant theological and ecclesial diversity 13  See Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963); Thoralf Klein, “The Missionary as Devil: Anti-Missionary Demonology in China, 1860–1930,” in Europe as the Other: External Perspectives on European Christianity, edited by Judith Becker and Brian Stanley (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014), 119–148. 14  See Joseph Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987); Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 69–95. 15   World Missionary Conference, Report of Commission VIII: Cooperation and the Promotion of Unity (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1910), 196. 16  The “term question” remained unresolved when the Mandarin Union Version of the Bible was published in 1919, which had two editions: the Shangdi edition and the shen edition, differing only by the term used for God in the text. The shen edition added an extra

6 

A. CHOW

was being translated into the Chinese context, leading to a confusing reality. In subsequent years, Cheng’s aspirations were met in part through the creation of supra-denominational coalitions like the National Christian Council and the Church of Christ in China. However, these groups still maintained representation from Chinese and foreign leadership, and were seen as the first step in a process whereby Chinese churches could eventually develop into independent entities embracing the Venn–Anderson three-self formula, of being a self-governing, self-propagating, and self-­ supporting church.17 Many foreign denominations and mission organizations had difficulty with this transition towards independence and continued to maintain control of the Chinese churches. Prominent coalition leaders such as T. C. Chao (Zhao Zichen 趙紫宸, 1888–1979) and David Z. T. Yui (Yu Rizhang 余日章, 1882–1936) focused on challenging the intellectual underpinnings of Christianity, rejecting its Western chaff of “unscientific” doctrines like the Trinity and the resurrection and speaking of social reconstruction and national salvation. Others formed federations independent of Sino-foreign alliances, such as Yu Guozhen’s (俞國楨, 1852–1932) Shanghai-based China Independent Protestant Church, or denomination-like movements such as the True Jesus Church, the Jesus Family, and the Assembly Hall (or “Little Flock”), and indigenous mission movements such as the Bethel Worldwide Evangelistic Band.18 In contrast to the earlier coalitions, the vast majority of these latter groups tended to be theologically conservative and borrowed largely from pietist, dispensational, and Pentecostal traditions. However, Daniel Bays points out that “these early manifestations of independent Chinese Protestantism were

space beside the single-character term shen, to accommodate for the typesetting difference with the two-character term Shangdi. 17  Daniel H.  Bays, “The growth of independent Christianity in China, 1900–1937,” in Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, edited by Daniel H. Bays (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 308. The three-self formula was a Protestant missiological strategy promoted in the nineteenth century by Henry Venn (1796–1873) of the Church Missionary Society and Rufus Anderson (1796–1880) of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. See Wilbert R. Shenk, “Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn: A Special Relationship?” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 5, no. 4 (October 1981): 168–172. 18  Bays, “The growth of independent Christianity in China, 1900–1937,” 307–16. Daniel H. Bays, “Leading Protestant Individuals,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 620–5.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

7

not particularly anti-missionary in motive or action.”19 Their emphasis, nonetheless, was to drive the efforts of building the Chinese church. Overall, this was a period when pressures inside and outside of China were forcing important changes. Whereas Catholics and Orthodox do not have the same denominational splitting of hairs, there were likewise clear desires to be separate from foreign control. With regard to Orthodox developments, the 1858 treaty shifted the church’s focus from the Russian diaspora to evangelizing the Chinese. However, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution added complexities, given the new wave of Russian refugees flooding into China. Disputes arose over whether mission properties were owned by the church or by the USSR, and later over which canonical jurisdiction the Chinese parishes were under, the Moscow Church or the Church Abroad.20 When another Russian was appointed as head of the Beijing Mission in 1931, the oldest Chinese priest at the time, Sergij Chang Fu (常福), contested this appointment and appealed to the Chinese Nationalist government for his own appointment. According to one commentator: His critics at the time understood it as an attempt by Sergij to grasp the property of the Mission. Sergij himself insisted that he wanted to build the church for the Chinese, accusing the mission focusing too much on the affairs of the emigrants. This demand was reasonable and congruent with processes of “sinification” and “indigenisation” of Christian communities planted in China by the Western churches, but the timing was unfortunate.21

Regretfully, the Mission needed to contend with competing interests in building a Chinese church and addressing the needs of Russian refugees. While the Chinese government eventually formally appointed Sergij as head of the Mission, this was made untenable due to the resistance of Russian clergy. The Catholic story was no less complex.22 Due to the various Franco-­ Chinese treaties of the late nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries were  Bays, A New History of Christianity in China, 97.  Alexander Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 558–61. For a broader discussion of the Russian Orthodox diaspora after the Bolshevik Revolution, see Ciprian Burlacioiu, “Russian Orthodox Diaspora as a Global Religion after 1918,” Studies in World Christianity 24, no. 1 (April 2018): 4–24. 21  Lomanov, “Russian Orthodox Church,” 560. 22  For much of this history, see Ernest P.  Young, Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 19 20

8 

A. CHOW

permitted in China under the auspices of the French. However, various conflicts came to the foreground in the Laoxikai Incident (1916–1917), when the French colonial government attempted to extend the French Concession in Tianjin southward towards Laoxikai, in part to build a new cathedral in the region.23 Catholic missionaries Vincent Lebbe (1877–1940) and Antoine Cotta (1872–1957) jointly organized the Society for Safeguarding the Nation’s Territory and Sovereignty to protest the extension. But this was contested by the French ambassador and other foreign clergymen. Lebbe and Cotta petitioned the Holy See, as did some forty lay Chinese Catholics of Tianjin. The watershed moment came in November 1919, a few months after the May Fourth movement of that same year, when Pope Benedict XV (r. 1914–1922) promulgated Maximum illud which offered a paradigm shift in global mission work, underscoring the need for missionaries to learn the local languages and cultures, to raise up local clergy, and to sever ties with imperialism, because the “Catholic Church is not an intruder in any country; nor is she alien to any people.”24 The implications of Maximum illud were followed through by Benedict XV’s successor, Pope Pius XI (r. 1922–1939). In 1922, he appointed Celso Constantini (1876–1958) the first Apostolic Delegate to China, who convened the First Council of China (1924) to bring about reform in the Catholic Church in China. By 1926, Pius XI consecrated six new Chinese bishops. This was monumental, given that it was nearly two and a half centuries since the first and only other Chinese bishop was consecrated in 1685, Luo Wenzao (羅文藻, 1616–1691). The early decades of the twentieth century have been described as the “Golden Age” of missions in China.25 But it also provided the conditions for the growth of the indigenous Chinese church. To a large extent, the preexisting ecclesial diversity was highlighted through proxy debates with 23  Chen Songchuan. “Shame on You! Competing Narratives of the Nation in the Laoxikai Incident and the Tianjin Anti-French Campaign, 1916–1917,” Twentieth-Century China 37, no. 2 (2012): 121–38. 24  Benedict XV, “Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XV to the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic World on the Propagation of the Faith Throughout the World,” November 30, 1919, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ benedict-xv/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_ben-xv_apl_19191130_maximum-­ illud.html. As Ernest Young notes, “Though China was not singled out, it was evident to those who had been following developments that China was the primary case in mind.” Young, Ecclesiastical Colony, 200. 25  See Bays, A New History of Christianity in China, Ch. 5.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

9

origins outside of China. For Protestants, this was mainly between its multiplicity of denominations; for all three, the debates involved a competition of national interests. As we have seen, Chinese Christians were not simply passive recipients of these debates. Furthermore, many could be seen as missionaries in their own right, creating their own mission societies or “evangelistic bands,” travelling throughout China and East and Southeast Asia to spread the gospel. Others were catapulted onto the international stage, from the reception of the spiritual writings of Watchman Nee (Ni Tuosheng 倪柝聲, 1903–1972) and John C. H. Wu (Wu Jingxiong 吳經熊, 1899–1986), to T. C. Chao’s 1948 election as one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches. While the course of the first half of the twentieth century was towards greater autonomy for Chinese Christians, this would radically change with the end of World War II and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.

New China, New World, New Churches The beginning of the second half of the twentieth century was a tenuous time for Christians in China. Along with the founding of a new state, the situation became much more complicated when the United States and the young PRC engaged one another in military skirmishes in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula, the latter due to the Korean War (1950–1953). For many, Christianity’s survival depended on asserting the church’s independence from Western powers. A Protestant delegation led by Y.  T. Wu (Wu Yaozong 吳耀宗, 1893–1979), a former YMCA administrator, went to Beijing in May 1950 to meet with Premier Zhou Enlai and other communist officials. They produced the so-called Christian Manifesto which underscored the three-­ self formula and rejected any partnership with foreign missionaries and nations—although the only country named was the United States.26 In early 1951, this would be accompanied by the infamous Denunciation Movement, aimed to weed out any links with imperialism. Though the first targets were foreign missionaries, Chinese Protestants were eventually 26  The full name of the document was the “Direction of Endeavor for Chinese Christianity in the Construction of New China.” An English translation of the document can be found in Wallace C.  Merwin and Francis P.  Jones, eds., Documents of the Three-Self Movement: Source Materials for the Study of the Protestant Church in Communist China (New York: NCC USA, 1963), 19–20.

10 

A. CHOW

chided about their loyalties and treated as traitors, much like the earlier Boxer Rebellion. By May 1951, the “Preparatory Council of the China Christian Resist-America Help-Korea Three-Self Reform Movement” was formed (clearly named to address concerns related to the Korean War), which eventually developed into the core leadership of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) in 1954 with Wu at its helm. These uniting efforts had such a strong political undertone that key TSPM leaders were accused of being secret members of the communist party, and initiatives like the Christian Manifesto and the TSPM were believed to have been invented by Zhou Enlai himself.27 This would have lasting effects on how some Chinese Protestants would perceive the TSPM during the 1950s and 1960s and after it was reinstated in the 1980s. In a famous case, the self-proclaimed fundamentalist Wang Mingdao (王明道, 1900–1991) refused to join the TSPM and lambasted its members as the “unbelieving faction” (buxin pai 不信派) made up of modernists.28 K.  H. Ting (Ding Guangxun 丁光訓, 1915–2012), a protégé of Y. T. Wu, responded by describing Wang as “filled with hatred for China” and implored, “If we are all in favor of anti-imperialism and patriotism, why can we not [be] united?”29 Wang, borrowing from the North American fundamentalist–modernist debate, believed unity was impossible due to the theological incompatibility he had with the group.30 For Ting, unity was more a matter of agreeing to certain sociopolitical beliefs. Wang would subsequently be imprisoned on charges of being a counterrevolutionary. A similar fate would be in store for others like Watchman Nee, Jing Dianying (敬奠瀛, 1890–1957), and T.C. Chao. The line was drawn: join the patriotic movement or risk persecution and imprisonment. While plans for the Protestant TSPM were underway, Chinese Catholics would follow the pattern of their Protestant compatriots. By November 1950, within a few months of the Protestant “Christian Manifesto,” a Chinese Catholic priest in Guangyuan of Sichuan province gathered some 500 signatures around the “Manifesto on Independence and Reform,”

27  Philip L.  Wickeri, Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 130. 28  Wang Mingdao, “We, Because of Faith,” in Documents of the Three-Self Movement, 99–106. 29  K. H. Ting, No Longer Strangers: Selected Writings of K. H. Ting, edited by Raymond L. Whitehead (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989), 145. 30  Ironically, a number of the TSPM leaders like Jia Yuming (賈玉銘, 1880–1964) and Marcus Cheng (Chen Chonggui 陳崇桂, 1884–1964) were theological conservatives.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

11

more commonly known as the so-called Guangyuan Manifesto.31 The Catholic document also invoked the three-self formula of Protestant missiological strategies,32 declaring: Speaking as patriotic citizens, therefore, we have decided to break off all relations with imperialist countries, and to rid ourselves of all pro-American attachments, as well as of sentiments of fear and inferiority. We are determined to build up a new Church that practices self-government, self-­support and self-propagation. We will not allow the Holy Church to be soiled by imperialist filth.33

It further declared that Chinese Catholics should support the broader Resist-America Help-Korea movement, and emphasize the reconstruction of New China. Other Catholic manifestos would follow, such as the Chongqing Manifesto published in January 1951 with over 700 signatures, underscoring how the church, “when used for the aims of Imperialism, not only hinders the realisation of independence, democracy, peace and union of China,” but that the “immaculate Church is steeped in murderous blood.”34 Later that month, Zhou Enlai, similar to his earlier dealings with Chinese Protestants, met with Chinese Catholics. He delivered a two-­ hour speech which expressed an appreciation for the services of the Catholic Church in China and even for the self-sacrifice of missionaries. Zhou acknowledged Chinese Catholics needed to remain united on spiritual matters with Rome, and encouraged the Catholic development of the three-self formula. Pope Pius XII responded by issuing Cupimus Imprimis (January 1952) and Ad Sinarum Gentes (October 1954) which praised Chinese Catholics for their loyalty and, recalling earlier experiences of 31  First published in a Xinhua News Agency dispatch, an English translation can be found in “Manifesto on Independence and Reform,” China Missionary Bulletin 3, no. 4 (February 1951): 149–50. 32  See John Tong, “The Church from 1949 to 1990,” in The Catholic Church in Modern China: Perspectives, edited by Edmond Tang and Jean-Paul Wiest (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 7–27. It should be noted that Catholic secondary sources tend to speak of the “three autonomies” as opposed to the “three-self,” even though the Chinese phrase (sanzi 三自) was the same. See Paul P.  Mariani, Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 241, fn. 66. 33  “Manifesto on Independence and Reform,” 150. 34  “The Chunking ‘Manifesto,’” China Missionary Bulletin 3, no. 4 (February 1951): 150.

12 

A. CHOW

persecution, encouraged a willingness for martyrdom.35 The 1954 encyclical went further by highlighting how some Chinese Catholics “wish that your Church would be completely independent, not only… in regard to its government and finances, but also in regard to the teaching of Christian doctrine and sacred preaching.”36 Such moves towards an independent “three-self” church, which separates based on theological and spiritual matters, would result in a church that was no longer Catholic because it would negate the church’s universality or catholicity. Many Chinese Catholic leaders would defect to Taiwan or Hong Kong. Those who stayed, like Zhang Boda (張伯達, c. 1905–1951) and Gong Pinmei (龔品梅, 1901–2000), were denounced and imprisoned,37 though some went against the Pope and helped establish the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) in 1957. Interestingly, both Premier Zhou Enlai and Pope Pius XII underscored the importance of spiritual and theological unity above political choices. But the reality is often more complex: to have spiritual and theological unity with the Holy See has political implications. Aside from Protestants and Catholics, Orthodox Christians likewise moved to form an autonomous, patriotic organization—the Chinese Orthodox Church in 1956. While we will not go into the history here, it is worth noting that “dozens of thousands of Russian parishioners” now fled China, leaving behind a meagre Chinese Orthodox population to fend for itself.38 The future of the Chinese Orthodox Church was much 35  Pius XII, “Lettera Apostolica Cupimus Imprimis: La Chiesa Cattolica in Cina” [Apostolic Letter Cupimus Imprimis: The Catholic Church in China], January 18,  1952, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-­xii_apl_19520118_ cupimus-­imprimis.html; Pius XII, “Ad Sinarum Gentem: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Supranationality of the Church to the Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Local Ordinaries and other Members of the Clergy and People of China in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See,” October 7, 1954, http://w2.vatican.va/ content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_07101954_ad-sinarum-gentem. html. While the first document was officially produced in Italian and Latin, the second included an official English version. Both can also be found in English in Elmer Wurth and Betty Ann Maheu, eds., Papal Documents Related to China 1937–2005 (Hong Kong: Holy Spirit Study Centre, 2006). 36  Pius XII, “Ad Sinarum Gentem.” 37  Zhang Boda became the first Catholic martyr of this period, dying within a few months of his imprisonment, reportedly as a consequence of torture. 38  Alexander Lomanov, “Chinese Orthodox Church,” in Handbook of Christianity in China, edited by Tiedemann, 829.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

13

less secure, even when compared with the fragile situation of Protestants and Catholics. As with the Republican period, Chinese Christians in the young PRC were concerned with the church’s relationships with foreign Christians and foreign states (including the city-state of the Vatican). However, in the 1950s and 1960s, questions were framed much more around survival under the new regime. Conflicts around ecclesial diversity became relatively moot. The sociopolitical climate in the People’s Republic demanded that Chinese Christians come together, independent of foreign entities, in the name of “patriotism.” Many stopped taking part in any Christian community at all. Others continued to meet but did so in secret and in smaller groups. While this was a trying time for Chinese Christians, it would also prepare the way for what would later be known as the “house church” (jiating jiaohui 家庭教會) or “underground church” (dixia jiaohui 地下教會) movements.39 By the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), all public religious activities came to an end. These developments also had implications for the Chinese outside of mainland China. Many of those who fled the communist revolution relocated to other parts of Asia such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. Furthermore, immigration policies in the 1960s–1970s in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia allowed a new wave of Chinese movement from Asia to Western nations. The influxes of immigrants were not always welcomed by the preexisting populations of these regions. Nevertheless, new Chinese Christian communities would be born and, like within the young PRC, overseas Chinese churches would have to redefine themselves in new contexts.

A Developing Situation Shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the communist party issued the directive Document 19, which offered a more open policy towards religions and a basic protection for freedom of religious belief.40 Although the changes still maintained a preferential treatment towards 39  The former term is mainly used for Protestants, whereas the latter term is mainly used for Catholics. 40  Donald MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 8–26.

14 

A. CHOW

atheism, a “religious fever” (zongjiao re 宗教熱) swept through every sector of Chinese society and the number of converts to every religion grew at a staggering rate. In particular, Protestant Christianity had the most rapid growth of any other religion. In the 1980s, only five religions were legally recognized by the government: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. The latter two were recognized as two separate religions operating mainly under the two patriotic organizations, the CPA and the TSPM.41 In the 1950s, participation in the CPA and the TSPM was an option to show one’s patriotism and allegiance to the state. However, since the 1980s, registration has been required for any legal operation at all. Furthermore, for Protestantism, church leaders have declared that the country is finally in a “post-denominational era” (hou zongpai shiqi 後宗派時期), given that denominational structures seem to now be part of its past—a claim that no other church in the world can make. What about the question of independence? From the 1910s to the 1960s, the main concern was whether the Chinese church could be free from foreign support and control. In the 1980s, denominationalism and foreign domination no longer existed as they previously did. “Independence” became less a subject involving foreign nations and more about the church’s relationship with its own nation. The rapid rise in numbers of Protestants and Catholics in the 1980s was largely through rural unregistered house churches or underground churches—and was, therefore, forms of illegal growth. Does the Romans 13 exhortation to subject oneself to the governing authorities apply to socialist China? Unlike the 1950s, China became more open to the international community and the rhetoric of patriotism was no longer a major driving force for the CPA or the TSPM. Regardless, the officially sanctioned churches and seminaries still have a degree of government-imposed restrictions— although many day-to-day activities have, until recently, generally proceeded with little or no oversight. Without these organizations, the government and the church would remain in a Cultural Revolution-era stalemate where the only existence would be an illegal existence. The

It is often said that Chinese law protects “freedom of religion” (zongjiao ziyou 宗教自由). Instead, the Chinese legal system of the People’s Republic protects “freedom of religious belief” (zongjiao xinyang ziyou 宗教信仰自由). 41  Orthodoxy has not been offered the same legal recognition, likely due to its small size.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

15

patriotic organizations have provided means for the government to interact with Christians and explore different aspects of religious liberties. A further dynamic would arise with the advent of academics in the late 1980s and early 1990s who began to examine Christianity for resources to aid in the advancement and transformation of Chinese society and culture, seeing Christianity as the spiritual core of Western civilization. A number of this first generation of so-called Cultural Christians (wenhua Jidutu 文 化基督徒) studied religion in terms of philosophical, cultural, and sociological phenomena.42 Their discourses have primarily been within the secular academy and are, therefore, managed by the Ministry of Education rather than by the State Administration of Religious Affairs.43 Until recently, they have tended to enjoy different freedoms as compared with Christians in registered or unregistered churches. During the 1980s and the early 1990s, the vast majority of these scholars did not profess any Christian faith at all. Though some were Christians, few publicly acknowledged this fact. Unlike in many Western countries, to be a person of faith in socialist China can have negative repercussions on one’s career and future. There were also those who chose to become Christians and were baptized into the “church of God” rather than any local congregation—and, therefore, have also not associated with any particular branch of Christianity—Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise. One prime example, Liu Xiaofeng (劉小楓, born 1956), once described himself and other like-minded academics as part of Troeltsch’s “mystical church.”44 This adds yet another dimension to the ecclesial diversity and raises questions of whether “visible unity” is possible with members of a “mystical church.” Nevertheless, while many of these scholars are not Christians, a good number are sympathetic to the faith and study theology with great care and respect.45 They are prolific writers and have been involved in 42  Lai Pan-Chiu, “Typology and Prospect of Sino-Christian Theology,” Ching Feng, n. s. 6, no. 2 (2005): 211–30. 43  In 2018, the latter organization was absorbed into the United Front Work Department. 44  Tan Xing 譚興 (pseudonym of Liu Xiaofeng 劉小楓), “Guanyu dangdai Zhongguo dalu ‘wenhua’ Jidutu de shenxue pingzhu” 關於當代中國大 陸“文化”基督徒的神學評註 [Theological Commentary about ‘Cultural’ Christians in Contemporary Mainland China], Tripod no. 6 (1990): 7. For further details, see Alexander Chow, Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 74–5. 45  It is often debated whether these scholars can be described as “theologians” and their work as “theology” if they are not Christians or have chosen not to identify as Christians.

16 

A. CHOW

tremendous translation efforts to bring Western theology into the Chinese language, providing a magnificent treasury for Christian clergy and seminary professors who would otherwise have no access due to lack of linguistic training or practice.46 However, by the mid-1990s, a younger generation of intellectuals have come on the scene. Scholars see this change in the church as responding to the 1989 student protests for democracy in Tiananmen Square.47 Many of these individuals were part of the protests but, in an atmosphere of failure, frustration, and dismay, found greater meaning for their lives in Christianity. Moreover, as China initiated its “socialist market economy” in the 1990s, the anxieties accompanying consumerism, materialism, and individualism have turned many towards the Christian faith.48 A number of these newer Christians now work as academics and are members of the younger generation of scholars—no longer identifying as “Cultural Christians,” but now as “Christian scholars” (Jidutu xueren 基督徒學 人).49 Instead of supporting Liu Xiaofeng’s detached “mystical church,” some of these Christian scholars advocate for a “third church” (disan jiaohui 第三教會)—an ecclesiological option that operates as an alternative to the patriotic organizations and the more separatist house churches or underground churches. Many of these recent developments are informed by Reformed theology and even initiating new Chinese denominations and challenging the TSPM’s “post-denominational” rhetoric.50 These developments again had implications for the Chinese outside of mainland China. As China began to reopen, it would be overseas Chinese who would constitute some of the first missionaries back to China, often

46  Choong Chee Pang, “Studying Christianity and doing theology extra ecclesiam in China,” in Christian Theology in Asia, edited by Sebastian C. H. Kim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 102. 47  Sun Mingyi 孫明義, “Renshi Zhongguo chengshi jiating jiaohui” 認識中國城市家庭教會 [Urban House Church in China], Jumu 舉目 [Behold] 26 (May 2007): 12–17; Yang Fenggang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44, no. 4 (2005): 435–37. 48  Yang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s,” 431–35. 49  Chen Yaqian 陳涯倩, “Xueyuan yu jiaohui: Jidutu xueren jiqi kunhuo” 學園與教會: 基 督徒學人及其困惑 [The Academy and the Church: Christian Scholars and Their Perplexities], Jidujiao sixiang pinglun 基督教思想評論 [Regent Review of Christian Thoughts] 5 (2007): 215–26. 50  These individuals have been instrumental in developing so-called urban intellectual churches. For more information, see Chow, Chinese Public Theology, 92–130.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

17

working to build house churches.51 In the opposite direction, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and China’s later rise as a socialist market economy resulted in increased movement from mainland China. Furthermore, as the British lease for the New Territories was set to expire in 1997, the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed to initiate the process of handing over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China; this created a new wave of immigration from Hong Kong to various Western nations. Overseas Chinese churches faced new challenges given the rise of new ministries to address the bicultural children and grandchildren of immigrants, as well as needing to reconceive themselves due to the newer waves of Chinese immigrants. The ecclesial diversity of the church in China since the 1980s, for both Protestantism and Catholicism, has often been described in terms of a simple binary of registered versus unregistered, open versus underground, legal versus illegal.52 For overseas Chinese churches, their ecclesial diversity is often overshadowed by a perception that they are homogenous “ethnic” communities. Such characterizations overlook the complexities which exist within and between these groups, as well as the new attempts to traverse new territories by introducing new ecclesiological understandings.

Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity We have thus far offered a bird’s-eye view of some of the complexities surrounding the ecclesial diversity of Chinese Christianity since the Opium Wars. The chapters of this volume offer us vignettes—closer up examinations into various aspects of this complex picture.53 The chapters include discussions from a variety of disciplinary approaches—historical, 51  See Alexander Chow, “Jonathan Chao and ‘Return Mission’: The Case of the Calvinist Revival in China,” Mission Studies 36, no. 3 (October 2019): 442–57. 52  Even the September 2018 agreement between the Holy See and China does not seem to have yet fully addressed this matter within the Chinese Catholic church. See Richard Madsen, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Between Rome and Beijing and Sinicization from Above and Below,” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 6, no. 1 (April 2019): 5–23. 53  In 2016, the tenth annual conference of Ecclesiological Investigations was held in Hong Kong. This volume includes a selection of papers from that conference, along with a few independent papers, whereas a second volume is being prepared which focuses more around themes of interreligious learning in Asia. For details about the conference, see http://hongkong2016.ei-research.net.

18 

A. CHOW

theological, and social scientific—and discuss “Chinese Christianity” or “Chinese Christianities” in its variety of forms and expressions, including those from outside the geopolitical boundaries of mainland China.54 Given that Chinese Christianity constantly responds to shifts in its context, this volume is organized around a narrative of the development of the global Chinese Church, from the “century of national humiliation” to China’s rise as a major superpower. The first part of the volume is entitled “Missionary Encounters in China.” These chapters are not primarily about the ecclesial diversity of Chinese Christianity, per se. Instead, they offer a close look into some of the debates occurring among foreign missionary encounters in China, which had implications on how Christianity was perceived in the country and the ecclesial diversity which eventually developed. In Chap. 2, Mark Chapman focuses on Anglican missionaries who entered the country as bedfellows with British imperialism. Such an entrance reinforced the nineteenth-­ century view that British superiority was connected to Christianity—a sign of “civilization” and “progress.” However, by the early twentieth century, Anglicans began seeing China as a formidable “higher civilization” in its own right, and therefore on equal terms with Britain. In Chap. 3, Connie Au explores two Catholic texts produced by Western missionaries in China in the early twentieth century. However, the chapter’s focus is less on the Westerners as it is on the translation of these texts into Chinese by Chinese Catholics, as a means to help explicate the errors of Protestantism for the benefit of their Chinese compatriots. Instead of missionaries encountering Chinese civilization, Au shows how China became a site of encounter and conflict between different forms of Christianity. Part 2, entitled “New Concerns and New Chinese Churches,” shifts our attention to the challenges and opportunities offered by the new expressions of Christianity amongst Chinese encountering different concerns in different parts of world, especially since the mid-twentieth century. In Chap. 4, Jonathan Tan describes how the communist revolution in China prevented Chinese migrants from returning to their motherland 54  At present, there is a growing shift among scholars in this field to speak about Chinese Christianities in the plural, as opposed to the singular. This can be seen in the Chinese Christianities Unit of the American Academy of Religion, as well as the Liu Institute Series in Chinese Christianities of the University of Notre Dame Press. Also see Richard Madsen, “Epilogue: Multiple Sinicizations of Multiple Christianities,” in Sinicizing Christianity, edited by Zheng Yangwen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 319–26.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

19

and, instead, made a new home and took up citizenship in the newly independent nation of Malaysia. Likewise, Alexander Chow’s chapter discusses how changes in British immigration policies in the mid-­twentieth century resulted in a significant migration of Chinese from Commonwealth regions into the United Kingdom. Both chapters demonstrate how the eventual formation of overseas Chinese churches helped to offer solidarity for migrant communities against racial tensions, but also reinforced cultural and ethnic divides by ghettoizing these same communities. Chinese migration in the mid-twentieth century was not only a movement away from the Chinese mainland, but included returnees who wished to contribute to the communist cause. In Chap. 6, Zhixi Wang looks at the important yet enigmatic figure, K.  H. Ting who, in 1951, returned from Geneva to help build a Chinese church in New China. While Ting is best known for his ecclesial and theological work in the 1980s–1990s, Wang juxtaposes this with his writings in the 1950s. Even at this early stage, Ting wrote of themes resembling his later Cosmic Christ: Jesus as a great lover who identified with the masses and sympathized with the oppressed. We are even told of a Jesus who, in his Incarnation, was born into a specific nationality and, as a model for Chinese Christians, was a patriot who loved his own people. The final part of this volume is entitled “Chinese Churches and Urban Identity,” with all its chapters examining more contemporary case studies than the earlier two parts. They uncover ways in which Chinese churches wrestle with making meaning for themselves, often in tension between the particularities of the cosmopolitan cities they are situated within and a Church that transcends the limitations of physical space. In Chap. 7, Steven Hu discusses the growing interest in Reformed Christianity in China’s urban centres. Employing the “affective turn” in critical theory and social sciences, Hu shows how churches in Shanghai utilize emotion and attachment to construct distinct Reformed spaces. In the next chapter, Benoît Vermander also examines Shanghai, focusing on the agency of the city, afforded by its religious heritage and its booming cosmopolitan concerns. Protestant and Catholic communities must find new ways to navigate the skyscrapers of the religious, political, and social landscape. Chapter 9 takes us out of China to another urban centre: Vancouver, BC. Justin Tse chronicles the journalistic coverage of the Vancouver Sun, which constructs essentialized understandings of the “Chineseness” of Vancouver’s Chinese churches, thereby reinforcing false public narratives of homogeneity.

20 

A. CHOW

Philip Wickeri offers the Afterword to this volume, entitled “Christianity in China: Pathways, Problems and Prospects.” It is not a work of prophecy—and indeed, academics are often more equipped to look in the past than into the future. However, Wickeri’s contribution aptly concludes this volume by suggesting pathways Chinese Christians have treaded and, indeed, potential problems and prospects these may lead towards. In the end we are told that Chinese Christianity “will become more pluralistic, less unified, more sophisticated, less ‘foreign,’ and all the while more interesting.” Indeed, there is much to look forward to such a future of ecclesial diversity in Chinese Christianity.

Bibliography Manifesto on Independence and Reform. 1951, February. China Missionary Bulletin 3(4): 149–150. The Chunking “Manifesto.” 1951, February. China Missionary Bulletin 3(4): 150. Bays, Daniel H. 1996. The Growth of Independent Christianity in China, 1900–1937. In Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed. Daniel H. Bays, 307–316. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2012. A New History of Christianity in China. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Benedict XV. Apostolic Letter Maximum illud of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XV to the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the Catholic World on the Propagation of the Faith Throughout the World. November 30, 1919. http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-­xv/en/apost_letters/documents/ hf_ben-­xv_apl_19191130_maximum-­illud.html. Brock, Sebastian P. 1996. The “Nestorian” Church: A Lamentable Misnomer. Bulletin of John Rylands Library 78 (3): 23–35. Burlacioiu, Ciprian. 2018. Russian Orthodox Diaspora as a Global Religion after 1918. Studies in World Christianity 24 (1): 4–24. Chen Songchuan. 2012. Shame on You! Competing Narratives of the Nation in the Laoxikai Incident and the Tianjin Anti-French Campaign, 1916–1917. Twentieth-Century China 37 (2): 121–138. Chen Yaqian 陳涯倩. 2007. Xueyuan yu jiaohui: Jidutu xueren jiqi kunhuo 學園與 教會: 基督徒學人及其困惑 [The Academy and the Church: Christian Scholars and Their Perplexities]. Jidujiao sixiang pinglun 基督教思想評論 [Regent Review of Christian Thoughts] 5: 215–226. Choong Chee Pang. 2008. Studying Christianity and doing theology extra ecclesiam in China. In Christian Theology in Asia, ed. Sebastian C.H. Kim, 89–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

21

Chow, Alexander. 2014. Protestant Ecumenism and Theology in China Since Edinburgh 1910. Missiology: An International Review 42 (2): 167–180. ———. 2018. Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2019. Jonathan Chao and “Return Mission”: The Case of the Calvinist Revival in China. Mission Studies 36 (3): 442–457. Cohen, Paul A. 1963. China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1997. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press. Daily, Christopher. 2013. Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Esherick, Joseph. 1987. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Klein, Thoralf. 2014. The Missionary as Devil: Anti-Missionary Demonology in China, 1860–1930. In Europe as the Other: External Perspectives on European Christianity, ed. Judith Becker and Brian Stanley, 119–148. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Lai Pan-Chiu. 2005. Typology and Prospect of Sino-Christian Theology. Ching Feng, n. s. 6 (2): 211–230. Lazich, Michael C. 2000. E.  C. Bridgman (1801–1861), American’s First Missionary to China. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen. Legge, James. 1852. The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits: With an Examination of the Defense of an Essay, on the Proper Rendering of the Words Elohim and Theos, into the Chinese Language. Hongkong: Hongkong Register. Li Zhizao 李之藻. 2007. Du “Jingjiao bei” shuhou 讀《景教碑》書後 [Postscript to the “Church of the East Stele”]. In Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu: Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun lunjiao wenji 明末天主教三柱石文 箋注: 徐光啟, 李之藻, 楊廷筠論教文集 [Catholic Documents of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun: An Exposition of Three Great Ming Thinkers in China], ed. Li Tiangang 李天綱, 188–192. Hong Kong: Logos and Pneuma. MacInnis, Donald. 1989. Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Madsen, Richard. 2017. Epilogue: Multiple Sinicizations of Multiple Christianities. In Sinicizing Christianity, ed. Yangwen Zheng, 319–326. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2019. The Chinese Catholic Church: Between Rome and Beijing and Sinicization from Above and Below. Review of Religion and Chinese Society 6 (1): 5–23. Mariani, Paul P. 2011. Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

22 

A. CHOW

Merwin, Wallace C., and Francis P. Jones, eds. 1963. Documents of the Three-Self Movement: Source Materials for the Study of the Protestant Church in Communist China. New York: NCC USA. Pius XII. Ad Sinarum Gentem: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Supranationality of the Church to the Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Local Ordinaries and other Members of the Clergy and People of China in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See. October 7, 1954. http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-­xii/en/encyclicals/documents/ hf_p-­xii_enc_07101954_ad-­sinarum-­gentem.html. ———. Lettera Apostolica  Cupimus Imprimis: La Chiesa Cattolica in Cina  [Apostolic Letter Cupimus Imprimis: The Catholic Church in China]. January 18, 1952. http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-­xii/it/apost_letters/ documents/hf_p-­xii_apl_19520118_cupimus-­imprimis.html. Shenk, Wilbert R. 1981. Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn: A Special Relationship? International Bulletin of Missionary Research 5 (4): 168–172. Sun Mingyi 孫明義. 2007. Renshi Zhongguo chengshi jiating jiaohui 認識中國城 市家庭教會 [Urban House Church in China]. Jumu 舉目 [Behold] 26: 12–17. Tan Xing 譚興 (pseudonym of Liu Xiaofeng 劉小楓). 1990. Guanyu dangdai Zhongguo dalu “wenhua” Jidutu de shenxue pingzhu 關於當代中國大 陸“文 化”基督徒的神學評註 [Theological Commentary about “Cultural” Christians in Contemporary Mainland China]. Tripod 6: 7. Tiedemann, R.G., ed. 2010. Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume Two, 1800 to the Present. Leiden: Brill. Ting, K.H. 1989. No Longer Strangers: Selected Writings of K.  H. Ting, ed. Raymond L. Whitehead. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Tong, John. 1993. The Church from 1949 to 1990. In The Catholic Church in Modern China: Perspectives, ed. Edmond Tang and Jean-Paul Wiest, 7–27. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Walls, Andrew F. 1996. The Missionary Movement in Christian History. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Wang Zheng. 2012. Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. New York: Columbia University Press. Wickeri, Philip L. 1988. Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Wiest, Jean-Paul. 2015. Roman Catholic Perceptions of British and American Protestant Missionaries (1807–1920). Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia 6: 19–30. World Missionary Conference. 1910. Report of Commission VIII: Cooperation and the Promotion of Unity. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier.

1  INTRODUCTION: ECCLESIAL DIVERSITY AND THEOLOGY IN CHINESE… 

23

Wurth, Elmer, and Betty Ann Maheu, eds. 2006. Papal Documents Related to China 1937–2005. Hong Kong: Holy Spirit Study Centre. Yang Fenggang. 2005. Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44 (4): 435–437. Young, Ernest P. 2013. Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate. New York: Oxford University Press.

PART I

Missionary Encounters in China

CHAPTER 2

Christian Missions’ Encounter with High Chinese Culture 1900–1914 Mark Chapman

During the 1960s, when the Anglican Communion was expanding rapidly as new churches were formed in the recently independent former British colonies, the Irish Anglican theologian, Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, who had a long experience of working in India, commented that there was “undoubtedly an English mystique which one encounters from time to time in the Anglican Communion.” There was still, he continued, a “certain superiority complex lurking in certain forms of Anglicanism. The ghost of Victorian cathedral closes still haunts odd corners of the Anglican Communion.” While there was “no cause for shame in the fact that the expansion of the British Empire was closely connected in history with the expansion of the Anglican Communion … it has left in some places a

I would like to express my thanks to Alexander Chow for his very helpful advice on an earlier version of this chapter. M. Chapman (*) Ripon College, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_2

27

28 

M. CHAPMAN

heavy legacy of Englishness for the local Anglican Church to cope with.”1 Hanson was not alone in his assessment: Anglicanism has frequently been regarded, at least in caricature, as a relatively benign form of Englishness which accompanied the British Empire as it spread across the globe. While such an understanding of Anglicanism “as a flutter of surplices, a vision of village spires and cathedral towers” has had its critics, not least from the American church,2 Anglicanism has continued to be associated with Englishness and the legacy of Empire, at least in the popular imagination.3 The relationship between Christianity, especially Anglicanism, and British imperialism has been much debated in recent years. The issues are complex and do not admit of straightforward interpretation:4 there was what Andrew Porter calls “a subtle interplay of influences in missionary encounters with non-European peoples.”5 The impact of mission on the critique of the imperial project, as well as on the development of nationalism, and even in the formation of clearer non-Christian religious identities in British colonies,6 is well documented.7 What is undisputed, however, is  A. T. Hanson, Beyond Anglicanism (London: DLT, 1965), 21–2.  William Reed Huntington, The Church-Idea: An Essay Towards Unity (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1870, fourth edition, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 124. 3  For alternative models, see Ian Douglas, Fling Out the Banner! The National Church Ideal and the Foreign Mission of the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1993); Mark D. Chapman, “American Catholicity and the National Church: The Legacy of William Reed Huntington,” Sewanee Theological Review 56 (Easter 2013): 113–148; John F. Woolverton, “William Reed Huntington and Church Unity: The Historical and Theological Background of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1963), esp. 142. 4  Andrew Porter, Religion versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), esp. ch. 11; Andrew Porter (ed.), The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880-1914 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2003); Brian Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missionaries and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leicester: Apollos, 1990). See also Max Warren, The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (London: SCM, 1965). 5  Porter, Religion versus Empire, 321. 6  See, for example, the case of Sri Lanka: Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi, Faithing the Native Soil: dilemmas and aspirations of post-colonial Buddhists and Christians in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Centre for Society and Religion, 2012). More generally, see Kenneth Cracknell, Justice, Courtesy and Love: Missionaries and Theologians Encountering the World Religions, 1846–1914 (London: Epworth, 1995), esp. ch. 4; Warren, Missionary Movement, ch. 6. 7  Brian Stanley, “Church, State and the Hierarchy of ‘Civilization,’” in Porter (ed.), Imperial Horizons, esp. 69–73. 1 2

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

29

that there is a close connection between the development of Christianity and the spread of Empire, and both were related to broader understandings of race and progress. Yet, what is less widely researched is the relationship between the growth of Anglicanism outside the British Empire (or American spheres of influence or colonization). The ways in which independent sovereign states with quite different religious and cultural backgrounds related to Anglicanism, and in turn how Anglicans related to such contexts, have not as yet received much scholarly attention. My contention in this chapter, which is no more than a preliminary investigation of these issues, is that there was an increasing awareness in thinking on mission both in Europe and in America at the beginning of the twentieth century that European cultures were not unique among the higher cultures of the world, and that this had an important impact on the development of a distinct variety of Anglicanism that developed in these areas of the world. This meant the standard missionary narratives of “higher” and “primitive” cultures began to break down when confronted with something that appeared an equal. Drawing on Anglican missionary literature produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I discuss China as a case study in changing perceptions of non-Western cultures. What were perceived as higher—and even equal—cultures posed serious questions to the dominant missionary narratives and their relationship with British imperialism.

The Imperial Narrative Like much else connected with the British Empire, the overseas expansion of the Church of England had been somewhat unplanned. Mission was usually a private enterprise, rather than something officially sponsored by the Establishment and was frequently dominated by enthusiasts from the different church parties.8 The effects of mission had resulted in a number of different varieties of Anglicanism by the turn of the twentieth century. There were, in addition to the Church of England, roughly five types of Anglican Church which were developing across the world. 8  For overviews, see Mark D. Chapman, Anglicanism: A Very Sort Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); W. M. Jacob, The Making of the Anglican Church Worldwide (London: SPCK, 1997); Kevin Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Most comprehensive is now Steven S. Maughan, Mighty England Do Good: Culture, Faith, and World in Foreign Missions of the Church of England, 1850–1915 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014).

30 

M. CHAPMAN

First, and in many ways, the most straightforward, were those churches that were planted principally to care for what has been called the “settler empire.” As has recently been documented by Joseph Hardwick,9 these colonial churches shared much with the Church of England, and were identified with the expansion of the British Empire, or what G. Robert Wynne, Archdeacon of Aghadoe in Ireland called “Greater Britain.”10 They had particular problems: there was often conflict over land and property and relations with colonial legislatures and finance proved a perennial problem, as proved the case in Australia and Canada.11 Nevertheless, even though they usually lacked the privilege of establishment, the Anglican churches of the predominantly White dominions, most of which had developed systems of self-government, retained much of the character of the Church of England (including its divisions into church parties). The second form of Anglicanism was the American Episcopal Church which had begun as a settler church, but which was forced into a quite separate existence completely independent of the British Crown after 1776. It had developed its own distinct ethos, which was characterized by a blend of anti-Britishness, coupled with a distinct brand of (democratic) American nationalism: while most of its missionary activity had been directed towards its own frontiers, by the end of the nineteenth century, it was increasingly looking outwards, especially towards its new colonies and spheres of influence in Latin America, the Pacific, as well as China and Japan. A third and later group of churches were those that had developed through successful conversion of unevangelized parts of the world, particularly in large parts of Africa: while these usually lacked the self-­ governing status of the first group, they had grown exponentially through the nineteenth century. Fourthly, there was a group of churches which grew in British dependencies where Christianity remained a minority religion alongside one or more major world faith, as was the case 9  Joseph Hardwick, An Anglican British World: The Church of England and the expansion of the settler empire, c. 1790–1860 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). 10  See G. Robert Wynne, The Church in Greater Britain: the Donnellan lectures delivered before the University of Dublin 1900–1901 (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1901). See also Hilary Carey, God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c. 1801–1908 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 11  See Hilary Carey, “Gladstone, the colonial Church, and imperial state,” in Hilary M. Carey and John Gascoigne, eds, Church and State in Old and New Worlds (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 155–82, esp. 161–6.

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

31

pre-­eminently in India and Ceylon. Here Anglicanism was often associated with the colonial administrators, but it also played a prominent role in education. Finally, there was a small number of Anglican churches which had developed in the few non-Western and non-Christian independent countries. Of these, the churches in China and Japan were the most prominent examples. Such churches were quite distinct from the other Anglican churches in that they remained outside the scope of the British Empire and its social, legal, and political morés: they do not fit easily into the imperial narrative or what H.  W. Tucker (1879–1901) General Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the oldest of the Church of England mission societies, called “the spiritual expansion of England.” Tucker had used this term as a subtitle to his book, The English Church in Other Lands published in 1886 as part of Mandell Creighton’s series “Epochs in Church History.”12 The series title is telling: the expansion of the English Church amounted to a new epoch in Christianity akin to other titles in the series (such as Pollard’s book on Wycliffe13 or Plummer’s on the early fathers).14 Tucker’s book tells the story of the development of the Church of England in the different colonies (and former colonies) of the British Empire, beginning in America and the West Indies, and gradually moving across the vast expanse of the overseas dominions. It concludes with a short chapter on Anglican missions in the Far East, which, at the time, were still very much in their infancy and had a quite distinct character. “Whatever the difficulties presented by the India of to-day,” Tucker wrote, “they are not to be compared with those which confront the Church in China. The land is still a land of mystery, treaties and open ports notwithstanding.” He continued: We know so little of it that the number of the population has been placed by some as low as 150,000,000, by others as high as 400,000,000. Then the languages! for the dialects of one part of the empire are utterly unknown in others; and nowhere is there a phonetic alphabet, but each character represents a separate word, with distinct sound and meaning. Then the people! 12  H. W. Tucker, The English Church in Other Lands or the Spiritual Expansion of England (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1886). 13  R.  L. Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1889). 14  Alfred Plummer, The Church of the Early Fathers: External History (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1887).

32 

M. CHAPMAN

conservative beyond conception, proud of their ancient civilisation, which forty centuries ago was hardly behind its present condition, and despising all foreigners as barbarians. Then the religions! Confucianism, with its Pantheism and Emperor-worship; Taoism, with its apathy, which condemns the exercise of judgment and intelligence; and Buddhism in its most corrupt form.15

After a two-page account of the early Anglican missions in China, as well as the China Inland Mission, Tucker moves on to discuss Japan where, he felt, the situation was different since Japan had already benefitted from a series of modernizing reforms: “Unlike the Chinese,” he commented, “the people of Japan have shown an eagerness to listen to Christianity and a readiness to embrace it which suggests fears for their perseverance.”16 Contrasting the situation with China, Tucker felt that the future for the Anglican churches in Japan was looking rosy since Japan was rapidly Westernizing: “the use of the Roman character is rapidly displacing the old and difficult Japanese characters, and in matters of social intercourse foreign etiquette is being substituted for the almost sacred ceremonial which has been the rule in Japan.”17 What Tucker’s assessment reveals is that Christianity was understood as a sign of civilization and “progress” in manners. He was clear that, at least in its Anglican form, it was also associated with education in the English language and in English manners. Christianity, like the study of English, was about moral and social improvements: this was true even when it had been planted outside the sphere of direct British political influence. Consequently, by the end of the nineteenth century, missionary literature was often at least implicitly based on a hierarchy of races, where there was a sense that the “higher” races had the responsibility for the moral improvement of the lower through the spread of Christian civilization. Such presuppositions were sometimes grouped together under the notion of trusteeship, whereby Christians functioned as “trustees” for the higher  Tucker, The English Church, 192.  See H. St G. Tucker, The History of the Episcopal Church in Japan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938). One of the earliest accounts of Japan from a Westerner in the period was written by the Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong): George Smith, Ten Weeks in Japan (London: Longmans, 1861). This takes the form of a travel journal and long descriptions of key religious and cultural places. 17  Tucker, The English Church, 196–7. 15 16

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

33

values of Christianity until such time as the lower races could themselves be trusted.18 In all this, there was an evident missionary zeal, which blended the language of race and nation with that of Christian salvation and civilization.

Mission, Anglicans, and Civilization By the turn of the twentieth century, thinking on mission had begun to change. Relatively rapid travel, instant communication, and growing numbers of traders meant that there was improved knowledge of other cultures across the world which quickly served to question the very presumptions upon which imperialism and mission were based. The question was simple: what happened to the idea of trusteeship when some of those cultures that apparently needed civilizing turned out to be already civilized and where the people could already be trusted with self-government and the other trappings of Western progress? In what sense were Christianity and civilization linked? Addressing such questions, Henry Montgomery (1837–1932),19 Tucker’s successor as General Secretary of the SPG, and formerly Bishop of Tasmania, adopted a somewhat different approach to the history of mission.20 A significant proportion of his 1902 book, Foreign Missions, is a survey of the pre-existing religions, particularly in Asia, and the challenges they presented to Christian mission. While, hardly surprisingly, he sees Christianity as supreme, he nevertheless places great stress on the importance of pre-existing cultures, especially in Asia, in the development of religion. He devotes lengthy chapters to China, and to Japan and Korea, which had been relatively marginal to Anglican mission. He had even come to realize that Christianity was itself an Asian religion:  See Max Warren, The Missionary Movement, 26–30.  On Montgomery, see Steven S. Maughan, “An Archbishop for Greater Britain: Bishop Montgomery, missionary imperialism and the SPG, 1897–1915,” in Daniel O’Connor (ed.), Three Centuries of Mission: The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 1701–2000 (London: Continuum, 2000), 358–70; “Imperial Christianity? Bishop Montgomery and the Foreign Missions of the Church of England, 1895–1915” in Porter, Imperial Horizons, 32–57; M. M., Bishop Montgomery with a Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury (London: SPG, 1933); Robert S.  M. Withycombe, Montgomery of Tasmania: Henry and Maud Montgomery in Australasia (Brunswick East, Victoria: Acorn, 2009). 20  Henry H. Montgomery, Foreign Missions (London: Longmans, 1902; refs to the fourth revised edition 1904). 18 19

34 

M. CHAPMAN

“Geographically,” he wrote, “all the great existing intellectual faiths of the world are Asiatic. Again, only in Asia have great sacred books been ­composed.… The Bible, Hindu, Arabic, Persian, and Chinese Scriptures close the list. The classical nations of Europe produced every branch of noble literature, except books of their religion.”21 At the same time, Montgomery remained an apologist for the British Empire, seeing “clergy as officers in an imperial army.”22 He also felt that Christian mission within “Greater Britain” might even help the Church of England overcome its petty domestic party squabbles.23 It should be noted that he never succeeded in this final ambition, partly because the worldwide church reflected many of the divisions of the English church. This had been exacerbated by the voluntary principle which had dominated the missionary movement from the beginnings and which meant that many missionaries, especially from the Church Mission Society (CMS) and the non-denominational organizations such as the China Inland Mission, could be suspicious of their high church bishops. In many parts of the world, the mission field was a focus for division as the events in Kikuyu in 1913 demonstrated. Montgomery spoke of a particular challenge for mission in what he called “the rise of the Mongolian Races,” by which he meant the peoples of the Far East. Noting the recent triumph of Japan against Russia, he commented that “she will shortly educate China up to the same level.” This raised questions about Western presuppositions of the Christian church whose duty was clear: “it is for her to welcome any race to a position of equality that is worthy of it; to revise her own opinions as to colour if those opinions need revision.”24 When he came to look in detail at China, he was clear about the level of Chinese culture: “no one,” he noted, “can read of the Chinese without developing a special affection for them. They have been called the sturdiest race in the East, the Anglo-Saxons of the Orient.” Indeed, he said presciently, China was “so mighty a nation, that when it wakes there will be surprises in store for the world.”25 From an English racialist that was high praise indeed. Nevertheless, Montgomery  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 20.  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 2. 23  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 10. 24  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, xvii. 25  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 38. 21 22

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

35

held, China was in many ways the place where Anglicanism encountered most difficulties even if some of the non-episcopal missions had met with a degree of success.26 Discussing the history of English and American ­missions, he noted the relative success of the CMS and advised students of mission “to read the stirring story of the Fuh-kien Mission as an example, with its 20,000 adherents.”27 Despite his leanings towards imperialism, Montgomery came to see a need for cultural sensitivity as he became increasingly aware of the complexity of the missionary context. Indeed, writing about Japan in his next chapter, he was clear that what was required was a genuinely Japanese church and not one that simply mimicked the Western churches. The “most striking fact in the Church history of Japan,” he said, was the formation of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai in 1887, which was “now a national Japanese Church, with its own laws.” He continued: All who know the recent history of Japan will understand that when these people have seemed to throw aside every custom and belief in order to imbibe western ideas, they might easily err from the traditions of a stable Christianity.28

For Montgomery, what distinguished Japan from other societies was the level of its development, something that was becoming increasingly obvious in the first decade of the twentieth century as Anglicanism became increasingly globally aware. And China, he held, was moving in a similar direction which might result in a new national church. Interestingly, in a note added to the second edition of his Foreign Missions following the Russo-Japanese War, Bishop Montgomery similarly wrestled with the implications of Christianity, education, and national development among the higher cultures of the East: “Since the commencement of the war with Russia, Japan has sprung out before the world as a new nation.” He then went on to quote the Japanese Prime Minister, Itō Hirobumi: In order to show how far this nation is travelling in her evolution it will be sufficient to quote Marquis Ito’s later views: “The only true civilisation is  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 51–2.  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 53. 28  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 57. 26 27

36 

M. CHAPMAN

that which rests on Christian principles, and that consequently as Japan must attain her civilisation on these principles, those young men who receive Christian education will be the main factors in the development of future Japan.”29

While his views were obviously speculative, Montgomery clearly felt that the impact of Christianity was to be felt principally in the educational and practical spheres. By implication (even though this is not explicitly stated), mission was less about the conversion of new Christians than the transformation of society through education in Christian principles. In 1907, Bishop Montgomery published a collection of seven essays, all by bishops, entitled Mankind and the Church.30 The subtitle of the book is illuminating: it speaks of the Contribution of Great Races to the fulness of the Church of God. Like Montgomery’s earlier book on mission, the volume as a whole seeks to illuminate the context in which the “great races” have developed. In the period of what was one of the high points of British imperialism and despite frequent stereotyping, the book displays a remarkable openness towards other cultures especially those of the Far East including China and Japan.31 The chapters on China were written by Bishop J. C. Hoare of Victoria (1851–1906) who died before seeing the proofs.32 Like Montgomery, Hoare noted the rapid progress of “the two great ‘yellow’ races,” the influence of which, “when both are fully awakened, upon the world, must be enormous.”33 This presented particular military challenges but might also affect world politics through mass emigration. He believed that the “Chinese, no less, certainly, perhaps even more, than the Japanese, are a powerful race even now—powerful, that is, in the force of character and in their capacity for affairs.” He went on: his industry, his ability, his reliability, all combine to make [the Chinaman] a formidable rival to any European competitor; … And in other respects it is, I think, impossible to say that the Chinaman is inferior intellectually to the  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 59.  Henry H. Montgomery (ed.), Mankind and the Church: Being an Attempt to Estimate the Contribution of Great Races to the Fulness of the Church of God (London: Longmans, 1907; references are to the second impression of 1909). 31  W.  Awdry, “The Contribution of the Church of Japan to the Body of Christ,”  in Montgomery (ed.), Mankind and the Church, 135–236. 32  J.  C. Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” in Montgomery (ed.), Mankind and the Church, 239–77, 239. 33  Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” 240. 29 30

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

37

European. … the intellectual power of the present generation of Chinese is, without gainsaying, very remarkable.34

Hoare had observed this in his own educational work in Hong Kong. Nevertheless he felt that education had to be more than the imposition of some of the trappings of civilization; otherwise, it could never change the “moral character of a nation.”35 This required a slow transformation, which would be unlikely to result in rapid conversion. Hoare felt that in the process of Christianization it was crucial to develop a culturally sensitive native Christianity which avoided the denominational differences of the West.36 The Chinese, he felt, had a natural sense of unity and order which meant the historic episcopate would be a natural form of Church government: To me it seems not improbable that, as time goes on, and the foreign missionaries pass away, the native Churches will still, from their sense of order, require that some one man should have authority, and will take measures for his due appointment. And so gradually the Church in China may come to acknowledge, and seek for, the benefits of the historic episcopate. But if this should be the case, it will, I think, be, as I have indicated, a natural evolution from the Chinese habits of life and love of order.37

The following year, similar ideas were discussed in some detail by the SPG Anglican chaplain in Peking and later bishop in Northern China, Frank L. Norris in his book on China in the series Handbooks of English Church Expansion. This offers one of the most detailed accounts of the expansion of Anglicanism in China.38 Norris begins boldly: “In the beginning GOD made China. Read ‘Heaven’ for GOD, and the sentence not inaptly expresses the Chinese idea of the superiority of China as compared with the rest of the world.”39 This set the tone of the book, which,  Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” 243.  Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” 245. 36  Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” 258–9, 270–1. 37  Hoare, “The Contribution of the Church of China to the Body of Christ,” 277. 38  Frank L.  Norris, China: Handbooks of English Church Expansion (London: Mowbray, 1908). See the editor’s introduction in Philip L. Wickeri, Christian Encounters with Chinese Culture: Essays on Anglican and Episcopal History in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), 1–24. 39  Norris, China, 1. 34 35

38 

M. CHAPMAN

although challenging much in Chinese culture, treats it as highly civilized and complex with many positive characteristics, especially that of “the solidarity of the Chinese race.”40 This meant that missionary societies could never rest content with individual conversions or transplanting the “Church of England (or of America) into China,” but “must be faithfully and whole-heartedly directed towards the establishment throughout the length and breadth of this solid nation a no less solid Church of China.”41 The increasing sense of independence following the Boxer rising put an end to all “talk of ‘spheres of influence.’” At the same time, Japan was setting an example to be emulated by China. Indeed these had “rendered the rise of China in some form and degree an almost inevitable corollary.” This meant that “it was hard to see how Europe and America could, harder still to see on what Christian or even moral ground they should, attempt to hold down the awakening energies, the nascent resources of the Chinese Empire,” which could have fateful effects on the development of Christendom.42 Chinese civilization was thus emerging as a new world force and it required a new national episcopal church.

Pan-Anglican Congress 1908 In the early years of the twentieth century within Anglicanism, this sense of global awareness was expressed in the closest thing that Anglicans ever staged to a World’s Fair, the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908, when over 17,000 people from across the Anglican world attended daily sessions in various London venues from June 15 to 24. The Congress itself was the brainchild of Montgomery, who was a close friend of Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Every bishop of the Communion was asked a number of simple questions about what they saw as the most important problems for the Church of God within their own region, outside their own region, as well as what they saw as the “chief corporate duty of the whole Anglican Communion at this time.”43 Montgomery not only hoped that by addressing such questions the Congress might help clarify the distinctive challenges facing Anglicanism, but also, by shifting the emphasis  Norris, China, 11.  Norris, China, 14. 42  Norris, China, 200. 43  George Bell, Randall Davidson: Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 568. 40 41

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

39

to the worldwide imperial church, that it might provide an impetus for renewal in the Church of England.44 Together with the Lambeth Conference that followed on immediately after the Congress, the Anglican Congress reveals a great deal about the changing presuppositions behind the Anglican churches which had grown exponentially in the previous sixty years or so. There were huge numbers of preparatory papers which offer fascinating insights into the cultural assumptions of missionaries in what proved the high point of European mission. Several of them tackled the Chinese situation, recognizing the constraints of Chinese culture in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising. In his booklet Frank Norris, for instance, felt that Anglican mission would be a means of creating a sense of national patriotism akin to that in Japan. He remarked: A national religion is the surest bond of patriotism; and in so far as it may be possible to organize one Anglican Church in China, and to make that unity felt, or again, so far as it may be possible to realize the hopes of a growing “Unity of the Spirit”; among all who own the Name of Christ in China so far will the cause of national Unity be furthered, and the now absent feature of national patriotism be brought into existence. … it is claimed that Christian Missions, and primarily those of our own Communion, have an important part to play in removing what is now a national reproach.45

Mission was thus crucial to the creation of patriotism and national solidarity, features that Norris felt were lacking in Chinese society. Other writers, however, stressed the importance of education in Anglican mission in China. In a pamphlet prepared for the Conference on The Edification of Converts, for instance, L.  B. Ridgely, from Wuchang, emphasized the missionary importance of literacy which made the Chinese situation quite different from other missionary contexts. It “must not be forgotten,” he wrote, “that, in China at least, there is a very large percentage of people who read, and who enjoy reading, and who are therefore capable of taking in a large amount of spiritual culture through books.”46 Similarly, when discussing various perceived problems from foot binding to ancestor worship, A. E. Moule, Archdeacon of mid-China, was aware of  Maughan, “Imperial Christianity,” 40.  Frank L. Norris, Relations of Mission Work to National Customs as the Question Affects China (London: SPCK, 1908), 6–7. 46  L. B. Ridgely, The Edification of Converts (London: SPCK, 1908), 4. 44 45

40 

M. CHAPMAN

the level of sophistication of Chinese society. He observed that missionaries should “take care never to discredit the beauty and the excellence and the educational and refining efficacy of the language and literature which made China great when England was insignificant and have kept her civilized and educated, in a subordinate sense, it may be, but yet in a very true sense up to the present time.”47 G.  F. Mosher of the American China Mission in Wusih agreed, noting that education has always ranked highest of all that went to make up China’s civilization but the necessity for a complete change in the system as found was early recognized by Christian missionaries. This has been accomplished to the extent that the old methods have been abandoned, and those of schools and colleges conducted by the various Missions are being imitated in every province by the newly-established government institutions.48

Education was thus fundamental to the exercise of “embedding the church” in China, as Edward Yihua Xu has recently discussed in relation to the American China Mission.49 The proceedings of the Congress itself stretched to seven volumes.50 Volume five was explicitly devoted to reports and debates on the Church’s missions in non-Christian lands. Although much of the discussion was practical and descriptive, many of the participants also addressed some of the wider issues in the relationships of missionaries with local cultures and religions. Not surprisingly, the hierarchy of races featured prominently. For instance, in his lecture which introduced a rationale for world mission, S.  A. Donaldson, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, suggested that the Christian responsibility for the non-Christian was to be expressed through education whereby the moral values of Christianity might be spread. Indeed, education frequently became the “basis of missionary work, education based on Christianity.” The attempt to work indirectly by establishing institutions of education rather than through direct 47  A.  E. Moule, The Relation of Mission Work to National Customs in China (London: SPCK, 1908), 3. 48  G.  F. Mosher, Relations of Missionaries and Mission Work to National Customs with Special Reference to Experience Gained in China (London: SPCK, 2008), 1. 49  Edward Yihua Xu, “The Protestant Episcopal China Mission and Chinese Society,” in Wickeri (ed.), Christian Encounters, 25–46, esp. 26–30. 50  Pan-Anglican Congress, 7 vols. (London: SPCK, 1908).

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

41

evangelization, he felt, marked a “new departure for the development of Christian Missions.” This method was, he claimed, particularly applicable for the higher civilizations. It was certainly true already for China, Japan, and Ceylon. I think it is also true for races far less developed, and of a lower type of civilization. … Our aim must be to strengthen the weak, so that they may be able to walk on their own legs, not on crutches.51

As the Congress progressed over the course of a week, there were lengthy lectures and minuted discussions among the participants, most of whom had first-hand experience of Christian mission. These are highly informative about Western perceptions of other cultures and, in the language of the time, races. China featured prominently on the agenda with a number of missionaries commenting on the particular challenges of Chinese culture. Once again, many noted the importance of education and literacy in inculcating Christian ideals and morals which might thereby filter down and effect religious transformation both on the individual and on the society. For instance, the Revd E. J. Barnett, a CMS missionary and Warden of St Stephen’s College, Hong Kong, observed: The Chinese are a literary people; scholars stand first in the nation’s estimation. The schoolmaster is placed upon a pedestal. In the combined personality of several millions of students, China is looking to the enlightenment of education after a Western pattern, for her emancipation. The Church can provide, if she will, just that educational enlightenment which China is waiting to welcome. In Hong Kong non-Christian parents prefer our system to that of the Government, because it inculcates morality. … The result of the indirect influence of the college in the homes of the students, personally testified to by non-Christian parents, it is impossible to estimate. Surely the Lord of the harvest-field is pointing the way.52

Once again it was indirect mission through education that mission was to be accomplished. Similarly, W.  G. Walshe of the Christian Literature Society of China and a former CMS missionary spoke about the importance of literary methods which would allow China to “learn the methods  Pan-Anglican Congress, v, 6–7.  Pan-Anglican Congress, v, 33–4.

51 52

42 

M. CHAPMAN

of other nations.” This would best be “served by books which show how much we owe to the Christian religion for the foundation principles which are the bases of our national prosperity.” In turn, he went on, this would enhance the demand for religious works in the stricter sense … Missionaries in every part of China bear testimony to the value of general literature as a key for gaining entrance to the hearts and homes of influential Chinese. This prepares the way for the reception of the highest truth. We may here remember that the Renaissance in Europe was an intellectual movement resulting in a religious awakening.53

In one of the booklets that was published as part of the preparation for the Congress, F. L. Hawks Pott of St John’s College, Shanghai, wrote of the importance of education in bringing children under the influence of Christianity even when there was little prospect of explicit conversion. Moral conversion was equally important: CHRISTIAN Missions, wherever founded, have had as an invariable concomitant the school and the college. This has been inevitable, and has resulted from many causes. The establishment of a school has been the great means of bringing the youth of a country under Christian influences, and at the same time has opened a door of access to their parents. Appalling ignorance has appealed so strongly to the missionary that he has felt it his duty to spend a large portion of his time and effort in the intellectual enlightenment of those by whom he was surrounded. The necessity of mental conversion, in order that the Christian view of the world and of life may be more readily comprehended, has had no little effect in the introduction of the Christian school.54

He went on to observe that the “General Enlightenment Idea” is “founded on the conviction that it is the Church’s duty to extend the benefits of an enlightened education amid the dark places of the world.” In a manner reminiscent of English public-school Platonism,55 he observed that the church was

 Pan-Anglican Congress, v, 81.  Pamphlet S.D. 2(0): F. L. Hawks Pott, Educational Work, 1. These pamphlets are separately paginated and bound in with the proceedings. 55  David Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies in a Victorian Ideal (London: Cassell, 1988). 53 54

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

43

the teacher of all truth, because all truth proceeds from the one source God; and it should spread what we call secular knowledge as well as Christian knowledge. Indeed it denies that there is so hard and fast a distinction between these two fields of knowledge. This theory proceeds on the assumption that there is a Gospel of Creation and a Gospel of History, as well as a Gospel of Redemption, and that it is our duty to make God known through His works in nature, and through His dealings with mankind in the evolution of society, as well as in His Redemption of the world by His Son Jesus Christ. It sets before itself the great task of the uplift of the nation and of society, and would train young men so that they may fill useful positions as officials, leaders of industry, teachers, scientists, physicians, introducers of the mechanical arts, and builders of railways, as well as for the special work of the Christian Ministry.56

At the same time, however, such a model of education had its dangers, as W. S. Moule, CMS Principal of Trinity College, Ningpo, noted. Like Hoare, he observed that China would become a great power and also that “Chinese Christians would like her to become a great Christian power; that seems natural and right.” But he queried their conclusion that it was “the main duty of the Christian Church is to equip her members for positions of influence in the empire.”57 Surely, he felt, Christian education should also be concerned with specifically Christian teaching. Despite such reservations, it is clear that education was fundamental to the Anglican missionary task as it developed in China.

The Edinburgh Missionary Conference 1910 The recognition of the near equality of non-Western cultures with those of the West had profound implications for mission. This provided a significant part of the agenda at the groundbreaking 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh two years after the Pan-Anglican Congress. The specific political circumstances of the different parts of the world and their constraints on mission were discussed in detail. Throughout the Conference, there was a recognition that different levels of cultural development played an important role in the exercise of mission. In the detailed report that was prepared for Conference on “Mission and Governments,”

 Educational Work, 2–3.  Pan-Anglican Congress, v, 208.

56 57

44 

M. CHAPMAN

the complex situation facing Christians in China was discussed in detail.58 China, it noted, was a place where missionaries had to behave with the “utmost patience, wisdom and tact” since all that was likely from the government was a “grudging toleration” on account of Christianity’s identification with foreignness.59 As the Scottish Free Church Missionary John Ross, who had been working in Manchuria, noted: “If we can remove the idea from the Chinese Government and the Chinese official that Christianity and Christian Missions are a political agency—if you remove every ground upon which that belief is based—then you will remove the greatest obstacle existing to-day to the progress of Missions in China.”60 At the Conference, China was treated as a country of “higher civilisation” under non-Christian rule (akin to Persia) but which exercised a greater degree of toleration. Nevertheless it was not yet of the “highest international rank,”61 which was a category limited solely to Japan, presumably because of its victory over a Christian power: “In Japan, e.g., a fully civilised native Government rules over a civilised and yet non-­ Christian people; in its neighbour, China, the Government is both antiquated in methods and defective in policy, according to European standards, and is therefore to some extent limited in its actions by European influences.”62 Similarly, the Report noted, no “one now would venture to call China uncivilised, but it has not yet reached that level in legislation and administration which European Governments look for before they can recognise another as on equal terms with themselves.”63 Clearly, there was much missionary work still to do.

58  On China, see World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission VII: Missions and Governments (Edinburgh and London, n.d. [1910]), 7–22. The Committee which drew up the section on China comprised of ten missionaries, including three from the CMS, one from the American Church Mission, one from the SPG and one from the CIM. Appendices describe the relationships between the American Government (128–34) and British Government (135–6) and Missionaries in China. See also Brian Stanley, “Church, State, and the Hierarchy of ‘Civilization’: The Making of the ‘Missions and Governments’ Report at the World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910,” in Porter (ed.), Imperial Horizons, 58–84. 59  Report of Commission VII, 7. 60  Report of Commission VII, 176. 61  Report of Commission VII, 88. 62  Report of Commission VII, 3. 63  Report of Commission VII, 7–8.

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

45

Implications for the Chinese Context It is ironic that, within two years of Edinburgh 1910, this same “higher civilization” that existed for two millennia under imperial rule was overthrown by the Xinhai Revolution, and replaced by a new government in January 1912. Shortly afterwards, the young Republic joined Allied forces in the First World War in the hope that it might be considered an equal among international powers. Yet at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies agreed to turn over the German-occupied lands of China to Japan, another imperial force. Chinese intellectuals involved in what became known as the May Fourth movement were not content with simply changing governments—China needed a new mindset. Into the 1920s, these reformers clamoured for a new modern language, a new culture, and, ultimately, a new civilization.64 It is also important to consider the Anglican and Episcopalian contributions to new China. As already discussed, one of the important strategies for Anglican mission was education. Many Chinese families saw Christian colleges in China as a way to offer their children a modern, Western education. This would only accelerate after the end of the imperial civil service examination in 1905.65 St John’s College was one of the major beneficiaries of such changes. Efforts were made to incorporate in 1906  in the District of Columbia, and it was renamed as St John’s University, becoming the first institution in China to confer BA degrees in 1907. Furthermore, this provided a gateway for its graduates to pursue further studies in American universities such as Columbia and Yale.66 St John’s alumni— Christians and non-Christians—included some of the most important figures in the building of China’s future, such as the great statesman Wellington Koo. It “became known in some circles as ‘the cradle of diplomats in China’ or even ‘Harvard in the Far East.’”67 64  For a broader discussion of these developments, see Tse-Tsung Chow, The May 4th Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960); Vera Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986). 65  Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950 (London: Cornell University Press, 1971), 96–106. 66  Edward Yihua Xu, “Liberal Arts Education in English and Campus Culture at St John’s University,” in Daniel H. Bays and Ellen Widmer (eds), China’s Christian Colleges: Cross-­ Cultural Connections, 1900–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 117–118. 67  Edward Yihua Xu, “St John’s University, Shanghai as an Evangelising Agency,” Studies in World Christianity 12, no. 1 (April 2006): 25.

46 

M. CHAPMAN

Along with education, Anglicans and Episcopalians would also lead the charge towards creating a Chinese church, paralleling national aspirations for self-determination. We see this already being developed in the mid-­ nineteenth century by the CMS mission strategist Henry Venn. He observed the problems of missionary paternalism and believed it was necessary to develop indigenous churches, articulating the three principles of self-support, self-government, and self-propagation. Venn argued that “Mission is the scaffolding; the Native Church is the edifice. The removal of the scaffolding is the proof that the building is complete.”68 In China, this was complicated by the multiple British Anglican and American Episcopalian mission societies, which resulted in conflicts in mission policies and jurisdictional boundaries. However, among the foreign missionary community in China, there was a growing spirit of cooperation and discussion around indigenous leadership, based in part on Venn’s three principles. In 1909, a conference of the Anglican Communion in China and Hong Kong was convened to make plans for a Chinese Anglican church.69 By the first year of the new Republic in 1912,70 the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (CHSKH) was formally constituted.71 This foreshadowed the creation of other Chinese churches, such as the Lutheran Church of China (est. 1920) and the Church of Christ in China (est. 1927), and the later formation of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (est. 1954). The CHSKH would also be a major force for women’s education and the first church in the Anglican Communion to ordain a woman to the priesthood in 1944.72 68  Quoted in Wilbert R. Shenk, Henry Venn: Missionary Statesman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), 46. 69  See Tim Yung, “Keeping up with the Chinese: Constituting and Reconstituting the Anglican Church in South China, 1897–1951,” Studies in Church History 56 (2020): 383–400, 386. 70  Though discussions among Anglicans and Episcopalians were already underway before 1912, this year was significant as the change of governments was accompanied by a change in the legal code. Only under the Republic did Chinese Christians have a legal right to establish their own churches. See Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 96–97. 71  Philip L. Wickeri, “Anglicanism in China and East Asia, 1819–1912,” in Rowan Strong (ed.),  The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 334–337. 72  For a recent volume on this topic, see Wai Ching Angela Wong and Patricia P. K. Chiu (eds), Christian Women in Chinese Society: The Anglican Story (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018).

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

47

Along with these institutional developments, Anglicanism in China produced some significant Chinese Christian leaders. We may consider David Yui, the general secretary of the Chinese YMCA and the chairman of the National Christian Council, who responded to the nation-building efforts of the May Fourth movement by developing programmes to “save the nation” through character-building, rural mass education, and citizenship training.73 Others were leading minds of Republican China, such as L. C. Wu the first Chinese chancellor of Yenching University and Francis C. M. Wei the first Chinese president of Huachung University (Central China University), both of whom argued that Chinese civilization needed a synthesis of Christianity with Chinese thinking.74 Under the People’s Republic, and especially in the 1980s after the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Anglicans filled many of the top posts in the Three-­Self Patriotic Movement and the China Christian Council (est. 1980), most notably K. H. Ting (discussed in Chap. 6 of this volume), but including others such as Zhao Fusan, Shen Yifan, and Cao Shengjie.75 While this chapter has emphasized the changing perceptions of Western missionaries who encountered China, it must likewise be said that the Chinese context was also deeply affected by this encounter.

Conclusion This brief survey of perceptions of China by Anglican missionaries in the early twentieth century reveals a tacit recognition that Christianity would take on a quite different form in places where there was a “higher civilization” from those places with what they felt was a “lower” culture. In the hierarchy of races, it was clear that the developed countries of the East, 73  Peter Chen-main Wang, “Yu Rizhang: Patriot, Peacemaker, Prophet,” in Carol Lee Hamrin with Stacey Bieler (eds), Salt and Light, Volume 3: More Lives of Faith that Shaped Modern China (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 38–58. 74  Some have also tried to argue the case for the great theologian T. C. Chao to be understood as an Anglican theologian. However, this can perhaps only be said of his latter life, as he was baptized during his student years into the Methodist Church and it was not until 1941, at the age of 53, when he converted to the CHSKH. In a single day, Chao was confirmed and successively ordained a deacon and a priest by Bishop R. O. Hall in Hong Kong. See Peter Tze Ming Ng, “A Study of Two Chinese Anglican Theologians in Republican China” and Yongtao Chen, “T. C. Chao and the Sheng Kung Hui: With Particular Emphasis on Theology, as Exemplified by His Later Soteriology,” in Wickeri  (ed.), Christian Encounters, 155–192. 75  Xu, “The Protestant Episcopal China Mission and Chinese Society,” 34–36, 42.

48 

M. CHAPMAN

some of which, like China and Japan, retained an independence as well as a highly developed civilization of their own, presented hugely different challenges for mission. The concept of missionary trusteeship simply did not hold. For many, the challenges of mission might best be met through education in the moral principles of Christianity even where this did not lead to conversion. Consequently, although few were prepared to acknowledge it at the time, this was in practice a recognition that Christianity would remain marginal to the wider society and would be unlikely to make huge numbers of converts. China simply did not seem to require the benefits of Christian civilization in quite the same way as the less developed parts of the world. In a non-Christian society of equal standing to those of the west, the sorts of moral responsibility that Christians felt for the wider society—and which the wider society might be persuaded to embrace— had to be exercised cautiously and almost exclusively through education and welfare. Only in this way might Christianity prove acceptable to the wider society. Christianity might in the end be more about social morés and styles of behavior, rather than doctrines and propositions to be accepted for salvation. On this model, which might seem quite alien from much of the earlier rhetoric of Western mission, churches had a particular part to play in the future development of China, which was quite separate from a widespread acceptance of Christian doctrine by the Chinese. Similarly the idea of a culturally sensitive church constructed on so-called primitive principles which gradually came to dominate Anglican missionary thinking through this period gave it the opportunity to stand aloof from politics while at the same time functioning as a means for shaping and guiding morals and education. Although seldom stated, it would seem that the quest for conversion and recruitment was not central to the mission of the Anglican Churches in China, which was mirrored in other advanced non-Christian societies from Japan to Ceylon.76 This recognition came less from the inner logic of Christian theology and more from the gradual realization that Christianity and civilization were not synonymous: China provided a rapidly advancing counterpart to British imperialism, which had to be both understood and appreciated in its own terms. Long before the days of Communism, then, Anglicanism was almost bound to remain a modest if influential minority religion. 76  See Lorenz Beven, A History of the Diocese of Colombo: A Centenary Volume (Colombo: Times of Ceylon, 1946).

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

49

Small influential provinces which play a strong role in education and welfare in spite of their small numbers make up a substantial number of churches in the Anglican Communion. In the contemporary world, where it is difficult to see Christianity as necessary for civilization and where the concept of trusteeship has now been relegated to Western hubris, it may be that the minority model of Christianity exemplified by the contemporary province of Hong Kong and other similar small Anglican churches reveals a possible future for a form of Christianity that is able to honor difference and respect otherness. Ultimately, Anglicanism, especially in its more modestly sized forms, may have something to teach about what might be considered the universal virtues of humility and the universality of grace that underpin Christianity and which are taught through Christian education. Perhaps Bishop Montgomery’s prophecy of 1902 will, in the end, prove true especially as the Western Anglican churches—including the Church of England—themselves mutate into similarly small but influential groups themselves: what may not be the reflex action of Churches of various races upon the Mother Church as they create their synods with full lay representation and true ecclesiastical courts, and adopt formularies which eliminate allusions to extinct controversies? It will be the old Prayer-book and standards of doctrine, but modernised and enriched. The effect must be to help the Mother Church to adapt herself also to the times. It is within the region of possibility that the most stimulating aid may come from India or China or Japan, rather than from Canada or South Africa or Australia.77

Bibliography Bays, Daniel H. 2012. A New History of Christianity in China. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Bell, George. 1952. Randall Davidson: Archbishop of Canterbury. London: Oxford University Press. Beven, Lorenz. 1946. A History of the Diocese of Colombo: A Centenary Volume. Colombo: Times of Ceylon. Carey, Hilary. 2011a. Gladstone, the Colonial Church, and Imperial State. In Church and State in Old and New Worlds, ed. Hilary M.  Carey and John Gascoigne, 155–182. Leiden: Brill.  Montgomery, Foreign Missions, 159.

77

50 

M. CHAPMAN

———. 2011b. God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World, c. 1801–1908. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapman, Mark D. 2013. American Catholicity and the National Church: The Legacy of William Reed Huntington. Sewanee Theological Review 56 (Easter): 113–148. ———. 2006. Anglicanism: A Very Sort Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chow, Tse-Tsung. 1960. The May 4th Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cracknell, Kenneth. 1995. Justice, Courtesy and Love: Missionaries and Theologians Encountering the World Religions, 1846-1914. London: Epworth. Douglas, Ian. 1993. Fling Out the Banner! The National Church Ideal and the Foreign Mission of the Episcopal Church. New York: Church Hymnal Corporation. Hanson, A.T. 1965. Beyond Anglicanism. London: DLT. Hardwick, Joseph. 2014. An Anglican British World: The Church of England and the Expansion of the Settler Empire, c. 1790–1860. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hettiarachchi, Shanthikumar. 2012. Faithing the Native Soil: Dilemmas and Aspirations of Post-colonial Buddhists and Christians in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Centre for Society and Religion. Huntington, William Reed. 1870. The Church-Idea: An Essay Towards Unity. fourth edition, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899 ed. New York: E. P. Dutton. Jacob, W.M. 1997. The Making of the Anglican Church Worldwide. London: SPCK. Lutz, Jessie Gregory. 1971. China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950. London: Cornell University Press. M. M. 1933. Bishop Montgomery with a Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury. London: SPG. Maughan, Steven S. 2014. Mighty England Do Good: Culture, Faith, and World in Foreign Missions of the Church of England, 1850-1915. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Maughan, Steven S. 2000. An Archbishop for Greater Britain: Bishop Montgomery, Missionary Imperialism and the SPG, 1897–1915. In Three Centuries of Mission: The United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 1701–2000, ed. Daniel O’Connor, 358–370. London: Continuum. Montgomery, Henry H. 1902. Foreign Missions. London: Longmans. refs to the fourth revised edition 1904. ———, ed. Mankind and the Church: Being an Attempt to Estimate the Contribution of Great Races to the Fulness of the Church of God (London: Longmans, 1907; references are to the second impression of 1909). Mosher, G.F. 2008. Relations of Missionaries and Mission Work to National Customs with Special Reference to Experience Gained in China. London: SPCK. Moule, A.E. 1908. The Relation of Mission Work to National Customs in China. London: SPCK.

2  CHRISTIAN MISSIONS’ ENCOUNTER WITH HIGH CHINESE CULTURE… 

51

Newsome, David. 1988. Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies in a Victorian Ideal. London: Cassell. Norris, Frank L. 1908a. China: Handbooks of English Church Expansion. London: Mowbray. ———. 1908b. Relations of Mission Work to National Customs as the Question Affects China. London: SPCK. Pan-Anglican Congress. 1908. Pan-Anglican Congress. Vol. 7. London: SPCK. Plummer, Alfred. 1887. The Church of the Early Fathers: External History. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Poole, R.L. 1889. Wycliffe and Movements for Reform. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Porter, Andrew, ed. 2003. The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ———. 2004. Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pott, F.L. Hawks. 1908. Educational Work. London: Heineman. Ridgely, L.B. 1908. The Edification of Converts. London: SPCK. Schwarcz, Vera. 1986. The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Shenk, Wilbert R. 1983. Henry Venn: Missionary Statesman. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Smith, George. 1861. Ten Weeks in Japan. London: Longmans. Stanley, Brian. 1990. The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missionaries and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Leicester: Apollos. Tucker, H. St G. 1938. The History of the Episcopal Church in Japan. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Tucker, H.W. 1886. The English Church in Other Lands Or the Spiritual Expansion of England. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Wang, Peter Chen-main. 2011. Yu Rizhang: Patriot, Peacemaker, Prophet. In Salt and Light, Volume 3: More Lives of Faith that Shaped Modern China, ed. Carol Lee Hamrin with Stacey Bieler, 38–58. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. Ward, Kevin. 2006. A History of Global Anglicanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, Max. 1965. The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History. London: SCM. Wickeri, Philip L. 2017. Anglicanism in China and East Asia, 1819–1912. In The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume III, ed. Rowan Strong, 318–337. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———, ed. 2015. Christian Encounters with Chinese Culture: Essays on Anglican and Episcopal History in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Withycombe, Robert S.M. 2009. Montgomery of Tasmania: Henry and Maud Montgomery in Australasia. Brunswick East, VIC: Acorn.

52 

M. CHAPMAN

Wong, Wai Ching Angela, and Patricia P.K. Chiu, eds. 2018. Christian Women in Chinese Society: The Anglican Story. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Woolverton, John F. 1963. William Reed Huntington and Church Unity: The Historical and Theological Background of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University. World Missionary Conference. 1910. Report of Commission VII: Missions and Governments. Edinburgh and London, n.d. [1910]. Wynne, G. Robert. 1901. The Church in Greater Britain: The Donnellan Lectures Delivered Before the University of Dublin 1900–1901. London: K.  Paul, Trench, Trübner. Xu, Edward Yihua. 2009. Liberal Arts Education in English and Campus Culture at St John’s University. In China’s Christian Colleges: Cross-Cultural Connections, 1900–1950, ed. Daniel H.  Bays and Ellen Widmer, 107–124. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ———. 2006. St John’s University, Shanghai as an Evangelising Agency. Studies in World Christianity 12 (1): 23–49. Yung, Tim. 2020. Keeping up with the Chinese: Constituting and Reconstituting the Anglican Church in South China, 1897–1951. Studies in Church History 56: 383–400.

CHAPTER 3

Catholic Apologetic Mission in Pre-Vatican II China: A Study of Two Chinese Catholic Texts Connie Au

During the period between the Reformation and Vatican II, the Catholic Church condemned Protestants as heretical; unity meant Protestants had to return to the Catholic Church. This division between Protestantism and Catholicism is even more complicated in Chinese Christianity due to the history of the foreign missionary movement. In China, Protestant and Catholic missionaries not only competed for new converts, but also attacked each other to safeguard their flock from falling into perceived heresy. One of these safeguards was the translation of Western apologetic literature into Chinese. This chapter aims to explicate Catholic apologetic work in China in the early twentieth century as demonstrated in two translations. The first is P.  Francis Xavier Farmer, S. J.’s Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique and its commentary, written by the translator Zhang Shiquan. The second is the Catholic-authored section of John Livingston Nevius’ The Two Religions Set Right: Romanism and Protestantism. Both texts were authored by Western missionaries and

C. Au (*) Chinese Christian Literature Council, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_3

53

54 

C. AU

were translated by Chinese so that Chinese Catholics would understand the problems of Protestantism.

Background Catholic Ecumenism in the Pre-Vatican II Period From the Reformation to Vatican II, the Catholic Church adhered to the view that Protestants had divided the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Hence, Protestants bore the responsibility of the division and the remedy required them to return to the Mother Church. This was articulated in Mortalium Animos, promulgated by Pope Pius XI, which declared, “For the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.”1 Chinese Catholics were naturally expected to follow this rule and Catholic missionaries were supposed to teach them to do so. Chinese Terminologies of Protestantism and Catholicism From the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Protestants in China called themselves “Jesus Religion” (Yesujiao 耶穌教) or “Christ Religion” (Jidujiao 基督教), as Protestants believed that they were the true believers—followers and preachers of Jesus Christ who demonstrated the orthodoxy of Christianity. In contrast, Catholics in China called themselves the “Universal Religion” (Gongjiao 公教) or the “Heavenly Lord Religion” (Tianzhujiao 天主教), the latter given that Catholic missionaries translated “God” or Deus into “Heavenly Lord” (Tianzhu 天主).2 Protestant missionaries used different terms to translate “God,” such as the “Emperor Above” (Shangdi 上帝) or simply the generic term for “gods” (shen 神),3 1  Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/ en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19280106_mortalium-animos.html, accessed January 13, 2016. 2  Paul Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Anti-­ foreignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 18. 3  Among Protestants, the proper rendering for “God” in Chinese has been hotly debated in what has been known as the “term question.” For a useful overview of this debate, see Irene Eber, “The Interminable Term Question,” in Irene Eber, Sze-kar Wan, and Knut Walf, eds., Bible in Modern China: The Literary and Intellectual Impact (Sankt Augustin: Institut

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

55

which would distinguish themselves from the Catholics. Moreover, Protestants called Catholicism the “Old Religion” (jiujiao 舊教) and themselves the “New Religion” (xinjiao 新教) to demonstrate that their reformed faith was more compatible with the modernization of China.4 Before Vatican II, Chinese Catholics derogatively called Protestantism as “Devoutly Protesting Religion” (shifanjia 誓反教). These latter Chinese terms reflect the antagonism in their relationship, as well as one’s sense of superiority over the other. Christian Missionary Movement Catholics began their mission in China during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. However, for generations, a significant number of Mongolian royal members of the Mongolian Empire had already converted to Christianity through the mission of the Church of the East (often described as “Nestorianism”).5 Rabban Sauma, a Turkic Chinese Christian of the Church of the East started a pilgrimage from China westward. He reached Baghdad to meet Mar Denha the catholicos, Paris to meet King Philip, and Bordeaux, which was part of the English dominion in the thirteenth century, to meet the English King, Edward I. In 1287, he arrived in Rome but could only meet the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church as Pope

Monumenta Serica, 1999), 135–161; Daniel Sungho Ahn, “The Term Question in China: The Theological Factors behind the Translation of Shangti as the Term for ‘God’ in the Chinese Bible in the Nineteenth Century,” in Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue (eds), Testing the Boundaries: Self, Faith, Interpretation and Changing Trends in Religious Studies (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 95–114. 4  Jean-Pierre Charbonnier, Christians in China: A.D. 600 to 2000 (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2007), 352. 5  Temujin (Genghis Khan) founded the Mongol Empire which spread from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. By 1275, the Empire ruled China, Tibet, Persia, and parts of Russia. Some of the tribes in this vast Empire were Christian and some Mongol Khans were married to Christian women. Sorkakatani-beki was the chief wife of Temujin’s youngest son, Tolui. She was a princess of the Keraits who were Turkic and were converted to the Church of the East in the eleventh century. She gave birth to three sons, Kublai, Mongko, and Hulagu, who ruled different parts of the Empire. Kublai founded the Yuan dynasty in China; Mongke ruled the Golden Horde in Central Asia and Hulegu ruled over the Il-Khan Empire in Persia. Charbonnier, Christians in China, 73, 81; Douglas Jacobsen, The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 341.

56 

C. AU

Honorius IV had just died.6 He gave them a scenario of Christianity in the east: Know ye, O our Fathers, that many of our Fathers have gone into the countries of the Mongols, and Turks, and Chinese and have taught them the Gospel, and at the present time there are many Mongols who are Christians. For many of the sons of the Mongol kings and queens have been baptized and confess Christ. And they have established churches in their military camps, and they pay honour to the Christians, and there are among them many who are believers.7

Considering Sauma’s account of the Mongols’ friendly attitude towards Christianity, Pope Nicholas IV sent Giovanni da Montecorvino, OFM (1247–1328), and other Franciscan brothers to China as his envoys to the Mongol rulers in 1289.8 They arrived in Beijing in 1294 with the Pope’s letter to the newly enthroned emperor, Timur Khan, which stated the purpose of sending the envoys and blessings towards his sovereignty. In his letter to his superior, Montecorvino recalled that the emperor, Timur Khan, granted “many kindnesses on the Christians,” but he faced difficulties with the Syrian Christians of the Church of the East who did not initially allow him to build a small chapel. Eventually, he managed to build a church in Beijing and baptize 6000 people by 1305. Thereafter, the Roman Catholic Church was growing rapidly and he was consecrated first Archbishop of Beijing in 1313.9 The Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by a Han Chinese, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), in 1368. China was once again governed by Han Chinese. Since most of the Roman Catholic and Church of the East Christians were Mongolians, they were killed or fled from persecution, which nearly caused the end of Christianity in China. Only when the mission of Matteo Ricci and other Jesuits began in the sixteenth century was Catholicism once again re-established in China.10

 Charbonnier, Christians in China, 81–83.  E. A. Wallis Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan Emperor of China (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1928), http://www.aina.org/books/mokk/mokk.htm#c11, accessed March 11, 2018. 8  Charbonnier, Christians in China, 98, 100. 9  Charbonnier, Christians in China, 99, 101, 103. 10  Charbonnier, Christians in China, 110. 6 7

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

57

Before the arrival of the first Protestant missionary to China, Robert Morrison in 1807, Catholic missionaries had been working in China for over five centuries. Paul A. Cohen states that around 1860, “When the average Chinese of this time thought of Christianity, he generally had in mind Catholic Christianity, its missionary proponents, and its official protector, France.”11 T. R. Jernigan, the Consul-General at Shanghai in 1896, recorded that the Catholic Church had 25 bishoprics and a membership of one million, excluding Tibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria. He appraised its success by saying, “its restless energy is directed to the alleviation of bodily as well as spiritual suffering, and its churches, hospitals and schools attest continued success.” While Protestants had 1650 foreign missionaries and 50,000 converts, he estimated that Catholic converts totalled around 100,000.12 Protestant missionaries were aware of the existence of Catholicism in China, but believed that Chinese Catholics had received incorrect teachings and were not yet “saved” and needed to be re-evangelized. In 1891, Presbyterian missionary Alex Armstrong arrived in Shandong and reckoned that thousands of Catholics were unsaved because they accepted the pope, priests, saints, and the blasphemous term, “the mother of God.” Presbyterian missionaries adhered to the view that according to the Westminster Confession of 1646, the pope was the Anti-Christ prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Catholic missionaries were generally antagonistic about these Protestant newcomers, as Protestants were seen to be preaching another version of doctrines and confusing their Catholic flock.13 At times, both Catholics and Protestants would accuse the other of sheep-stealing. In part due to this quarrel, the Chinese were suspicious of the Christian faith. Protestant proselytism upset the Catholic Church, which fought back with an apologetic attitude whenever they were criticized by the Protestants.

 Cohen, China and Christianity, 71.  T. R. Jernigan, “Missionaries and Missionary Work,” Chinese Recorder 28, no. 3 (March 1897): 101. 13  See Jean-Paul Wiest, “Roman Catholic Perceptions of British and American Protestant Missionaries (1807–1920),” Journal of Cultural Interactions in East Asia 6 (2015): 19–30. 11 12

58 

C. AU

P. Francis Xavier Farmer’s Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique and Zhang Shiquan’s Commentary Farmer’s Conversion P. F. X. Farmer, S. J. (1877–1970)’s Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique was published in a French Jesuit journal, Études: Revue Catholique D’Intérêt Général, in 1923.14 The essay narrates Farmer’s personal journey from Protestantism to Catholicism as an apology for the Roman Catholic faith. A Chinese Jesuit, Zhang Shiquan (張士泉), translated it into Chinese and published the translation in 1926 through his order’s press, Tushanwan (土山灣).15 Farmer was born in Georgia in the United States to a Methodist Episcopal family. He was baptized as a child and dedicated himself to be a missionary to China. In 1901, he arrived in Guangxi where he met his wife-to-be, Martha A. Beesan, who was also a missionary. They married in 1903, but a few years later, she passed away, and Farmer returned to the United States for a retreat.16 In 1912, he resumed his second mission in Shanghai, China, by journeying via Europe where he was amazed by Rome’s magnificent churches despite his heartfelt disgust for the Roman Catholic Church. After his conversion to Catholicism, Farmer realized this trip had made a great impact on him.17 During his leisure time, Farmer read works on church history and began to consider the origins of Christianity. He encountered many “strange scenarios” in Protestantism, such as the infidelity of Martin Luther, the cruelty and promiscuousness of Henry VIII, and the hardheartedness of John Calvin.18 He also found the different but contradictory perspectives in Protestantism very confusing. In his assessment, 14  P.  Francis Xavier Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Études: Revue Catholique D’Intérêt Général (September 5, 1923): 537–558, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/bpt6k113748t/f536, accessed July 17, 2016. 15  The press was originally an orphanage taking care of the children suffered from the famine in 1848–1850. The Jesuits later established the press in the orphanage for the children to develop the skills of printing and selling books. Charbonnier, Christians in China, 371; P. Francis Xavier Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang Shiquan (trans.), in Chinese Religious Historical Literature Editorial Committee (ed.), Preaching the Gospel to the East, vol. 8 (Hefei: Huangshan Press, 2005). 16  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 572–573. 17  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 573. 18  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 574.

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

59

Protestants, including his Methodist Episcopal Church, infused their own opinion into the gospel, by which he felt uneasy as he regarded it as an insult to Christ.19 Regarding the Eucharist, some Protestants created various theological theories of consubstantiation and symbolism; but after consulting a wide range of literature, he discovered that the early church believed that the Body was mystical and offered it as the sacrifice. Regarding baptism, some Protestants proposed baptism by full immersion into water while others proposed the sprinkling of water; he believed this confused Chinese believers and non-believers.20 Farmer was disappointed that although a number of ecumenical conferences had convened in Shanghai and elsewhere in the world, they failed to unify certain doctrines.21 He now believed that true Christianity was made up of the believers who followed one faith and one leader who represented Christ and held the correct dogmas.22 He was profoundly influenced by John Henry Newman’s dogmatic literature, which provided a wealth of historical evidence to prove his arguments. He was convinced that only the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and the Orthodox and Protestant churches were all heretical or frauds. He regretted growing up in the heretical Methodist Episcopal Church, which he considered as having gone astray in darkness.23 Farmer visited a Swiss parish priest in Xinbeimen in Shanghai, P.  Bornand, S.  J., to discuss doctrines and to pray.24 After a long period of struggle and reflection, he decided to leave the Methodist Episcopal Church and to join the Catholic Church. Meanwhile the Methodist Episcopal Church offered him a teaching post at the University of Nanking, which he had really wanted but decided to decline. He resigned all his duties in China and returned to Georgia. His family and friends were profoundly upset by his conversion, considering him as having fallen under the dark curtain of the Roman Catholic Church;  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 576.  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 575. 21  Farmer might have misunderstood the purposes of the ecumenical conferences convened in Shanghai and elsewhere in the world in the early twentieth century, whose primary aim was to unify evangelistic work rather than doctrines to demonstrate one witness to the Gospel. Farmer explains, “Dans tous les pays et spécialement en Chine, les protestants sentient le défaut capital de leur système: d’où les nombreuses confèrences à Chang-haï et ailleurs, les , tendant à réaliser une espèce d’unité doctrinale.” Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” 548. 22  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 576. 23  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 573. 24  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 578, 582. 19 20

60 

C. AU

but he had nothing left for Protestantism deep in his heart.25 In 1915, he was re-baptized and confirmed by Bishop Benjamin J. Kelley in his hometown’s cathedral and renounced what he now perceived as heretical Protestantism. He partook the Eucharist for the first time in the Mass on the following day.26 Since his heart for China remained, he joined the Society of Jesus in France which specialized in training missionaries to China.27 A few years later, he took his third trip to China as a Catholic priest. He first worked in Yangzhou, then became a parish priest of the Sacred Heart Church in Hongkou district in Shanghai for twenty-four years, before being sent back to Yangzhou and resided in Aurora University.28 Zhang Shiquan’s Translation and His View of Protestantism Farmer’s conversion to the Catholic Church amplified the “ecumenical” teaching of Pope Pius XI. Zhang considered his testimony worth translating, hoping to persuade the Protestants to leave their churches and return to the “true” church. He was delighted to say, This autobiography can surely be a touchstone to test the true and false; it also strikes the Protestants. Thus, despite my inadequacy, I translated it into Chinese for our people to discuss religions. I encourage you to lay down your prejudice to read this booklet, and to repetitively ponder about the reasons for Fr Farmer’s conversion, so that the question of Catholicism and Protestantism—whether there should be one or two churches, and which one is true and false, can soon be resolved. I earnestly hope that those who have gone astray will follow Fr Farmer’s footsteps—returning to the right way. I am desperately waiting for you to come back!29

In the footnotes, he repetitively urged the Protestants to return to the embrace of the Catholic Church, “I would like to respectfully encourage the Protestants to read Fr Farmer’s history and to study it carefully. Think about his reasons for conversion and you will soon attain the truth. Then

 Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 581–582.  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 583. 27  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 584. 28  “Fr P. F. X. Farmer Was Sent to Yangzhou,” Vox Cleri 5, no. 10 (October 1, 1948): 566. 29  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569, translation mine. 25 26

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

61

we will all be in one flock. Isn’t it beautiful?”30 Zhang’s translation does not only include Farmer’s autobiography, but also Zhang’s opinion about Protestantism in the translator’s introduction, conclusion, and notes. The following will analyse his points of view. Protestantism as Fraud Zhang criticizes Protestantism as “counterfeit,” but affirms that Catholicism is genuine. He describes Farmer as in a “dream” in the Methodist Episcopal Church, but once he returned to the true church, he was awake. He believes that this is the grace of God.31 Moreover, he briefly explains church history, arguing that Jesus’ salvific work and the church are God’s grace to the world. Because the Catholic Church is founded by Jesus, she is to be a “graced church” until the end. He affirms that only the Catholic Church can be called the “Jesus religion” or the “Christ religion”; it is the only true church.32 Furthermore, he criticizes Protestants for denying the holiness and catholicity of the church and has altered the doctrines for their own sake, which is like cutting short the feet to fit the shoes.33 He praises Farmer for publicizing his story, so that Protestants may wake up and return to the original holy and Catholic Church.34  artin Luther and Other Reformers M Zhang strongly charges the former Augustinian monk Martin Luther as the producer of the “counterfeit,” for “his arrogance found in his misinterpretations of the Bible and spreading wrong teachings; and his stubbornness proved by his rejection of any sincere advice!”35 Zhang does not mention the causes of the Reformation, such as the corruption in the Catholic Church, selling indulgences to rebuild St Peter’s Basilica, and so on. He depicts Luther as a sheer fanatic who causes troubles aimlessly. Zhang also mentions that after being excommunicated by Pope Leo X, Luther “was fueled with anger. He rose up and called his comrades to revolt. They founded a new church whose mission was to protest devotedly against the Roman Catholic Church.”36  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 579, translation mine.  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 568. 32  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569. 33  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 582. 34  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 568, 582. 35  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569, translation mine. 36  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569, translation mine. 30 31

62 

C. AU

Zhang, of course, does not offer an entirely accurate portrayal. Luther proposed his “95 Theses” in 1517 and it was not until 1521 when he was excommunicated. In those four years, he debated with papal representatives and the Habsburg emperor. Hence his reform was not revenge motivated by anger. In addition, instead of founding a new church, Luther aimed to reform the Catholic Church, though this was refused by the Pope. “Protestant” was not used by Luther, but by the German princes who wrote a declaration, Protestatio, in 1529. Zhang depicted Luther’s supporters as a mindless race of “ranters and clamorers,”37 but actually, princes, scholars, humanists, priests, and nuns all partook in the reformation. It is hard to judge whether Zhang’s views of Protestantism were selective bits of history used for propaganda or if they were what he actually believed. The fact remains that his antagonism and misunderstandings were spread among the Chinese through his translation.  rotestant Missions in China P After reviewing this history, Zhang criticizes the Protestant missionary movement of his time, which he phrases as “seizing the opportunity to steal.” Zhang reckons that when Protestants first began calling themselves “Jesus religion” and then “Christ religion,” it was a way to “show off.”38 It would cause the Chinese who were unfamiliar with Western church history to believe it to be true. Commenting on the Anti-Christian movement of his time, Zhang thought that it was the Protestant schools which caused the movement because they demanded students study the Bible and participate in Christian services. In response, Chinese students disobeyed and attacked both the Catholic and Protestant schools. Similarly, as the rioters could not distinguish between Catholicism and Protestantism, they attacked Catholic buildings and Catholics as well. Zhang, therefore, blamed Protestants for causing the Catholic Church to suffer innocently.39 When Zhang was making his translation, he must have been aware of the causes of the Anti-Christian movement—the refusal of the Western powers to return the concessions to the Republic government, the rise of the communism and other self-empowering movements in China.40 Both  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569.  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569. 39  Farmer, “Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique,” Zhang (trans.), 569. 40  For further references on the Anti-Christian movement, please refer to Jessie Lutz, Chinese Politics and Christian Missions: The Anti-Christian Movements of 1920–28 (Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publication, 1988); Tatsuro Yamamoto and Sumiko Yamamoto, 37 38

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

63

Protestant and Catholic Christians enjoyed certain privileges under various treaties for decades which also fuelled Chinese antagonism against Christianity.41 Hence, it is not completely accurate for Zhang to blame the Protestant education system.

Catholic Criticisms of Protestantism in the Two Religions Set Right: Romanism and Protestantism An Introduction to the Text The Two Religions Set Right: Romanism and Protestantism was edited and written by an American Presbyterian missionary, John Livingston Nevius (1829–1893). It was completed in 1889 and the Chinese version was published in 1913 by the American Presbyterian Mission Press in Shanghai.42 Nevius was sent by the Presbyterian mission society in the United States to Shandong. Building on the three-self principle of “selfgovernance, self-­support, self-propagation” first articulated by the mission theorists Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson, Nevius’ proposal of founding local churches without mission funds was later known as the “Nevius “The Anti-Christian Movement in China, 1922–1927,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 12, no. 2 (February 1953): 133–147; Lewis Hodous, “The Anti-Christian Movement in China,” The Journal of Religion 10, no. 4 (October 1930): 487–494; Prasenjit Duara, “Knowledge and Power in the Discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns against Popular Religion in Early Twentieth-Century China,” The Journal of Asian Studies 50, no. 1 (February 1991): 67–83; Connie Au, “Resisting Globalization: The Pentecostal Holiness Church’s Mission and the ‘Anti-Christian Movement’ in China (1920–30),” in Michael Wilkinson (ed.), Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 117–133. 41  For example, after the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842, France, Britain, the United States demanded China to sign unequal treaties with them in 1844–1846. They added more privileges on the basis of Nanjing Treaty: (1) foreigners had privileges outside the treaty ports; (2) building churches and mission works were legal in the five treaty ports (Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningpo, Shanghai); (3) Chinese could become Christians, either Protestant or Catholic. Upon signing the treaty between France and China, Catholic missionaries had the right to rent and purchase lands beyond the treaty ports. Afterwards, Protestant missionaries also had this privilege. Norman Howard Cliff, “A History of the Protestant Movement in Shandong Province, China, 1859–1951” (PhD thesis, University of Buckingham, 1994), 23, 28. 42  John Livingston Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right: Romanism and Protestantism,” in Chinese Religious Historical Literature Editorial Committee (ed), Preaching the Gospel to the East, Vol. 15 (Hefei: Huangshan Press, 2005), 141.

64 

C. AU

Method.” Until 1885, he founded sixty local churches in eight years “almost exclusively through the voluntary efforts of unpaid Church members.”43 As his mission was thriving, Catholics blatantly proselytized in his mission field. Due to this disturbing circumstance, he edited The Two Religions Set Right. Two years after his death, his widow Helen Sanford Coan recalled how her late husband complained about the situation in her biography. I am hard at work preparing an apologetic—or perhaps I should rather say polemic—work connected with Romanism. The Romanists are entering our stations openly and avowedly to proselyte, and not without some success. We are driven to the necessity of appearing before the heathen as two branches of the church of Christ in opposition to each other. The duty of engaging in this work has been forced upon me.44

He continued to talk about the increase of inquirers that kept him busy in his mission station, which indirectly suggested how unsuccessful the Catholic proselytism was. I am glad to say that the work in our outstations is now much more promising than it has been during the last few years. The number of inquirers is greatly increasing, and we hope we are entering upon a new era of progress. We are looking forward to the next yearly meeting with unusual interest. The coming of so many recruits is a matter of great delight to us. Plans for locating these recruits will require much thought and consultation.45

The Two Religions Set Right is composed of the thoughts of three authors. The first one was Francis Huberty James (1851–1900), a British missionary of the China Inland Mission, who published Romanism and Protestantism in 1886 to refute Catholic allegations against Protestantism. The second author was an anonymous Catholic, who refuted James’ arguments in turn. His name is unknown but the text hinted that he was a missionary in China. The third author was Nevius himself.46 Besides refuting Catholic allegations, James wrote his essay to prevent the Chinese 43  John Livingston Nevius, “Methods of Mission Work: Letter VI,” Chinese Recorder 17, no. 5 (May 1886): 176. 44  Helen Sanford Coan, The Life of John Livingston Nevius, for Forty Year a Missionary in China (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1895), 440. 45  Coan, The Life of John Livingston Nevius, 440. 46  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 142.

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

65

from believing in false teachings (Catholicism) as he discovered that some saw Protestantism and Catholicism to be similar to one another. He acknowledged kind people existed in the Catholic Church, but clarified that their doctrines deviated from the teachings of the Bible. His responsibility was to defend God’s teaching.47 The Two Religions Set Right covers a wide range of doctrinal issues. The text was translated into Chinese, but the translator is unknown. The following investigates how the anonymous Catholic author criticized Protestantism to defend his church. Catholic Criticisms Against Protestantism The Bible Protestants always claim the supreme authority of the Bible. James states that Protestants follow the Bible and dare not change anything. However, the Catholic author accuses Protestants of violating the Bible for making changes as they wish. They actually betray their tradition and commit a serious sin.48 For instance, the Bible has reference to the seven sacraments—baptism (Matthew 28:19), confirmation (Acts 8:17), confession (Matthew 18:18), the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:22–29), extreme unction (James 5:14–15), ordination (Acts 6:5–6), marriages (Hebrews 13:4), but the Protestants only follow three of them.49 Moreover, the Catholic author accuses Protestants of removing seven books; especially First and Second Maccabees, Tobit, and Wisdom. All were regarded as the revelation of the Holy Spirit. But Protestants depreciate them as mere traditions. He particularly mentions Martin Luther who intended to remove fourteen books from the two testaments, but his followers were opposed to this idea; so eventually, only seven were removed.50 He condemns Protestants for perpetuating their malicious desire of removing the sacred books, which has caused God’s wrath; their names must have been erased from God’s book of life.51 Furthermore, the Catholic author criticizes Protestant missionaries for distributing the Bible to rural villagers, who might use the Bible mindlessly, such as using the paper to fix the walls and wipe their shoes. This is like throwing sacred Christian property to dogs  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 143.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 143. 49  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 143. 50  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 156. 51  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 156. 47 48

66 

C. AU

and giving pearls to swine. Protestants hope that everybody can read the Bible, but the author opposes this because he fears everybody would interpret the Bible in their own ways. This shows that Protestants disdain the Bible. In contrast, the Catholic Church seriously treasures the Bible; therefore, only the intellectuals were allowed to read it. They should even read the Latin version with commentary since the metaphors and teachings were difficult to understand. And since the Bible is the revelation of God, it should be treated cautiously.52 Priestly Marriages James criticizes the Catholic Church for forbidding priestly marriages and argues that since Peter has a mother-in-law, priestly celibacy is only a human ordinance. The Catholic author claims that Paul encourages bishops not to get married so that they can be “free from concern” (1 Corinthians 7:32). Paul also suggests that being single is better than being married (1 Corinthians 7:38). He concludes that the Catholic Church follows Paul’s teaching. Moreover, since Jesus requests the disciples to abandon everything to follow him, including wives, he believes that Protestants allowing pastors to get married and to serve God with their wives and children violate the teachings of Jesus and Paul.53 The Pope James disapproves of the Catholic Church having a pope, but the Catholic author argues that Jesus chose Peter to be the rock of the church, asks him to pastor His sheep, and endows him with the keys of heaven and the authority to release people. Peter becomes the head of the church and the popes fulfil the apostolic succession to administer the church.54 He criticizes Protestants who do not accept the papal authority inherited from Peter and granted by Jesus, as they do not follow the teachings in the Bible as well as Paul’s teaching to be subject to the governing authority. He believes that Protestants are obviously condemned by God and may not be forgiven.55

 Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 145.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 147. 54  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 149. 55  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 149, 151. 52 53

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

67

Intercession of Saints James accuses Catholics of regarding saints as their patrons and asking them for protection, which reveals that Catholics are not confident in Jesus’ protection. The Catholic author argues that asking the saints to intercede for them has been an ancient practice and is God’s will because God chooses the saints and their prayers are powerful.56 There is biblical precedence for saintly intercession. For example, God asks Job’s three friends to visit Job and to invite Job to offer a sacrifice and pray for them because God is pleased with Job (Job 42:8). When God is angry with the Israelites, Moses intercedes for them so God does not punish them. Revelation 5:8 says that the bowls of incense are “the prayers of God’s people,” which proves that the saints definitely pray for us. He is pitiful for the Protestants who do not practice this biblical teaching.57  he Virgin Mary T The Catholic author suggests that many scriptures mention the nobility of the Virgin Mary. The angel praises her for her pregnancy (Luke 1:28), so Christians should also honor her.58 Her giving birth to Jesus, the Son of God, demonstrates her purity. He believes that if Christians are only worshipping Jesus but do not respect his mother, they will upset him.59 The Catholic Church claims that the woman mentioned in Genesis 3:15 is the Virgin Mary. Since she is immaculate, she can crush the head of the devil. Luke 1:48 says, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” Since she is blessed, she will not go to hell but to heaven. At the banquet of Cana, she asks Jesus to find a solution for the lack of wine; it shows that she had the intercessory power and Christians can invite her to pray for them. This Catholic author believes that the biblical evidence proves that honoring the Holy Mother is appropriate, but because Protestants reject this, they disobey Jesus’ teaching.60

 Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 146, 155.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 155. 58  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 146, 155. 59  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 146. 60  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 155. 56 57

68 

C. AU

The Eucharist Re-sacrifice Protestants criticize the Catholic priests for repetitively offering sacrifices to obtain salvation. When Christ cries out on the cross that “it is finished,” his sacrifice completes humanity’s redemption. But the Catholic author argues that in the two testaments there are many cases of re-sacrifice. Jesus statement means the fulfilment of the redemptive mission instead of the end of sacrifice.61 He quotes Hebrews 5:1 to prove that bishops and priests have the right to re-sacrifice. Therefore, the Catholic author criticizes Protestants for they “definitely disobeyed the Bible, which is absolutely ridiculous.”62 Transubstantiation The Catholic author affirms that those who have not read the Bible will not believe in transubstantiation, but those who read the Bible will believe in this teaching, averring that transubstantiation has a strong biblical foundation.63 The Catholic Church argues that symbolism is unbiblical because Jesus institutes the Eucharist to commemorate him until his return. This implies his persistent presence with the believers through the bread and wine.64 Jesus says, “this is my body” and “this is my blood,” and that His flesh can be eaten and those who eat it can have eternal life and always be in his presence (John 6:54–56). The Catholic author also uses 1 Corinthians 11:29 to prove that the bread and wine are not just symbols, but Christ’s real presence.65 Hence, he charges that symbolism is unbiblical, and that Protestants disobey Jesus’ teaching and take his words as lies.66 They definitely do not “discern the body of Christ” and commit the sin of disrespecting the Lord’s body and blood.67 Bread Only The Catholic author argues that the giving of bread only during the Eucharist is biblical as John 6:51 says that “this bread is my flesh, which I  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 159.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 158–159. 63  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 158. 64  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 156. 65  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 157–158. 66  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 158. 67  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 157. 61 62

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

69

will give for the life of the world.” Hence, the bread contains the whole body of Jesus. However, the Protestants taking the bread and wine represent the separation of Jesus’ flesh and blood, which suggests that Jesus is dead.68 Penance James criticizes penance and indulgences, which was taken in the form of a certificate for purchase in the sixteenth century.69 The Catholic author claims that he was a missionary for ten years and his parishioners and himself never sold such a certificate and rebukes James for his slandering accusation. He further criticizes the Calvinist view of predestination, arguing that if human beings were predestined to be good or bad and that they had to wait to die to receive their rewards or punishments, then there was no need for missionaries to come to China.70 He considers predestination a useless doctrine for saving souls. The Catholic author offers biblical evidence of penance. For example, the Ninevites cover themselves with sackcloth and sat down in the dust to confess their sins and God does not bring disasters on them (Jonah 3:6, 10). King David confesses his sin and is forgiven by God, but his children would die, which is also a penance. Hence, he affirms that priests have the right to forgive and to also give penance.71 Purgatory James states that the Bible does not mention purgatory. The Catholic author agrees but criticizes the Protestants because they do not understand the Bible and the truth.72 He uses 1 Corinthians 3:13 to prove the existence of purgatory and 1 John 5:16 to solve the problem of where people who are neither good nor evil would go. He once met a pastor who could not answer this question and the Catholic found it ludicrous.73 He also uses a story of 2 Maccabees 12:43–46 to prove that praying for the dead is biblical.74

 Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 158.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 161. 70  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 162. 71  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 162. 72  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 162. 73  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 163. 74  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 162. 68 69

70 

C. AU

Relics James criticizes the belief of relics containing supernatural power for healing the sick. The Catholic author refutes this, writing that the Ark of the Covenant stored the utensils for manna, the budded staff of Aaron, and the two covenant stones, hence offering biblical precedence for keeping relics. Concerning the supernatural power of relics, he gives the examples of Elisha’s corpse which resurrects a dead body and the healing through Paul’s handkerchief to prove this. He criticizes the Protestants for not studying the Bible carefully and betraying the truth.75  he True Church T In the conclusion, the Catholic author uses the four signs to prove that the Catholic Church is the true church. The first sign is oneness. He believes that since Catholics follow the Bible, they share one faith; since the Catholic Church possesses the qualities of Ephesians 4:4–6, it endows oneness. In contrast, the Protestants interpret the Bible as they wish which produces different faiths and denominations; hence, Protestant churches are not true.76 Second, he affirms that a true church should be holy. Catholics cautiously practice Jesus’ teaching, give alms, fast, pray, and follow the two testaments. In contrast, the Protestants teach that anybody can be saved by faith as Jesus bears our sins and there is no need for penance. He therefore assumes that Protestants do not do good works, and that is what James 2:26 criticized, “Faith without deeds is dead.” He believes that Protestants stop people from doing good and being holy, so their churches are not true.77 Third, the true church should be Catholic (or universal) and united. This can be proven by the fact that Catholics in the whole world all follow the pope. But since Luther and other reformers rebelled against him, thousands of denominations emerged. Again, this proves that Protestantism is not true.78 Fourth, the true church should maintain apostolic succession. He avers that the Catholic Church inherits the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, but Protestants reject Peter as the foundation of the church and the pope. He describes Protestants as branches disconnected from the vine; consequently, they become fruitless

 Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 163.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 165. 77  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 165. 78  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 165. 75 76

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

71

and wasteful. Hence, they are not the true church.79 Furthermore, he stresses that the Catholic Church believes in the infallibility of God’s teaching and is accompanied by the light of the Holy Spirit until the end, so it is the true church. He urges Protestants to seize the opportunity to study the Bible carefully and to discern the truth; otherwise, they will come to regret this upon death.80

Ecumenical Challenges of Chinese Christianity After Vatican II These two Chinese Catholic apologetic texts contain plenty of strong words to depict Protestantism, such as “heretical,” “counterfeit,” and “fraud,” which demonstrate Catholic antagonism against Protestantism, and probably vice versa. The bitter prejudice and doctrinal controversies that Chinese Protestants and Catholics inherited from their missionaries through the translation of Western apologetic texts still separate them. Translation is a means of cultural exchange, leading to an enrichment of knowledge; but it can also be a tool of transferring doctrinal conflicts and antagonism, leaving Chinese Christians with a significant ecumenical challenge. After 1949, the segregation between Catholics and Protestants was so obvious to the Communists that they encouraged the establishment of two separate patriotic organizations, the Catholic Patriotic Association and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. These two organizations were meant to “unite the front,” a political scheme to “guide” the potential dissidents to be submissive to the Communist Party with soft and harsh tactics. Since then, ecumenism in mainland China is broadly twofold: (1) unity with the Party at the expense of the faith guided by their conscience and (2) ecumenism of blood, which surpasses the doctrinal disagreements adopted from the West. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the reformed “Catholic principles on ecumenism” manifested in the Decree of Ecumenism can only be fully implemented among Chinese Catholics in Hong Kong and Taiwan.81 When facing doctrinal differences, the apologetic attitude as  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 165.  Nevius, “The Two Religions Set Right,” 165–166. 81  Unitatis redintegratio, November 21, 1964, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_ councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-­redintegratio_ en.html, accessed February 19, 2018. 79 80

72 

C. AU

shown in the earlier two texts would be better replaced by friendly dialogue. Some Catholic missionaries regretted the antagonism against the Protestants. As Fr Albert V. Fedder, M. M. (1910–1999), who worked in Guangxi province but was expelled by the Communists in 1952 to Hong Kong and Taiwan, wrote in 1967, Those of us who were engaged in the missionary apostolate on the mainland of China sadly recall from our own personal experience the narrow-­ mindedness, the suspicious, rivalry, prejudice and almost a complete lack of dialogue and collaboration, which existed between the missioners of the Catholic and Protestant churches—missioners who came to proclaim the message of Christian love.82

He even appreciated the sacrificial work of the Protestants: We are ashamed of ourselves for having been so blind for so long that we failed to recognize these [fervent], zealous brothers of strong faith, who have been tirelessly, and at the cost of great sacrifices proclaiming the same Good News, which we came to proclaim.83

As a Latin expert, his ecumenical conversion prompted him to translate the Bible into the Taiwanese language together with Protestant biblical experts for aboriginals in mountain areas under the supervision of the Baptist Rev. W. James Moorhead of the Philippine Bible Society and the Bible Society in Taiwan.84 In the 1960s–1970s, some Catholic and Protestant biblical experts attempted to translate a common version of the Chinese Bible based on their own respective translations, the Franciscan Studium Biblicum Version and the Chinese Union Version, but the project was abandoned due to insistence on certain terms and the theology behind them. Some Taiwanese Catholic and Protestant theologians have been working on an inter-­ confessional version since the 1980s, publishing the four Gospels in 2015, although it has not yet been widely accepted. The use of different languages demonstrates to non-Christians that these are two different religions, which is a more visible sign of division than the different modes of  Albert V. Fedders, “Ecumenism in Taiwan,” Vox Cleri 7, no. 7 (April 1967): 24.  Fedders, “Ecumenism in Taiwan,” 25–26. 84  Fedders, “Ecumenism in Taiwan,” 26. 82 83

3  CATHOLIC APOLOGETIC MISSION IN PRE-VATICAN II CHINA: A STUDY… 

73

celebrating the Eucharist/communion/the Lord’s Supper. The two texts discussed above and the two versions of the Chinese Bible highlight the linguistic barrier as one of the great ecumenical challenges for Chinese Christianity. If it can be tackled, it would certainly be a breakthrough for the ecumenical movement among Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and other Chinese migrant communities.

Bibliography Ahn, Daniel Sungho. 2011. The Term Question in China: The Theological Factors behind the Translation of Shangti as the Term for ‘God’ in the Chinese Bible in the Nineteenth Century. In Testing the Boundaries: Self, Faith, Interpretation and Changing Trends in Religious Studies, ed. Patricia ‘Iolana and Samuel Tongue, 95–114. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Au, Connie. 2012. Resisting Globalization: The Pentecostal Holiness Church’s Mission and the ‘Anti-Christian Movement’ in China (1920–30). In Global Pentecostal Movements: Migration, Mission, and Public Religion, ed. Michael Wilkinson, 117–133. Leiden: Brill. Budge, E.A. Wallis. 1928. The Monks of Kublai Khan Emperor of China. London: The Religious Tract Society. Accessed March 11, 2018. http://www.aina.org/ books/mokk/mokk.htm#c11 Charbonnier, Jean-Pierre. 2007. Christians in China: A.D. 600 to 2000. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. Cliff, Norman Howard. 1994. A History of the Protestant Movement in Shandong Province, China, 1859–1951. PhD thesis, University of Buckingham. Coan, Helen Sanford. 1895. The Life of John Livingston Nevius, for Forty Year a Missionary in China. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co. Cohen, Paul. 1963. China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Anti-foreignism, 1860–1870. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Duara, Prasenjit. 1991. Knowledge and Power in the Discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns against Popular Religion in Early Twentieth-Century China. The Journal of Asian Studies 50 (1, Feb.): 67–83. Eber, Irene. 1999. The Interminable Term Question. In Bible in Modern China: The Literary and Intellectual Impact, ed. Irene Eber, Sze-kar Wan, and Knut Walf, 135–161. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica. Farmer, P.  Francis Xavier. 1923. Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique. Études: Revue Catholique D’Intérêt Général, September 5: 537–558. Accessed July 17, 2016. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k113748t/f536

74 

C. AU

———. 2005. Ma Conversion A l’Église Catholique. Zhang Shiquan (Trans.). In Preaching the Gospel to the East, ed. Chinese Religious Historical Literature Editorial Committee, vol. 8. Hefei: Huangshan Press. Fedders, Albert V. 1967. Ecumenism in Taiwan. Vox Cleri 7 (7, Apr.). “Fr P. F. X. Farmer Was Sent to Yangzhou.” 1948. Vox Cleri 5 (10, Oct.): 566. Hodous, Lewis. 1930. The Anti-Christian Movement in China. The Journal of Religion 10 (4, Oct.): 487–494. Jacobsen, Douglas. 2011. The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Jernigan, T.R. 1897. Missionaries and Missionary Work. Chinese Recorder 28 (3, Mar.): 101. Lutz, Jessie. 1988. Chinese Politics and Christian Missions: The Anti-Christian Movements of 1920–28. Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publication. Nevius, John Livingston. 1886. Methods of Mission Work: Letter VI. Chinese Recorder 17 (5, May): 165–178. ———. 2005. The Two Religions Set Right: Romanism and Protestantism. In Preaching the Gospel to the East, ed. Chinese Religious Historical Literature Editorial Committee, vol. 15. Hefei: Huangshan Press. Pius XI. 1928. Mortalium Animos, January 6. Accessed January 13, 2016. http:// w2.vatican.va/content/pius-­x i/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-­x i_ enc_19280106_mortalium-­animos.html Unitatis redintegratio. 1964. November 21. Accessed February 19, 2018. http:// www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/ vat-­ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-­redintegratio_en.html Wiest, Jean-Paul. 2015. Roman Catholic Perceptions of British and American Protestant Missionaries (1807–1920). Journal of Cultural Interactions in East Asia 6: 19–30. Yamamoto, Tatsuro, and Sumiko Yamamoto. 1953. The Anti-Christian Movement in China, 1922–1927. The Far Eastern Quarterly 12 (2, Feb.): 133–147.

PART II

New Concerns and New Chinese Churches

CHAPTER 4

Diasporic Chinese (Huaqiao 華僑) or Multicultural Malaysian? The Challenges of Being Chinese and Christian in Malaysia Today Jonathan Y. Tan Chinese Christian churches began in colonial Malaya and Borneo under British rule as migrant diasporic Chinese communities of faith that were historically oriented toward the structures of Christianity, as well as ethnic traditions and socio-cultural identity constructions that were rooted in, and directed toward a pre-communist Chinese motherland (Roxborogh 2014; Hunt et  al. 1992). On the one hand, the communist seizure of China in 1949, followed by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, closed the door for many diasporic Chinese migrants to return to their Chinese motherland. On the other hand, independence from Britain in 1957 resulted in many of these Chinese migrants taking up citizenship in the newly formed nation of Malaysia. Over the decades, the Chinese Malaysian community has experienced the rising tide of Islamic resurgence

J. Y. Tan (*) Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_4

77

78 

J. Y. TAN

and Malay nationalism in postcolonial Malaysia, the slow erosion of transnational ties with Chinese Christian congregations in Hong Kong and Taiwan as a result of restrictive Malaysian immigration policies against foreign missionaries entering Malaysia, strict curbs on new Chinese migrants entering Malaysia, as well as an increasing number of Malaysian-born Chinese who no longer speak, read, or write Mandarin Chinese fluently. In this context, what does it mean to be a Chinese Christian within a Malaysian Christianity where the dominant languages are Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) as the national language and English as the global language for commerce? As the Chinese Malaysian community in general, and Chinese Malaysian Christians, in particular, continue to move away from their historic diasporic Chinese (huaqiao 華僑) identification during the British colonial period to a hybridized identity that maintains the tensions and contestations between being Chinese, Malaysian, and Christian, does it make continued theological and social sense to maintain separate ethnic Chinese Christian Churches in Malaysia? Or would it be better to work toward planting and fostering the growth of localized Malaysian churches with cross-cultural and multiracial participation and membership, especially in the light of increasing harassment from the growing nationalist Malay and Islamic sentiments in Malaysia? By “localized” and “localization,” I refer to the process of being socialized by the daily experiences of living in a local setting, thereby acquiring a heightened sense of local consciousness that is influenced by local social, cultural, economic, and political forces, which in turn would define and shape ethnic, cultural, and social identities.1 In other words, localization emerges when the outside or foreign ideas, institutions, and practices are “taken to a new cultural environment, exposed to local influences, and thereby transformed into an original expression of the indigenous culture” (Kilcourse 2016: 17).

Terminology Before proceeding further, it would be instructive to define and clarify the terminology in this discussion. Historically, the term huaqiao (Chinese sojourners) encompassed all Chinese who lived in overseas Chinese 1  This definition of “localized” builds upon the insights articulated by Tan Chee Beng in “Chinese in Southeast Asia and Identities in a Changing Global Context” (2001: 217).

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

79

diasporas beyond the geographical boundaries of imperial China. According to the Chinese historian Wang Gungwu, the term huaqiao is a neologism that emerged around the end of the nineteenth century as an expedient political construct and identity marker which was used by both the Qing officials and Chinese intellectuals in an era of rising Chinese nationalism and ethnocentric pride beginning in the late nineteenth century onward to nurture closer identification among Chinese overseas diasporic communities with their Chinese motherland, as well as convey a greater appreciation of these overseas Chinese’ economic remittances and socio-political loyalty (Wang 1981a, b). While there is still an uncritical tendency among scholars and intellectuals from the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) to use huaqiao as a collective term for all Chinese outside China, the term has largely become irrelevant for those Chinese who have separated their political and national identities from their ethnic Chinese identities (Tan 1992: 6–7, 2001: 216–217; Wang 1998: 16–17). Although politically neutral terms such as huaren 華人 (Chinese persons) and huayi 華裔 (Chinese descendants) have emerged as alternatives for ethnic Chinese with citizenship or permanent residency rights in countries outside of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, these two terms may no longer be relevant where Chineseness is no longer part of the principal or defining aspect of one’s identity construction (Wang 1998: 17; Wickberg 1990, 1992: 503–504; Tan 2001: 217–233; Nonini 2001). In this vein, the continued use of terms such as “Chinese Malaysian” points to the power of a hybridized and localized designation with significant social, cultural, and political implications, revealing that Chinese Malaysians look to Malaysia, not China or Beijing, for their socio-cultural orientation and ethnic identity construct. As Tan Chee Beng explains, one’s ethnic identity is very much shaped by one’s local living experiences or localization, which in turn generates a state-based level of identity that is linked to one’s country of residence at the national and transnational levels (Tan 2001: 215–217, 217–222, 230–231). Indeed, by their Malaysian citizenship and daily life experiences in Malaysia, these Chinese Malaysians assert to the world that they are a localized Malaysian community, eschewing all attempts by Malay nationalists and Malaysian Islamists to label them as foreign and alien to Malaysia, as well as portray them as unpatriotic and disloyal. Moreover, even terms like huaren (Chinese persons) and huayi (Chinese descendants), which are often used in contemporary discourse as generic and convenient shorthand to label persons of Chinese ancestry, heritage,

80 

J. Y. TAN

or national origins bear no resemblance to how diasporic Chinese generally, and Southeast Asian diasporic Chinese specifically, have historically identified themselves. Before the emergence of a common, standardized, and normative “Chinese national language” (guoyu 國語) in post-1911 Republican China that became synonymous with Mandarin Chinese (guanhua 官話, that is to say, the standard language of the Qing mandarinate or imperial bureaucracy), Southeast Asian diasporic Chinese have traditionally identified themselves in their various regional or provincial languages (i.e., the so-called Chinese dialects) as tongyan in Cantonese or tenglang in Hokkien, that is to say, “people of the Tang Dynasty.” Interestingly, the equivalent term in Mandarin Chinese, that is, tangren 唐 人 is unusual and not in common usage. More importantly, the common and normal usage in Mandarin Chinese is the two generic and convenient neologisms of huaren (Chinese persons) and huayi (Chinese descendants), which came into prominent usage in post-1911 Republican China as a linguistic means to emphasize a shared, common national identity in the new Republican China in the aftermath of the revolution against the old Qing imperial order. Specifically, these two neologisms of huaren and huayi, which are infused with latent nationalist Chinese Republican identity construction and national origins, are premised upon and constructed on a framework of the modernist republican Chinese cultural (wenhua 文化) and national (guomin 國民) identities in the post-1911 Republican China that is shaped by a national language (huayu 華語), which synthesizes the linguistic vehicles of the written Chinese vernacular (baihua 白話)2 with the spoken “common language” (putonghua 普通話) using the standardized national pronunciation (guoyin 國音) of the Chinese northerners to unify the disparate social, cultural, and political divide in the new Republican China and overcome the division of bewildering Babel of regional languages or “dialects” (Ramsey 1987: 3–15). More specifically, these terms mask distinct linguistic and regional communities under the façade of a homogenous and monolithic pan-­Chinese nationalist identity that exists more in theory than in reality. 2  The focus on the written Chinese vernacular (baihua), which for centuries was relegated to literary use in popular Chinese fiction writing, for example, the nineteenth-century Qing popular novel, Cao Xueqin’s (曹雪芹) Dream of the Red Chamber (Hongloumeng 紅樓夢), first emerged with the rise of nationalist and republican fervor in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century China as a replacement for the classical Chinese language of the scholar-­ gentry class (wenyan 文言).

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

81

In speaking about being Chinese, one must bear in mind that there has never been a normative Chinese worldview, culture, or way of life. Instead of viewing the Chinese identity in rigid and normative terms, perhaps this identity is better understood as diverse, multiple, unstable, and heterogeneous, accentuated by intergenerational differences arising from contested identification with an idealized or notional “Chinese” identity, buffeted by the ongoing challenges arising from increasing outmarriages or interracial marriages, as well as complicated by varying degrees of assimilation into localized contexts with competing multiple belongings and loyalties arising from the demands of citizenship or permanent residency. In truth, the category of “Chinese” encompasses a colorful kaleidoscope of peoples with their own diverse languages (“dialects”), cultures, ethnic heritage and traditions, worldviews, socio-economic classes, and generational levels, such that all attempts at generalizations run the significant risk of ignoring the rich diversity and plurality of ways of being Chinese today. It is instructive that Chinese Malaysians tend to identify themselves by their rich diversity and plurality using linguistic categories such as Malaysian Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, and so on, or regional markers such as “Penang Hokkien,” rather than merely as “Chinese” (see Tan 2001: 217–222).

Chinese Migration to the Malay Archipelago The earliest reference to Chinese migration to the Malay peninsula is in the Annals of Malay History (Sejarah Melayu), which narrated the marriage in Melaka between Sultan Mansur Shah (reigned c. 1459–1477) and the Chinese Princess, Hang Li Po (Han Libao 漢麗寶). According to this account, Sultan Mansur Shah bestowed on the Chinese princess and her entourage a hill outside Melaka town called Bukit China as dowry (Winstedt 1962: 18). While contemporary mainstream scholars doubt the historicity and veracity of this account in the absence of corroborating evidence in the Ming dynastic annals, there are documented accounts of a close relationship between the Melakan rulers and the Ming dynasty, including visits by the Melakan rulers to the Ming court (Wang 1970). Nonetheless, it appeared that itinerant Chinese traders who called at the port of Melaka over the centuries intermarried with the Malays, giving rise over time to the Baba-Nyonya or Peranakan community with hybridized Sino Malay ethnic heritage and cultural identity.

82 

J. Y. TAN

Large-scale Chinese migration to the Malay Archipelago began in the mid-nineteenth century. The bulk of these Chinese immigrants came to escape the horrors of civil war and internecine strife, and its ensuing socio-­ economic breakdowns. Historically, they worked mainly as indentured laborers and coolies in ports and mines. Subsequent generations of Chinese became successful at commerce and largely controlled the Malayan economy. In an alien setting of a Chinese diaspora in colonial Malaya, the Chinese immigrant communities rallied around their native clan associations and organized themselves into self-governing societies along clan, village, or linguistic groups. Today, the Chinese comprise some 24.6 percent of Malaysia. Together with the 67.4  percent Malays and other indigenous natives,3 as well as 7.3 percent Indians, they make up the diverse and pluralistic multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, and multicultural, Malaysian landscape. Around 61.3 percent of the population of Malaysia is Muslim. Malaysian Buddhists comprise the second largest religious community at 19.8 percent. Christians are exclusively non-Malays and comprise around 9.2 percent of the population, followed by Hindus (6.3 percent) and traditional Chinese religions (1.3  percent).4 The contemporary Chinese Malaysian community continues to be predominantly Daoists and Buddhists with a sizeable Christian minority. Many Chinese Malaysian Christians continue to observe Chinese festivals and customary usages in traditional rites of passage spanning births, marriages, and deaths.

Changing Identity Constructions from Diasporic Chinese to Chinese Malaysians Prior to World War II, the Chinese diasporic community in colonial Malaya, with the exception of local-born Peranakan Chinese with hybridized Chinese and Malay ethnic identities, were perceived by both the British colonial authorities and the indigenous Malay population as 3  The Malays and other indigenous natives of Malaysia are collectively classified as “Bumiputeras” by the Malaysian government. The term, “Bumiputera,” which literally means “princes of the earth” is used by the Malaysian government to designate the special non-negotiable privileged status of the Malays as an “indigenous community” in the Malaysian society, in counter-distinction with the Indians and the Chinese, who are seen as descendants from migrant communities. 4  The figures cited here are from the 2010 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia (Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia 2011).

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

83

resident aliens, guest workers, and sojourners with temporary residence for economic reasons, who would return to China once they retired from the labor force. World War II, the subsequent communist takeover of China in 1949 from the nationalist party (Guomindang 國民黨), and the rise of Malay nationalism seeking decolonization and independence from the British, awakened the political consciousness of the Chinese diasporic community to identify with the emerging Malaysian nation rather than the ancestral motherland, which by this time had become communist. Under the leadership of the Chinese Malaysian politician, Tan Cheng Lock, a new political party—the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)— was established in 1949 to represent Chinese Malaysians in negotiations with the British colonial authorities and the increasingly assertive Malay nationalists who coalesced around the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), giving the Chinese a voice in the contested negotiations for residency and citizenship rights, as well as continued maintenance of their economic interests and perquisites in the newly emerging post-independence Malaysia. While a small number of Chinese chose to return to communist China, the majority of Chinese chose to accept citizenship in the newly independent Malaysia in view of their deeply entrenched economic interests (see Purcell 1965: 315–349). After independence from the British in 1957, Malaysia emerged as a multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, and pluricultural society that is socially and politically volatile, divided by an explosive mix of religion, ethnicity, and identity politics, and marred by racial tensions between the ruling Malay political elite and the Chinese Malaysians who traditionally held economic power. This toxic legacy came about as the direct result of the British colonial policy of divide and rule, which imported Indian laborers as cheap migrant labor for the booming rubber plantations, brought Chinese coolies brought in to work in the ports and tin mines, and encouraged itinerant Chinese traders to establish businesses in the colonial economy. The Malays were kept out of the bustling economy and were encouraged to remain as farmers and fishermen as a result of an “Edwardian nostalgia” which argued for the preservation of the “simple life of the Malays” (Lim 1973: 60). Adopting a paternalistic policy of divide et impera in order to maintain absolute political and economic control, the British colonial administration deliberately promoted ethnic divisions and encouraged the creation and entrenchment of multiple ethnic ghettos, each looking after its interests vis-à-vis the others. Politically, each ethnic community was governed by its leaders who reported to the British

84 

J. Y. TAN

colonial administration: the Malays by the Sultans and the Chinese and Indians by their Kapitans. The Malays were forced to share political power with the British but had no role in the economy, while the Chinese shared economic power with the British but had no role in politics, and the Indians remained at the bottom of the table, with minimal economic and political influences. This political-economic and social class division, which gave the Malays political power and control of trade and economy to the Chinese, became a sticking point in post-independence Malaysia, engendering much discontent between the Malays and the Chinese. Fearful of the untrammeled growth of Chinese economic power by an increasingly assertive Chinese community that looked to put roots in Malaysia rather than return to China, the post-independence Malaysian government severely limited Chinese immigration to constrain the future growth of the Chinese Malaysian community, and instituted nation-building policies to integrate the Chinese into the contemporary Malaysian society. These policies stirred up much simmering discontent among the Chinese against the Malays. Matters came to an explosive clash in the series of violent racial riots, stoked by extremist Malay nationalists against the Chinese community, beginning on May 13, 1969 (see Goh 1971; Comber 1983). In the aftermath of the May 13th Riots, the Malaysian government instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), a set of far-reaching socio-­ economic policies that asserted and institutionalized Malay ethnocentrism (Bangsa Melayu) and Malay sovereignty (ketuanan Melayu) in the face of ethnic, cultural, and religious challenges. This included the implementation of an educational policy that imposed the Malay language (Bahasa Malaysia) as the medium of instruction in the national curriculum for primary education in 1975 and secondary education in 1980. All Chinese, Tamil, and English medium secondary schools were converted to Malay medium schools by this date. Only a handful of Chinese medium primary schools were permitted to operate. Although a small number of graduates of Chinese medium primary schools continued their education in private educational institutions, most graduates of Chinese medium primary schools transition into Malay medium secondary schools in order to take the national examinations that are required for admission into public universities, as well as prerequisites for public sector jobs.5 After twelve years 5  For an in-depth evaluation of the rise and decline of Chinese medium education in Malaysia, see Tan (1997).

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

85

of the national educational curriculum that replaced the colonial-era Chinese diasporic educational system which used Mandarin Chinese as the medium of education, many young Chinese Malaysians emerge with a greater fluency in Bahasa Malaysia than Mandarin.6 Ironically, communalism was further entrenched with the New Economic Policy (NEP) that sought to redistribute economic power from the Chinese to the Malays. In reality, this resulted in widespread economic inefficiency, corruption scandals, cronyism, and nepotism as a small Malay elite class controlled the political and economic levers of powers to the exclusion of ordinary Malays and people of other races.7 These exclusionary policies have affected Chinese Malaysians by limiting the number of places for popular courses of studies in public universities, public sector jobs, and opportunities to take advantage of low-cost government loans. With their language and ethnic cultural rights, as well as economic opportunities steadily eroded, many Chinese Malaysians have joined the growing migratory exodus, resulting in the significant growth of Chinese Malaysian diasporic communities in Australia, North America, and Britain, as well as growing transnational linkages between Chinese Malaysian Christian communities in Malaysia and North America (Nagata 1992). The declining number of Chinese Malaysians remaining in Malaysia, together with restrictions on Chinese language education in Malaysia and ongoing harassments of Malaysian Christians generally by Malay nationalists and Islamists, raise the question of the desirability of an ethnocentric Chinese Christianity that sets itself apart from the broader Malaysian Christian community.

From Chinese Christians to Malaysian Christians Historically, Protestant and Catholic missionaries uncritically adopted the divide-and-conquer policy of the British colonial authorities when they evangelized and planted churches along sectarian ethnic lines among the migrant Chinese and Indian communities, resulting in annual conferences, presbyteries, congregations, and parishes along ethnic and linguistic lines for the Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, 6  For the comparison and contrast between Chinese-educated Chinese Malaysian vis-à-vis the Malay or English educated Chinese Malaysian, see the discussion in Tan (1988: 150–151). 7  On the impact of the NEP on the Chinese Malaysians, see Chin (2009).

86 

J. Y. TAN

and Catholics in Malaysia. The impact of the colonial divide et impera policies continues to be felt in the ongoing reality of the communal and linguistic divisions within the larger Malaysian society in general, and the impact of these communal and linguistic divisions on the current ecclesial structures of Christian churches in Malaysia in particular. For example, the Indian Malaysian Anglican theologian, Albert Sundararaj Walters, noted that in the history of colonial Anglicanism in Malaya, the “divisions of society along racial lines were clearly within the church” and “was further reinforced by the colonial government’s policy of ‘divide and rule’ which was never challenged by the church” (Walters 2008: 75). As a legacy of the colonial-era missions, the annual conferences of the Methodist Church in Malaysia are historically organized by ethnic and linguistic groups, for example, Trinity (English), Chinese, Tamil, Sarawak Chinese, Sarawak Iban, and so on. There are four separate Lutheran churches in Malaysia along ethnic lines, namely the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia (ELCM) for the Tamil Indians in Peninsular Malaysia, the Lutheran Church in Malaysia (LCM) for the Chinese in Peninsular Malaysia, the Basel Christian Church of Malaysia (BCCM) for the Hakka Chinese in Sabah, and the Protestant Church in Sabah/Gereja Protestan Sabah for the indigenous (pribumi) communities of Sabah. Likewise, Catholic missionaries also established missions and parishes along ethnic and linguistic lines. For example, in my hometown of Ipoh, Malaysia, Saint Michael’s Church was the historic Chinese Catholic mission, while Our Lady of Lourdes was the mission for the Indian/Tamil-speaking Catholics, and Our Mother of Perpetual Help for the English-speaking and Eurasian Catholics. On the one hand, there is an established body of scholarly literature that affirms the importance of immigrant churches for the maintenance and preservation of ethnic and language identity. Scholars have pointed to the many Catholic national parishes in pre-World War II United States that became ethnic enclaves for many European immigrants (see Burns et  al. 2000 and Linkh 1975). As William Lloyd Warner and Leo Srole pointed out in their study of European immigrant groups in the United States, “the church was the first line of defense behind which these immigrants could organize themselves and with which they could preserve their group, i.e., system, identity” (Warner and Strole 1945: 160). This point was reiterated by Silvano M.  Tomasi when he observed that Italian Catholic parishes “functioned to maintain the ethnic personality by organizing the group around familiar religious and cultural symbols and

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

87

behavioral mode of the fatherland” (Tomasi and Engel 1970: 181). In an early study on Korean American Christians, Won Moo Hurh and Kwang Chung Kim note that “among the majority of Korean immigrants, the religious need (meaning), the social need (belonging) and the psychological need (comfort) for attending Korean church are inseparable from each other; they are functionally intertwined under the complex conditions of uprooting, existential marginality, and sociocultural adaptation for rerooting” (Hurh and Kim 1990: 31). Pyong Gap Min’s important study of Korean churches in New York City reveals the significant role that these churches play in promoting Korean culture and ethnic identity, fostering social networks among Korean American Christians. In particular, Min identifies four important social functions that these churches provide to the burgeoning Korean American community: (i) fellowship for Korean immigrants; (ii) maintenance of the Korean cultural tradition; (iii) social services for church members and the Korean community as a whole; and (iv) social status and social positions for adult immigrants (Min 2003). On the other hand, the curtailment of Chinese migration into Malaysia meant that the deluge of Chinese migrants is reduced to near zero, resulting in the lack of new “first generation” migrants to replenish the increasing outflow of Chinese Malaysians abroad in search of better economic opportunities. The statistics are dire. In 1957, the Chinese comprise some 37 percent of the population of Malaysia. That percentage has dropped steadily to 26 percent in 2003, 24.6 percent in 2010, and 21.4 percent in 2015. The Malaysian Department of Statistics estimates that the percentage of Chinese Malaysians would further shrink to 19.6 percent in 2030, 18.9 percent in 2035, and 18.4 percent in 2040 (Ho 2016).8 Moreover, the displacement of the colonial-era Chinese diasporic schools with the national education curriculum centered around Malay as the national language, and English as the second language has resulted in an increasing number of Malaysian-born Chinese Christians who no longer speak, read, or write Mandarin Chinese fluently, and who are more at home in Malay or English language worship services, as discussed earlier in this chapter. This raises important questions about the status quo of Chinese Christian churches in Malaysia and their long-term viability in the 8  For in-depth analysis and critical discussions of the demographic trends of the shrinking Chinese Malaysian population and their implications, see Voon (2004) for the conference proceedings of the papers presented at the Conference on the Malaysian Chinese Population in Kuala Lumpur on August 3, 2003.

88 

J. Y. TAN

face of Malay nationalism and ethnocentrism. What does it mean to be a Chinese Christian in churches where the dominant language, especially among the millennials and youth has shifted from Mandarin Chinese to English or Malay (Bahasa Malaysia)? Writing in 1969 on the faltering efforts at church union between the member churches of the then-Council of Churches in Malaysia and Singapore (CCMS), George A.  Linbeck highlighted the challenges of denominational self-interest and mutual suspicions arising from the many small churches that were ordered along racial-ethnic lines, which stymied the various attempts at church union (Lindbeck 1969). Subsequently, in a joint seminar paper presented at the Fourth National Christian Conference in Kuala Lumpur (1991), Chinese Malaysian Evangelical historian Lee Kam Hing and the then-Chinese Malaysian Catholic Bishop James Chan of the Diocese of Melaka-Johor highlighted the problematic nature of politicized religious resurgence that “heightened feelings of tribalism, communalism, and nationalism,” arguing that religion “may be used to further define ethnic separateness and interests,” and concluded that “differentiations based on race or politics are not compatible with Christian teaching,” proposing instead a multiracial and multicultural, Christianity that “is not the preserve of any one ethnic, dialect, or political group” (Lee and Chan 1991: 41). One cannot deny that the problems of ethnocentrism and communalism also beset the Malaysian Christians, as historian Lee Kam Hing and Bishop James Chan noted in 1991. In this regard, the Chinese Malaysian Christians do not belong to a monolithic group. In reality, Chinese Malaysian Christians are confronted with the challenges and implications of hybridities, divided loyalties and multiple belongings by virtue of being educated in Malay or English rather than Mandarin Chinese, as well as engaging in multiple border crossings in their daily lives as they negotiate a socio-cultural and political landscape in contemporary Malaysia that is dominated by Islam and sectarian Malay nationalist sentiments that have given rise to a minefield of language and religious restrictions, racial and religious tensions. Romanticized and essentialized categories of racial-­ ethnic, cultural, and religious identities within Chinese Malaysian Christian churches have to be re-envisioned to address the long-term implications of these hybridities, border crossings, and the changing social, cultural, and linguistic demographics of Malaysian Christianity. Since the 1980s, the harassment of Malaysian Christians by the Malaysian governmental authorities has worsened. Malaysian Christians

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

89

continued to be subject to suspicion, discrimination, and harassment, as exemplified by the restrictions on building permits for new churches, limitations on the importation of Bibles from Indonesia, strict controls over the translation of the Bible into Bahasa Malaysia to reach a broader Malaysian audience, and the prohibition on the use of “Allah” and other Arabic terms on grounds of alleged confusion of Malaysian Muslims. Moreover, Chinese-speaking congregations are graying and shrinking while Malay-speaking and English-speaking congregations are younger and growing with successful evangelizing among the indigenous and young non-Malay Malaysians. To illustrate, the rapidly growing Protestant Church in Sabah (Gereja Protestan Sabah), comprising indigenous Christians in Sabah, is the second largest Lutheran church in Malaysia with 32,000 members, second to its sister church in Sabah, the predominantly Hakka Chinese Basel Christian Church of Malaysia (BCCM) with 59,500 members, and vastly outnumbering its two sister churches in Peninsular Malaysia, viz., the predominantly Indian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia (ELCM) with 4145 members and the predominantly Chinese Lutheran Church in Malaysia (LCM) with 8879 members (Lutheran World Federation 2014: 8). Moreover, the influx of Indonesian and Filipino migrant workers, many of whom are Christian, as well as the ongoing missional outreach among the indigenous communities of Malaysia, has resulted in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic Malaysian Christian community with English and Malay as the common worship languages. In view of all these developments, one could question whether it makes sense to maintain separate ethnic Chinese Christian Churches in Malaysia or work toward localized Malaysian churches that are fully intercultural and multiracial, that is, with cross-cultural and interracial participation and membership, especially in view of the necessity of maintaining a united ecclesial community of Malaysian Christians, whether local-born or migrant, in response to increasing harassment from Malay nationalists and Islamists. In truth, the identity of the Chinese Malaysian Christians cannot be separated from the multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious, and pluricultural Malaysian society. Chinese Christians in Malaysia do share a common history and missional destination with other Malaysian Christians and the broader Malaysian society as a whole, if they take seriously Jesus’ injunction to be the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), “light of the world,” and “city built on a hill” (Matthew 5:14), as well as the yeast that leavens the flour from the inside (Luke 13:20–21; Matthew 13:33). The

90 

J. Y. TAN

Christian Gospel, as proclaimed by the Chinese Malaysian Christians, should be immersed in, and take root in the broader Malaysian soil beyond the ethnocentric confines of the Chinese Malaysian community, taking an outward movement rather than an inward gaze. In other words, Chinese Malaysian Christians should not withdraw from the mainstream of the Malaysian society into a ghetto. Rather, they should join other Malaysian Christians to address the national aspirations of other Malaysians in a prophetic manner according to the Christian Gospel. More importantly, the Christian Gospel and the teachings of the Church should be localized within the contemporary Malaysian socio-cultural context. To be the salt of the earth, light of the world, city on the hill, and yeast that leavens the flour in the localized Malaysian context, Chinese Malaysian Christians have to walk together with other Malaysian Christians and engage in a shared missional outreach, becoming a beacon of hope leading the way and exercising moral leadership in a society that is still beset with problems caused by decades of institutionalized communalism and racialized politics.

Muhibbah—A Malaysian Intercultural and Multiracial Theology of Hospitality and Goodwill In any articulation of a contextualized Malaysian intercultural and multiracial theology of hospitality and goodwill among the Chinese Malaysian Christians and other Malaysian Christians, the foundation for such intercultural and interracial engagements between different racial and ethnic communities has to be built upon a shared vision of life that all communities can identify with and call their own. Within the Malaysian socio-­ cultural context, the concept of muhibbah (“hospitality and goodwill”) is able to capture the spirit of hospitality and goodwill between the many ethnic and religious communities of Malaysia (Munusamy 2012; Thu 1995; Batumalai 1990: 11–20, 1991: 403–430). Etymologically, the term muhibbah is a relational concept that is derived from the Arabic muhabbat, which means a bond of love and affection among friends. Traditionally, muhibbah captures the relationship of communal solidarity and empathy that underlies the spirit of neighborliness (semangat kejiranan), thereby promoting harmony for the wellbeing of everyone in the broader community (masyarakat). The fruits of muhibbah are manifested in a

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

91

communal spirit of goodwill, hospitality, harmony, acceptance, generosity, courtesy, consensus, compromise, and peace. For example, the spirit of muhibbah is manifested when different ethnic communities come together to celebrate each other’s festivals in a spirit of harmony and goodwill. A quintessentially Malaysian communal way of celebrating cultural and religious festivals is the traditional “open house” (rumah terbuka), whereby families would invite friends and neighbors across ethnic and religious communities to come together and celebrate the festival with them. Therefore, it is typical to find families, neighbors, and friends across ethnic and religious groups celebrating Lunar New Year in a Malaysian Chinese family’s open house or enjoying the food and company at a Malaysian Muslim family’s open house for Hari Raya Aidil Fitri or Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. In a similar vein, Malaysian Hindus would throw open houses for the Hindu Festival of Light (Deepavali or Diwali), while Malaysian Christians do the same for a uniquely Malaysian way of celebrating Christmas. In addition, the spirit of muhibbah is put into action in the communal practice of gotong royong, which is a collaborative project or mutual aid activity that seeks to benefit a family, neighbor, or the community (masyarakat) as a whole. Besides Malaysia, the spirit of gotong royong is also practiced in Indonesia (Geertz 1983; Bintarto 1980; Jay 1969; Koentjaraningrat 1961). Within the Indonesian Javanese context, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined gotong royong as “joint bearing of burdens” (Geertz 1983: 211). Geertz further pointed out that together with “rukun (mutual adjustment) and tolong-menolong (reciprocal assistance),” gotong royong is part of “an enormous inventory of highly specific and often quite intricate institutions for effecting the cooperation in work, politics, and personal relations alike” that “governs social interaction with a force as sovereign as it is subdued” (1983: 211). In this regard, the spirit of gotong royong permeates both rural and urban communities in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the traditional Malaysian village setting, if a family, neighbor, or the community needs help, the whole community will pitch in to organize a gotong royong to render the necessary assistance. For example, in rural communities throughout Malaysia, the entire community works in gotong royong at the planting and harvesting season. In urban settings throughout Malaysia, ethnic communities in cities organize gotong royong activities, for example, cleaning up the local neighborhood, fundraising for local projects, and other

92 

J. Y. TAN

cooperative projects to strengthen the bond of solidarity within their own communities around shared ideals or goals. The underlying thread in the concept of muhibbah in both rural and urban contexts, as well as its tangible manifestation in the spirit of gotong royong is unity (perpaduan) that emerges when muhibbah is able to frame the context for meaningful dialogue and collaboration between different groups and communities within the Malaysian society. Thus, muhibbah is able to function as the glue that holds together the social fabric of the multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, and pluricultural Malaysian society, thereby promoting peace and harmony between the different ethnic communities. In this respect, one could therefore say that the paradigm of gotong royong is able to undergird intra-community as well as inter-­ community solidarity across all levels of the Malaysian society. On the basis of the foregoing, the Hakka Chinese Malaysian theologian Thu En Yu has proposed a theology of racial reconciliation and harmony in Malaysia in the aftermath of the violent racial riots of May 13, 1969, that is contextualized within the paradigm of muhibbah (Thu 1995). The Indian Malaysian theologian and retired Assistant Anglican Bishop of West Malaysia, Sadayandy Batumalai, has constructed a Malaysian theology of muhibbah that would enable Malaysian Christians to engage in prophetic witness of the Gospel in dialogue and collaboration with other Malaysians (Batumalai 1990: 11–20, 1991: 403–430). What unites both Yu’s and Batumalai’s theological endeavors is their understanding that the paradigm of muhibbah is able to challenge the various ethnic and religious communities in Malaysia to look beyond rivalry to heal hurts and divisions that emerged in the aftermath of the racial riots of May 13, 1969, in a spirit of harmony and goodwill. More significantly, muhibbah challenges all Malaysian Christians to heal the divisions among the various racial-ethnic communities within Malaysian Christianity, as well as the broader Malaysian society. While “church” is typically perceived as institutional in nature and theological in orientation, in truth it is first and foremost a community of believers, an assembly (ekklesia ἐκκλησία) of the faithful that gathers in the name of Jesus. Although it is common to speak of unity in diversity and pluralism in Christianity, what one often sees generally, and within Malaysian Christianity specifically, is the very same racial-ethnic divisive communalism and separatism that plagues the larger Malaysian society. In response to this challenge, the spirit of muhibbah could engender the necessary conversations and engagements between the various racial and ethnic

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

93

communities within Malaysian Christianity in general and between Chinese Malaysian Christians and other Malaysian Christians, in particular, to pave the way for a shared consensus and common faith identity within the shared Gospel and in the name of Jesus.

Conclusion Chinese Malaysian Christians are confronted with the challenges and implications of hybridities, divided loyalties and multiple belongings, and multiple border crossings in their daily lives as they negotiate a socio-­ cultural and political landscape that is a minefield of language and religious restrictions that is fraught with racial and religious tensions. The growth of intercultural and multiracial churches in Malaysia is inevitable and should be promoted in light of the missional reality that the future growth in Malaysian Christianity lies in the necessity to reach out to the young and indigenous, native, and tribal populations for whom the lingua franca is Malay or Bahasa Malaysia. Hence, Chinese Malaysian Christians have to rethink the romanticized ideal of the Chinese Church as a place for defending and nurturing cohesive ethnic group identity, downplaying the challenges of hybridities and conflicts that are caused by emerging generational and linguistic shifts, border crossings that arise from outmarriages as more Chinese Malaysians intermarry, as well as overseas outflows as Chinese Malaysians emigrate in search of better educational and economic prospects. In other words, romanticized and essentialized categories of racial-­ ethnic, cultural, and religious identities within Chinese Malaysian Christian churches have to be re-envisioned to address the long-term implications of hybridities, border crossings, and rapidly changing demographics arising from the growth of an intercultural and multiracial Malaysian Christianity. The ahistorical essentialism and separatist ethnocentrism of diasporic Chinese identity constructions that emphasize transnational unity and cohesive group identity with an imagined and idealized Chinese tradition ignore the reality of particularities and diversities that are emerging out of generational shifts, multiple belongings, and repeated boundary crossings. The ongoing endeavors to defend and maintain an ethnocentric Chinese Malaysian Christianity using romanticized and essentialized ethnic and cultural elements from the Chinese motherland within the various churches raise significant questions in the face of Malaysian-born Chinese who grow up learning the national language (Bahasa Malaysia) and English rather

94 

J. Y. TAN

than Mandarin Chinese. In response, essentialized categories of racial-­ ethnic, cultural, and faith identities have to be deconstructed, challenged, contested, and remixed anew to address the implications, of hybridized identities, multiple belongings, and multiple border crossings within the culturally diverse Malaysian Christianity. Clearly, intentional interracial collaborations and cross-cultural engagements will have to play an important role to unite the disparate cultural and ethnic groups within Malaysian Christianity. This calls for the various racial and ethnic communities within Malaysian Christianity generally, and Chinese Malaysian Christians in particular to discard their ghetto mentality, set aside racial prejudices and cultural stereotypes, and reach out in mutual engagement with each other’s cultural values and ethnic traditions in the quintessential Malaysian spirit of muhibbah. In doing so, Malaysian Christians would be able to go beyond the colonial era approach of separate congregations according to ethnic and linguistic lines to build an interracial, intercultural, and multiethnic Malaysian Christianity that is anchored around mutual fellowship and a common identity as Christian and Malaysian. In turn, this common identity will ground Malaysian Christianity as truly representative of the racial-ethnic groups that belong to it. Hence, Chinese Malaysian Christians are called to eschew ethnocentrism and separatism, embracing the ambiguity, complexity, and multiplicity of heterogenized, hybridized, and localized constructions of faith and identity, maintaining and holding in tension the three defining dimensions of being Malaysian, Chinese, and Christian in the diverse and pluralistic contemporary Malaysian society. They are challenged to embrace contemporary localized constructions of faith and identity that incorporate creative and dynamic endeavors that seek to include Chinese Malaysian Christians within the multiplicity of pluralistic, hybridized, and dynamic constructions of faith and identity, thereby moving away from ethnic separatism toward communal solidarity and integration within the broader Malaysian Christian community in a spirit of muhibbah, where Malaysian-­ born and migrant, Chinese, Indian, indigenous, Indonesian, Filipinos, interracial, and others are bound together by a common faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel message. Finally, the call to build an interracial and multiethnic Malaysian Christianity poses a strong challenge to Malaysian Christians to explore the frontiers of social and cross-cultural integration in a spirit of muhibbah in view of the reality that many churches and congregations are still

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

95

organized along ethnic lines, accentuating the very communalism that has divided contemporary Malaysian society. Clearly, Malaysian Christianity has to overcome the stumbling block of communalism even within its structures and promote the integration of the different communities within its flock, before it can be a prophetic voice for healing, reconciliation, and integration in the larger Malaysian society. In a society and nation that is torn asunder by exclusivist ethnocentric divide and conquer policies, Malaysian Christians generally, and Chinese Malaysian Christians in particular, could be that sacrament of muhibbah or sign of hospitality and goodwill that promotes interracial healing and fosters racial reconciliation, modeling to the rest of the country and society how to maintain and hold racial diversity and cultural plurality together, beginning with Malaysian Christianity.

Bibliography Batumalai, Sadayandy. 1990. A Malaysian Theology of Muhibbah: A Theology of a Christian Witnessing in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Seminari Theoloji Malaysia. ———. 1991. An Introduction to Asian Theology: An Asian Story from a Malaysian Eye for Asian Neighbourology. Delhi: ISPCK. Bintarto, R. 1980. Gotong-royong: Suatu Karakteristik Bangsa Indonesia. Surabaya, Indonesia: Bina Ilmu. Burns, Jeffrey M., Ellen Skerrett, and Joseph M. White, eds. 2000. Keeping Faith: European and Asian Catholic Immigrants. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Chin, James. 2009. The Malaysian Chinese Dilemma: The Never Ending Policy (NEP). Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies 3: 167–182. Comber, Leon. 1983. 13 May 1969: A Historical Survey of Sino-Malay Relations. Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann Asia. Geertz, Clifford. 1983. Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective. In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Clifford Geertz, 167–234. New York: Basic Books. Goh, Cheng Teik. 1971. The May Thirteenth Incident and Democracy in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Ho, Wah Foon. 2016. Chinese May Fall to Third Spot Soon. The Star, February 28. Accessed June 1, 2017. http://www.thestar.com.my/news/ nation/2016/02/28/chinese-may-fall-to-third-spot-soon-while-the-decline-inthe-percentage-of-chinese-population-is-an/ Hunt, Robert A., Lee Kam Hing, and John Roxborogh, eds. 1992. Christianity in Malaysia: A Denominational History. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Pelanduk Press.

96 

J. Y. TAN

Hurh, Won Moo, and Kwang Chung Kim. 1990. Religious Participation of Korean Immigrants in the United States. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 29 (1): 19–34. Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia. 2011. Banci Penduduk dan Perumahan Malaysia 2010: Taburan Penduduk dan Ciri-Ciri Asas Demografi [Statistics Department of Malaysia. Population and Housing Census of Malaysia 2010: Population Distribution and Basic Demographic Characteristics]. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia. Jay, Robert R. 1969. Javanese Villagers: Social Relations in Rural Modjokuto. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kilcourse, Carl S. 2016. Taiping Theology: The Localization of Christianity in China, 1843–64. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Koentjaraningrat, Raden Mas. 1961. Some Social-Anthropological Observations on “Gotong Rojong” Practices in Two Villages of Central Java. Ithaca: South East Asia Program, Department of Far Eastern Studies, Cornell University. Lee, Kam Hing, and Chan Kok Eng. 1991. Issues Facing the Malaysian Church in the Nineties. Proceedings of the Fourth National Christian Conference. Kuala Lumpur: Christian Federation of Malaysia: 34–46. Lim, David. 1973. Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia: 1947–1970. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press. Lindbeck, George A. 1969. The Present Ecumenical and Church Situation in West Malaysia and Singapore. Southeast Asia Journal of Theology 11: 72–80. Linkh, Richard M. 1975. American Catholicism and European Immigrants: 1900–1924. Staten Island, NY: Center for Migration Studies. Lutheran World Federation. 2014. The Lutheran World Federation—2013 Membership Figures. Lutheran World Information No. 2/2014. Min, Pyong Gap. 2003. Immigrants’ Religion and Ethnicity: A Comparison of Korean Christian and Indian Hindu Immigrants. In Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America, ed. Jane Naomi Iwamura and Paul Spickard, 125–141. New York: Routledge. Munusamy, Viyajan P. 2012. Ethnic Relations in Malaysia: The Need for ‘Constant Repair’ in the Spirit of Muhibbah. In Handbook of the Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives, ed. Dan Landis and Rosita D.  Albert, 119–136. New York: Springer. Nagata, Judith. 1992. Local and International Networks among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and Canada. In The Quality of Life in Southeast Asia: Transforming Social, Political and Natural Environments, ed. B.  Matthews, 255–281. Montreal: McGill University Press. Nonini, Donald M. 2001. Diaspora Chinese in the Asia-Pacific: Transnational Practices and Structured Inequalities. In Chinese Populations in Cotemporary Southeast Asian Societies: Identities, Interdependence and International

4  DIASPORIC CHINESE (HUAQIAO 華僑) OR MULTICULTURAL… 

97

Influence, ed. M.  Jocelyn Armstrong, R.  Warwick Armstrong, and Kent Mulliner, 237–263. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. Purcell, Victor. 1965. The Chinese in Southeast Asia. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ramsey, S.  Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roxborogh, John. 2014. A History of Christianity in Malaysia. Seremban: Seminari Theologi Malaysia. Tan, Chee Beng. 1988. Nation-building and Being Chinese in a Southeast Asian State: Malaysia. In Changing Identities of Southeast Asian Chinese Since World War II, ed. J.  Cushman and Wang Gungwu, 139–164. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ———. 1992. International Conference on Changing Ethnic Identities and Relations in Southeast Asia: The Case of the Chinese Minority. Archipelago 44: 3–12. ———. 2001. Chinese in Southeast Asia and Identities in a Changing Global Context. In Chinese Populations in Cotemporary Southeast Asian Societies: Identities, Interdependence and International Influence, ed. M.  Jocelyn Armstrong, R. Warwick Armstrong, and Kent Mulliner, 210–236. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. Tan, Liok Ee. 1997. The Politics of Chinese Education in Malaya 1945–1961. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Thu, En Yu. 1995. ‘Muhibbah’: The Churches’ Ministry of Reconciliation in the Pluralistic Society of Malaysia. DMin diss., San Francisco Theological Seminary. Tomasi, Silvano M., and Madeline H. Engel, eds. 1970. The Italian Experience in the United States. Staten Island, NY: Center for Migration Studies. Voon, Phin Keong, ed. (2004). 马來西亞华人人口趋势与议题 Malaixiya Huaren Renkouqushi yuyiti [The Chinese Population in Malaysia: Trends and Issues]. Kuala Lumpur: 华社研究中心 (Center for Malaysian Chinese Studies). Walters, Albert Sundararaj. 2008. Anglican National Identity: Theological Education and Ministerial Formation in Multifaith Malaysia. Journal of Anglican Studies 6 (1): 69–88. Wang, Gungwu. 1970. China and South-East Asia, 1402–1424. In Studies in the Social History of China and South-East Asia: Essays in Memory of Victor Purcell, ed. Jerome Ch’en and Nicholas Tarling, 375–402. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1981a. A Note on the Origins of Hua-Ch’iao. In Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese, ed. Gungwu Wang, 118–127. Singapore: Heinemann. ———. 1981b. Southeast Asian Hua-Ch’iao in Chinese History-Writing. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12 (1): 1–14.

98 

J. Y. TAN

———. 1998. Upgrading the Migrant: Neither Huaqiao nor Huaren. In The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn, 15–33. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Warner, William Lloyd, and Leo Strole. 1945. The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wickberg, Edgar. 1990. Some Comparative Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Ethnicity in the Philippines. Asian Culture 14: 23–37. ———. 1992. Chinese in the Philippines: Yesterday and Today. Philippiniana Sacra 27 (81): 491–504. Winstedt, Richard. 1962. Malaya and its History. 6th ed. London: Hutchinson University Library.

CHAPTER 5

British Immigration Policies and British Chinese Christianity Alexander Chow Introduction The overwhelming majority of studies on Christianity among overseas Chinese1 focus on North America, especially the United States.2 This is not surprising given the long history of Chinese immigration to the United  The growing development of academic scholarship has tended to speak in terms of “diasporic” communities and the “diaspora.” However, scholars like Wang Gungwu have advocated for terms such as “Chinese overseas.” Given that Chinese in Europe are more commonly described as “overseas Chinese,” this will be the designation used in this chapter. See Wang Gungwu, “A Note on the Origins of Hua-Ch’iao,” in Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese (Singapore: Heinemann, 1981), 118–127; Wang Gungwu, “Upgrading the Migrant: Neither Huaqiao nor Huaren,” in The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, edited by Elizabeth Sinn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), 15–33. 2  For studies of Chinese Christians in the United States, see: Timothy Tseng, “Ministry At Arm’s Length: Asian Americans in the Racial Ideology of American Mainline Protestants, 1882–1952” (PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1994); Timothy Tseng, 1

A. Chow (*) School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_5

99

100 

A. CHOW

States since the early nineteenth century. However, this offers a skewed understanding of the overseas Chinese that is shaped by American idiosyncrasies. In particular, there have been two key events in United States history which have helped to bring shape to a unified perception of Chinese American identity and, by extension, some of the key characteristics of Chinese American Christianity. The first was “An act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” better known as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of ethnic Chinese laborers.3 The second was the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, which abolished the quota system based on national origins and encouraged immigration of highly skilled workers.4 In much of this literature, the first has been used to underscore the legalization of racism against ethnic Chinese in American history, whereas the second has encouraged the development of the so-­ called model minority thesis or myth as a result of the migration of highly educated and well-skilled Chinese professionals.5 This has resulted in a “Religious Liberalism, International Politics, and Diasporic Realities: The Chinese Students Christian Association of North America, 1909–1951,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 5, no. 3–4 (Fall–Winter 1996): 305–330; Sharon Wai-Man Chan, “The Dynamics of Expansion of the Chinese Churches in the Los Angeles Basin” (PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1996); Yang Fenggang, Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1999); Timothy Tseng, “Protestantism in Twentieth Century Chinese America: The Impact of Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 13 (2004): 121–148; Russell Jung, Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches (New Brunswick, NJ: 2005); Carolyn Chen, Getting Saved in America Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). For studies of Chinese Christians in Canada, see: Wang Jiwu, “His Dominion” and the “Yellow Peril”: Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1859–1967 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006); Matthew Todd, English Ministry Crisis in Chinese Canadian Churches: Towards the Retention of English-Speaking Adults from Chinese Canadian Churches through Associated Parallel Independent English Congregational Models (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015); Enoch Wong, “‘How Am I Going to Grow Up?’ An Exploration of Congregational Transition Among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant-Leadership” (PhD diss., Gonzaga University, 2015); Enoch Wong, Jonathan Tam, Kwing Hung, Tommy Tsui, and Wes Wong, Listening to Their Voices: An Exploration of Faith Journeys of Canadian-born Chinese Christians, rev. ed. (Pasadena, CA: CCCOWE, 2018). 3  Act of May 6, 1882 (22 Stat. 58). 4  Act of October 3, 1965 (79 Stat. 911). 5  The term “model minority” was popularized in the 1960s to describe success stories of minorities overcoming hardships in American society. In particular, the sociologist William

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

101

(positive) stereotype that Chinese American Christians tend to be well-­ educated and successful professionals.6 This chapter will examine Christianity within another overseas Chinese population: the British Chinese.7 Like in the United States, British immigration policies have helped shape some of the key characteristics of British Chinese Christianity. Yet at the same time, British immigration policies have never had anything equivalent to a “Chinese Exclusion Act,” as was practiced in the United States, Canada, and Australia to address the influx of Chinese immigrants who were competing for jobs immediately after the various gold rushes. One commentator explains: The reason for this apparent lack of interest in Chinese immigrants would seem to be largely that they have not appeared to pose any sort of minority problem. Their numbers are relatively insignificant, and they do not constitute an economic threat to the workers of the host society, since they seldom Petersen published a New York Times article in January about the success of Japanese Americans, contrasting them with “problem minorities” such as African Americans; later that year, the U.S. News and Report ran an article in December which would offer a similar assessment about the success of Chinese Americans. William Petersen, “Success Story, Japanese-­ American Style,” New York Times (January 9, 1966), 20ff; “Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S.,” U.S. News and World Report (December 26, 1966), 73–76. The term “model minority” is often attributed to Petersen’s 1966 article, despite the absence of these words from the actual text. Regardless, since the 1970s, the “model minority” thesis has been widely engaged and criticized within Asian American discourse. 6  Yang, Chinese Christians in America, 95–100, 107–110. For a popular article on this subject, see Tim Stafford, “The Tiger in the Academy: Asian Americans Populate America’s Elite Colleges More Than Ever—and Campus Ministries Even More Than That,” Christianity Today (April 2006): 70–73. 7  A few short studies on Chinese Christians in Europe include: Pál Nyíri, “Moving Targets: Chinese Christian Proselytising Among Transnational Migrants From the People’s Republic of China,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 2, no. 2 (December 2003): 263–301; Kang-San Tan, “In Search of Contextualised Training Models for Chinese Christian Diaspora in Britain,” Transformation 28, no. 1 (December 2010): 29–41; Maggi Whyte and Sheila Crowe, “The Chinese Community in Britain and Ireland and the Response of the Churches,” Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 1, no. 2 (2011): 138–146; Gotthard Oblau, “Chinese Christian Communities in Germany,” Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 1, no. 2 (2011): 147–151; Cao Nanlai, “Renegotiating Locality and Morality in a Chinese Religious Diaspora: Wenzhou Christian Merchants in Paris, France,” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14, no. 1 (2013): 85–101; Rao Xinzi, “Revisiting Chinese-ness: A Transcultural Exploration of Chinese Christians in Germany,” Studies in World Christianity 23, no. 2 (August 2017): 122–144; Li Xinan, “Believing through Belonging: A Sociological Study of Christian Conversion of Chinese Migrants in Britain” (PhD thesis, Loughborough University, 2018).

102 

A. CHOW

compete directly with British labour for jobs. Nor has attention been drawn to them, as it has to “dark-skinned” immigrants, by any serious racial disturbances.8

This is not to say that there have not been any incidents. Examples of smaller scale hostilities can be remembered in 1906 against Chinese laborers competing with British jobs in the Transvaal Colony (present day South Africa)9 and in 1911 when the seamen’s strike in Cardiff resulted in rioting and the destruction of about 30 Chinese laundries.10 Moreover, while there have not been any Chinese exclusion policies, the British government did in fact have a few Chinese expulsion policies. In the early twentieth century, Chinese men were hired by the British merchant navy during the two World Wars. A large number remained in ports such as Liverpool and London, and many married local women and had children. But after the wars, these former Chinese seamen were seen as a nuisance and local authorities also had business interests as they wanted their accommodations. With the end of the First World War, the race riots of 1919 resulted in a subsequent deportation of hundreds of Chinese laborers.11 Similarly, after the Second World War, the British Home Office issued a policy known as the “Compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen” to forcefully deport some 1300 Chinese seamen in 1945 and 1946—many without their families even knowing what had happened.12 Yet, as can be seen in the quote above, these events have not been significant in the imagination of any emerging British Chinese identity. In contrast to the homogenizing tendencies of the Hart-Celler Act in the United States, in terms of social strata, the Chinese in the United Kingdom can hardly be considered a uniform group. As we will discuss in this chapter, this has had notable effects on the shape of British Chinese

 Ng Kwee Choo, The Chinese in London (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 2.  J. P. May, “The Chinese in Britain, 1860–1914,” in Immigrants and Minorities in British Society, ed. Colin Holmes (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978), 111–124. 10  Joanne M.  Cayford, “In Search of ‘John Chinaman’: Press Representations of the Chinese in Cardiff, 1906–1911,” Llafur: Journal of Welsh Labour History 5, no. 4 (1991): 37–50. 11  Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 26–27. 12  Home Office Record 213/926. 8 9

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

103

Christianity, which in 2011 includes approximately 19  percent of the British Chinese population.13

From the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War As early as the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Chinese seamen took up work for the East India Company as British seamen left to join the Royal Navy. Later, Chinese seamen were recruited to run the ships of the Liverpool-based Blue Funnel Shipping Line. Involved primarily in trade with China and, later, Malaya, the Blue Funnel Shipping Line’s need for additional Chinese seamen grew significantly after the Opium Wars (1839–1842 and 1856–1860) and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Then, during both World Wars, thousands of Chinese seamen supported British merchant fleets, while other Chinese worked as contract laborers supporting the logistical aspects of the wars.14 They were largely involved in hard labor, known in English as “coolies” (kuli 苦力).15 Due to this history, many of the earliest Chinese living in Britain established communities around the ports of London, Liverpool, and Cardiff. Some were initially employed by the shipping companies for shore work. Others deserted or were laid off by their employers. Records of some show that they were originally bound for the United States but, due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, were redirected to the United Kingdom. In Liverpool, the population of former Chinese seamen and laborers would be the basis for the first Chinatown in Europe, initially growing near the docks on Pitt Street where the Blue Funnel Shipping Line had

13  For England and Wales, see Office for National Statistics, “DC2201EW—Ethnic Group by Religion,” available at https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/DC2201EW/ view/2092957703, accessed on January 23, 2018. By comparison, 31 percent of Chinese Americans surveyed in 2012 considered themselves Christians. Pew Forum, Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Faiths (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2012). 14  Much of this information can be found in some of the standard histories on the subject, Colin Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971 (London: Routledge, 1988), 52–54; Benton and Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 24–31. 15  For certain Chinese terms, preference will be given to how they were normally Romanized in English, followed by Mandarin pinyin Romanization in parentheses, if it is known.

104 

A. CHOW

established boarding houses for its workers who were on shore leave.16 Most of the Chinese who remained in Britain found work by establishing laundries. Others opened Chinese restaurants, although their patrons before the 1950s were mainly other Chinese and, as such, tended to emphasize regionally specialized Chinese food coming from places such as Ningbo, Fuzhou, Hainan, Shantou, and Shanghai.17 Hardly any of these former seamen and contract laborers would have encountered Christianity before coming to the United Kingdom. In Liverpool, the first Chinese Christian church was established in 1907 by George Kirkham who worked among the Chinese for fourteen years in Everton village.18 By the 1920s and 1930s, another significant church was St Michael’s Church, the local Church of England parish church in the Liverpool Chinatown. As Liverpool would have had a largely male-­ dominated Chinese population, St Michael’s became known as a social center for families of mixed marriages between Chinese men and local women. It was the site for many weddings and christenings, and its church hall was used for a variety of social activities, such as the Boys’ Brigade, the Girls’ Friendly Society, and the Mother’s Union, attracting many families of the Liverpool Chinatown. In 1935, an article appeared in the Liverpool Diocesan Review with the eschatologically significant subtitle “The Church of Many Nations” discussing St Michael’s and its minister, J. H. G. Bates, described as a “specialist in ethnology.” With regards to mixed marriages, it reports: “The mating of the yellow races with the white is eugenically good, and produces a fine physical type. This is interesting in view of the idea that there is some natural racial antagonism.”19 While the article expressed the positive physical outcome of the children of Anglo-Chinese couples, this was contrasted with the perception that other forms of mixed marriages were

16  Maria Lin Wong, Chinese Liverpudlians: A History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool (Birkenhead, Wirral: Liver Press, 1989), 3–8. 17  Many of these Chinese patrons were seamen whose ships were docked at the given port. This could account for as many as 10,000 Chinese seamen on shore at any given time. J. A. G. Roberts, China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 155–157. 18  Julia A. O’Neill, “The Role of Family and Community in the Social Adjustment of the Chinese in Liverpool” (MA thesis, University of Liverpool, 1972), 105. 19  “St Michael’s Pitt Street: The Church of Many Nations,” Liverpool Diocesan Review 10, no. 8 (August 1935): 589.

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

105

more problematic, such as the “mating of black races and those of brown colour.”20 In a separate instance, as part of a study of Liverpool conducted by the Eugenics Education Society, Bates explains, “The Anglo Negro girl is in a deplorable state… the moral question is one to be carefully understood: further my experience is that Anglo negro [sic]  offspring are generally T.B.”21 The physical results of Anglo-Chinese couples were seen as good, but the social results were not. The Liverpool Diocesan Review article continues: The children present a special problem.… They speak English, but their mode of thought is Eastern. Their real ego is wrapped in an impenetrable silence, and whilst the lips speak the face is a mask, so different from the spontaneous frankness so delightful in English children. Racial difficulties develop at the marriage age. “If only God had made me white” is the bitter cry of the half-caste girl in love with a decent white man. Immorality has its special problem with the Chinese who have a kind of curious fascination for some white girls. It is difficult to convince the Eastern in the Port of Liverpool of the irreparable wrong done to these girls, when he is only too aware of the great number of half castes in his own country, who are the result of white men, nominally Christian, in reality pagan, who have through lack of control and self-respect contaminated his race.22

Anglo-Chinese children may be physically appealing, but would have significant challenges in their identity formation and, later in life, in possibilities for finding a future spouse.23 Generally speaking, these assessments made by Bates and reported in the Liverpool Diocesan Review were consonant with the growing interest in eugenics in Britain in the early twentieth century. Despite what appears to be his prejudices and ignorance, Bates

 Ibid.  Quoted in Dan Stone, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), 110. 22  “St Michael’s Pitt Street,” 590. 23  Maria Lin Wong confirms this view, given that such marriages resulted in challenges to both the mixed-race children and the white women—the latter of whom needed to be registered as “aliens” and therefore lost their British citizenship and were often ostracized by their families. Wong, Chinese Liverpudlians, 59–75. 20 21

106 

A. CHOW

was described by others as having a deep “personal concern for the families of all communities in this parish.”24 While the vast majority of the Chinese living in the United Kingdom during this period were former seamen or contract laborers, many of whom were illiterate, another group included Chinese students representing the intellectual elites. The earliest recorded Chinese student at a European university would be Wong Fun (Huang Kuan 黄寬; 1829–1878) in 1850, originally from Canton. He was sponsored by the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, completing his studies in 1855 and later working at a dispensary in Canton run by the London Missionary Society.25 The number of Chinese students would grow only after the 1870s, in the midst of China’s Self-Strengthening Movement (1861–1895), to pursue studies in navigation and shipbuilding—subjects key to China’s nation-building interests of the time.26 By 1931, there were about 450 Chinese students throughout Great Britain. While the majority of them came from the Chinese mainland,27 this number includes ethnic Chinese students from British colonies, such as 120 from Malaya and 35 from Hong Kong. More than half lived in London, often studying law and economics, whereas the second most popular destination was Edinburgh, with many studying medicine just like Wong Fun.28 Though these numbers were relatively small compared to the 4000–5000 former seamen and contract laborers at the time, various Christian organizations saw Chinese students as being the future leaders in politics and learned professions. Hence, the Foreign Student department of the British Student Christian Movement sought ways to build 24  Maurice Broady, “The Chinese in Liverpool: Some Aspects of Acculturation” (BA thesis, University of Liverpool, 1952), 13. 25  G.  H. Choa, “Heal the Sick” was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990), 80. 26  Min-Ch’ien T. Z. Tyau, London Through Chinese Eyes; or My Seven and a Half Years in London (London: Swarthmore Press, 1920), 302–307. 27  As the term “mainland China” was not used until the middle of the twentieth century, and it would therefore be anachronistic to use this term prior to this period, I use “Chinese mainland” to distinguish it from a region such as Hong Kong. 28  Szeming Sze, “Chinese Students in Great Britain,” The Asiatic Review 27 (1931): 311–313. The 450 students only accounts for about 7 percent of the 6553 China-born individuals recorded in the 1931 censuses of England, Wales, and Scotland. See Panikos Panayi, Immigration, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, 1815–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 51–52.

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

107

friendships with these students and even established economic hostels in which British and Chinese students could live with one another.29 Another important organization was the Chinese Students’ Christian Union of Great Britain and Ireland, established in 1908 by Andrew Wai-tak Woo (Hu Huide 胡惠德; 1887–1964), a medical student from Hong Kong who was training at Middlesex Hospital in London.30 Like the Student Christian Movement, this group sought to befriend Chinese students who arrived in the United Kingdom to help them get situated to living in a foreign land. As one of its general secretaries explained in a London meeting of the China Inland Mission (CIM): Our great strategy is this—that from the first day a young student arrives in this land to the very last minute of his stay here we want to surround him with good Christian influence.… Once every term I go round to every university and look up our own men, and also have chats, quiet fireside talks, with British students, bringing before them the need of looking after our men, of initiating them into a Christian atmosphere, into the Christian life, and of their seeing what the Christian home life of England is.31

This work hoped to break down the various barriers for Christianity as these educated Chinese returned to their homeland. The organization had interests in providing for the practical and spiritual needs of Chinese students, and operated two publications (the semi-annual The East in the West and the monthly Ch’uen Tao) and a number of yearly conferences which gathered Chinese students together from around the country.32 But it was also known for its work in the Chinatown in the East End of London, among the Chinese seamen and small shopkeepers and their children, offering “classes in simple English and Chinese; popular lantern lectures 29  Tyau, London Through Chinese Eyes, 313; Nelson Bitton, The Regeneration of New China (London: London Missionary Society, 1914), 265–267. 30  “Dr. Arthur Woo,” China Medical Journal 42, no. 1 (January 1928): 43. The organization had relations with organizations such as the British Student Christian Movement, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the World Student Christian Federation. It also appears to have had a loose connection with a much larger organization across the Atlantic, the Chinese Students’ Christian Association of North America. For the latter, see Tseng, “Religious Liberalism, International Politics, and Diasporic Realities.” 31  K. L. Chau, “The Outlook of Christianity in China To-Day,” China’s Millions 41, no. 7 (July 1915): 111. 32  Tyau, London Through Chinese Eyes, 308. While the second periodical’s name is a Romanization of Chinese, it (along with the first periodical) was printed in English.

108 

A. CHOW

on hygiene, the government of China, the meaning of the war, etc.”33 Hence, the Chinese Students’ Christian Union was not only led by and aimed at Chinese students, it also sought to address the needs of fellow kinsfolk in a foreign country regardless of their status in British society.

Policies and Appetites of Post-War Britain After the end of the Second World War, a number of changes in immigration policy radically shifted the demographics of ethnic Chinese in Britain. The first would be the British Nationality Act of 1948, which created the new status of being a “Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.” In effect, this meant that immigrants who were born in Hong Kong and Malaya would have been understood as full British subjects and allowed to enter the United Kingdom free of restrictions. However, over a decade later, due to anxieties related to the increase of immigration from Commonwealth regions in Asia and Africa, a series of changes in the immigration policy from 1962 to 1981 put an end to what was termed “primary immigration” by Commonwealth non-whites—that is, male holders of British (Hong Kong) passports.34 Much of the immigration during this later period was focused on “secondary immigration”—that is, individuals in the Commonwealth who had work permits or those who were joining family members who were already established in the United Kingdom. As these policy changes were happening, international immigration from the Chinese mainland would be severely stemmed due to the communist revolution. While most of the ethnic Chinese in the United Kingdom prior to 1948 were coming from various regions of the Chinese mainland, British immigration policies and Chinese geopolitics created a shift which resulted in an influx of ethnic Chinese mainly coming from Commonwealth regions such as Hong Kong and Malaya (later, Malaysia and Singapore), which would be dominated by Cantonese and, sometimes, Hakka and Hokkien languages and cultures. A few exceptions to this immigration pattern should be noted. First, there was a loophole that existed in the British immigration policies between 1962 and 1973 which allowed aliens born in the Chinese mainland to come to the United Kingdom by way of Hong Kong, as they were  Ibid, 311. See Sze, “Chinese Students in Great Britain,” 316–317.   The policies were the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, Immigration Act 1971, and British Nationality Act 1981. 33 34

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

109

not subjected to the same work permit restrictions that remained for Commonwealth subjects.35 Second, nearly 22,000 Vietnamese immigrated to Britain as refugees between 1978 and 1990, 70–85 percent of whom were ethnic Chinese from North Vietnam.36 Both of these are examples of push factors of immigration related to sociopolitical unrest in mainland China and Vietnam. A third push factor occurred after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, when a large number of Chinese fled to Hong Kong and began to compete with the established Hong Kong population, particularly in the farmland of the New Territories region which bordered the mainland. This created an economic crisis for the more established Hong Kong Chinese, many of whom lived in historically single-lineage villages of the New Territories.37 Contrastingly, these Chinese who had fled the mainland to Hong Kong could also benefit from the British policies which focused on secondary immigration. One of the main pull factors for immigration during this time was the growth in the British appetite for Chinese food. While many of the Chinese restaurants prior to this time catered mainly to Chinese patrons, this changed during the post-war years. Much of the initial interest grew among the British who were exposed to Chinese food when they were working abroad—in the military, in the diplomatic service, or in trade. Furthermore, the growing affluence of the British public allowed many to eat out or buy takeaway meals from Chinese establishments.38 Due to these various factors, this resulted in the migration of cheap laborers from the Chinese mainland, via Hong Kong, and the chain migration of many Hong Kong families who were being established in the United Kingdom. By 1985, at least 90 percent of the Chinese in the United Kingdom were employed in the catering business.39

35  This accounted for approximately 10,000 who received work permits from the Chinese restaurant businesses. Benton and Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 40–41. 36  Ibid, 43–44. 37  For a discussion of the five major lineages in the New Territories, the Tang, Hau, Pang, Liu, and Man, see Hugh D.  R. Baker, “The Five Great Clans of the New Territories,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 6 (1966): 25–48. 38  Roberts, China to Chinatown, 170–187. 39  Home Affairs Committee, “Chinese Community in Britain: Volume I, Report Together with Proceedings of the Committee,” HC 102 (1984–85), xi.

110 

A. CHOW

Reluctant Evangelists Like the earlier population, the majority of the ethnic Chinese immigrating to the United Kingdom in the post-war years would not have been exposed to Christianity prior to coming to the country. One major exception to this can be noted in the chain migration of ethnic Chinese from the New Territories island of Ap Chau (Ya zhou 鴨洲) or Robinson Island, most of whom were affiliated with the True Jesus Church—the oneness Pentecostal, Sabbatarian group started in 1917 by Paul Wei (Wei Baoluo 魏保羅; 1877–1919).40 Many of the cities throughout Northeast England and Scotland include Chinese restaurants and takeaways owned by families having one of nine surnames and associated with this indigenous Chinese Christian group.41 Moreover, in the years immediately following the war, the major British denominations did not seem to have an interest in this growing influx of Chinese immigrants. It was only in the mid-1960s when a few Protestant denominations began limited Christian work among Chinese in the United Kingdom.42 Perhaps the most important work among ethnic Chinese in the post-­ war period was started by Stephen Wang (Wang Youde 王又得; 1900–1971), who was once the headmaster of a Methodist school just outside of Beijing. Prior to his work as a headmaster, Wang received his BA and BD from Yenching University in Beijing, an institution which was

40  Garland Liu, “The Role of the True Jesus Church in Communal Development of the Chinese People in Elgin, Scotland,” in The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), 425–446. For a history of the True Jesus Church, see Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 41  The nine surnames are Ho, Chan, Cheung, Fong, Shek, Law, Liu, Chung, and To, the most dominant being Ho. Garland Liu, “A Sociological Study of the Chinese People in Aberdeen and Elgin with Special Reference to the Catering Business” (PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1992), 102. 42  In 1964, when Bishop R. O. Hall of Hong Kong visited London he saw the need for this work and sent for Lee Shui-Ying (Li Zhaoying 李兆英) from Hong Kong to establish a Cantonese congregation in St Martin’s in the Field, with its first service in September of that year. King’s Cross Methodist Church in London would also send for Yuk Lun Wong (Huang Yulin 黃玉麟) from Hong Kong in 1967, ultimately establishing a Cantonese service in 1975. Since then, ministries to Chinese have expanded to other parts of the United Kingdom through the Chinese Methodist Mission (Yingguo Huaren Xundaohui 英國華人循道會).

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

111

shaped by the modernist theology of the time.43 After his studies, Wang was encouraged by the University’s president John Leighton Stuart to work for the Student Volunteer Movement.44 Many years later Stephen Wang encountered the preaching of the fundamentalist Wang Mingdao ( 王明道; 1900–1991), in fact a childhood friend of his, and was given a new and different vision for the bible and Christian ministry.45 Stephen Wang had initially travelled to England for study at the University of Cambridge in 1948 and as the William Paton Lecturer in the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham in 1949 and 1950. However, Wang was unable to return home after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and would be separated from his wife and children for the rest of his life. After arriving in England, Stephen Wang attended meetings in Liverpool for the Methodist Church which discussed missions to China and the shifting political situation at the time. He encountered many Chinese in the streets of Liverpool and asked them if they knew of Jesus Christ or of the local church or the local minister—the answer was always no. Dismayed at this and disturbed by the oversight of the Methodist Church, Wang eventually moved to London and established what would become known as the Chinese Church in London (CCiL; Lundun Zhonghua Jidu Jiaohui 倫敦中華基督教會), holding its first Chinese service in January 7, 1951, with nine Chinese and four European friends, as well as the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM; Jidujiao Huaqiao Budaohui 基督教 華僑佈道會) as a base to travel to other parts of the United Kingdom and continental Europe and establish Chinese Christian fellowships.46 By its first anniversary, CCiL had 130 in attendance and, by the 1960s, it had nearly 200.47 A few observations are worth making at this point about Stephen Wang’s work. First, while many today would consider CCiL and COCM 43  Much of this had to do with the connections many of Yenching’s professors had with Union Theological Seminary in New York. See Christopher D.  Sneller, “Let the World Come to Union and Union Go to into the World: Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and the Quest for Indigenous Christianity in Twentieth Century China” (PhD thesis, King’s College London, 2015). 44  Mary Wang, Stephen the Chinese Pastor (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973), 43–53. 45  Ibid, 72. 46  Stephen Wang, “The Chinese on Our Doorstep,” World Dominion (September–October 1952): 267. 47  Ng, Chinese in London, 68.

112 

A. CHOW

as being evangelical ministries, Wang was very much shaped by his background in China. It is curious that, though Wang considered himself a lifelong Methodist, both of these ministries would be non-­denominational. Moreover, Wang gave CCiL the Chinese name Lundun Zhonghua Jidu Jiaohui. While the “Lundun” is simply the Chinese rendering of “London,” the remaining “Zhonghua Jidu Jiaohui” is the Chinese name of the Church of Christ in China established in 1927, the largest indigenous denomination in China  prior to 1949 and often seen as a theologically liberal organization.48 Furthermore, Wang would later ask the former president of Yenching University, John Leighton Stuart, to be the chair of the American board of directors for COCM. Like the Church of Christ in China, Wang had a vision to establish the CCiL and the COCM based on the three-self principle, albeit in the diaspora.49 Wang explains: The chief aim of the [Chinese Overseas Christian] Mission is to carry a positive evangelism to the Chinese outside China, and to bring them a knowledge of the full Gospel of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. The work is based upon the simple preaching of the Bible as the Word of God. It is desired to help the Chinese Christians to establish their own Church in accordance with the principle of self-support, self-management, and self-government.50

While Stephen Wang the academic would have been aware of the fundamentalist-­modernist controversies in the United States and in China, his pastoral focus was more concerned with reaching the Chinese wherever they were with the “simple preaching of the Bible as the Word of God.”

48  See Wallace C.  Merwin, Adventure in Unity: The Church of Christ in China (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1974). 49  The “three-self principle” or “three-self formula” of self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating was first articulated by the missionary strategists Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson in the 1800s as an approach to establishing indigenous churches led and propagated by indigenous Christians. In China, “three-self” would be the guiding principle in the formation of the Church of Christ in China and, in the 1950s, the formation of the Three-­ Self Patriotic Movement. 50  Wang, Stephen the Chinese Pastor, 104. Note that Wang renders the principle somewhat differently, with self-management and self-government basically having the same meaning. Although he somehow left out the point of self-propagating, this was clearly a key dimension of this quote and, indeed, the mission of these ministries.

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

113

A second observation can be made that, despite Wang’s interests and efforts to work with ethnic Chinese in the United Kingdom in the post-­ war period, he was linguistically limited because he spoke Mandarin—not Cantonese. Hence, even in the 1960s, CCiL operated in Mandarin with English translation and attracted primarily Chinese students rather than restaurant workers who would mainly speak Cantonese.51 He realized this limitation quite early on and, in 1952, invited a Cantonese-speaking evangelist to work among the Chinese in Liverpool.52 Although Wang himself made many trips to connect with and work among the Chinese dispersed across the United Kingdom and continental Europe, it would only be in 1964 when the second Chinese Christian fellowship was established in Birmingham with the help of COCM.  Wang enlisted the help of Frank Cheung (Zhang Yaoxun 張堯勳; 1938–2014), a Hong Kong immigrant who started the fellowship in his own Chinese restaurant.53 For many years, Stephen Wang and Frank Cheung would travel together to work with various Chinese Christian fellowships throughout the country. Many of today’s British Chinese churches were started by other evangelistically minded individuals and often connected with COCM. In particular, former missionaries of the evangelical CIM who were expelled from mainland China after 1949 found new work among Chinese in the United Kingdom. The famous Gladys Aylward is credited for establishing the Chinese Gospel Mission (Huaren Fuyin Shituan 華人福音使團) in the new Liverpool Chinatown on Nelson Street in 1953, which would later be registered as the Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church (Liwupu Huaren Fuyin Jiaohui 利物浦華人福音教會) and pastored initially by Charles Cheung.54 There were also the CIM missionaries Stanley and Norah Rowe, based initially in Northwest China in the 1930s and 1940s and, in the 1950s and 1960s, working among the Chinese in new resettlement villages established by the British colonial authority in Malaya.55 In their retirement in England, the Rowes worked with restaurant workers to establish Leicester Chinese Christian Fellowship in 1976, which would  Ng, Chinese in London, 68–69.  Wang, “The Chinese on Our Doorstep,” 268. 53  This would later become the basis for the Birmingham Chinese Evangelical Church (Bominghan Zhonghua Fuyin Jiaohui 伯明翰中華福音教會). 54  Julia A.  O’Neill, “The Role of Family and Community,” 105. See Alan Burgess, The Small Woman (London: Evans Brothers, 1957), 221. 55  Faith Cook, Troubled Journey: A Missionary Childhood in War-Torn China (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2004), 96–97. 51 52

114 

A. CHOW

eventually become Leicester Chinese Christian Church (Lisite Huaren Jidu Jiaohui 理斯特華人基督教會) in 1992.56 There was also Wallace and Nicky Hockey, CIM missionaries in Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s and proficient in Mandarin and Hakka. Due to health reasons, the couple and their family relocated to Oxford and worked with nurses and students, initially establishing the Oxford Chinese Christian Fellowship in 1971, which would later register as the Oxford Chinese Christian Church (Niujin Huaren Jidu Jiaohui 牛津華人基督教會) in 1986.57 For many of these former CIM missionaries, language would likewise create some limitations. But the desire to cross Chinese linguistic and cultural differences and the partnering with COCM has resulted in the growth of Chinese Christian churches throughout Great Britain and Ireland.

Conclusion: Challenges and Prospects for British Chinese Christianity The ethnic Chinese population in the United Kingdom has experienced further changes in the last few decades. Due to developments in immigration policies and the geopolitics of mainland China and Hong Kong, the influx of ethnic Chinese since the 1990s would increasingly be made up of students and professionals. Today, mainland China is the number one sending country for student visa holders in the United Kingdom and, unlike earlier generations, all speak Mandarin and most will return to China after the end of their studies. As many mainland Chinese are not Christians when they arrive, churches and parachurches have a growing focus on reaching out to this transient population.58 Many of the historical Chinese churches in Britain, often dominated by Cantonese who work in the catering business, have since added Mandarin translation to their church services or created entirely new church services conducted in Mandarin. Yet at the same time, cultural and linguistic differences exist among new mainland Chinese immigrants—given that China is by no means a monocultural country—and between them and the historic  Ibid, 116.  Jean Cooke and Joan Garwood, A Time and a Season: The Story of St. Michael’s House, Oxford (Cookham, Berkshire: St. Michael’s House Fellowship, 2000), 201–202. 58  For a recent study on Chinese students and visiting scholars who encounter Christianity in the United Kingdom and return to China, see Deborah Dickson, “Coming Home: A Study of Values Change Among Chinese Postgraduates and Visiting Scholars who Encountered Christianity in the U.K.” (PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2013). 56 57

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

115

British Chinese Christian populations. Furthermore, following the 1997 handover of Hong Kong and the social unrest in Hong Kong in 2014 and 2019–2020, the Home Office has changed the immigration policies again, enabling Hong Kong citizens with British National (Overseas) status a route to settle in the United Kingdom. These new waves of immigrants from mainland China and Hong Kong have and will continue to add new complexities to the demographics of Chinese in the United Kingdom. A second major change has arisen whereby those who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s have produced second and third generations, often known as British Born Chinese (BBC). English-speaking ministries in these churches have developed, often as part of the natural progression of the churches’ youth ministries. Of all the English-speaking congregations throughout the United Kingdom, today there are only a handful of ordained pastors, a number of whom are not ethnic Chinese. In contrast to the dynamics of the United States, whereby a large percentage of American Born Chinese (ABC) become Christians during university years through various evangelical parachurch ministries, British universities do not have nearly as many parachurch ministries and most BBCs who are Christians have been introduced to Christianity through family connections. Furthermore, outside of certain cities, BBCs have less of a critical mass, lacking concentrated numbers in any one location.59 In their upbringing, many have needed to juggle working in the family takeaway or restaurant business and their academic studies. Moreover, whereas the American civil rights movement in the 1960s gave renewed political meanings behind hyphenated titles such as “Asian American” or “Chinese American,”60 in many parts of the United Kingdom, “Asian” refers to India or Pakistan and BBCs are simply “Chinese” or “Oriental” and are rarely described as being “British.” It has only been since the 1990s that the term “British Chinese” began to emerge, as an alternative to the BBC, to point to the complex hybrid identity which draws from both British and Chinese cultures.61 Generally speaking, while English ministries in the 59  It perhaps goes without saying that many British Chinese Christians attend churches that are not Chinese-majority. 60  The term “Asian American” was coined by historian Yuji Ichioka, who saw it as offering “an oppositional political identity imbued with self-definition and empowerment, signaling a new way of thinking.” Karen L. Ishizuka, Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties (London and Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2016), 62. 61  See David Parker, Through Different Eyes: The Cultural Identities of Young Chinese People in Britain (Aldershot: Avebury, 1995); David Parker, “Emerging British Chinese Identities:

116 

A. CHOW

United States have for the last few decades raised questions related to their identities and purposes with relation to the work in Cantonese and Mandarin languages, especially given the immigration of ethnic Chinese from non-commonwealth regions such as Taiwan and Indonesia, this has only become a recent question in the United Kingdom. Looking at the overall history of British Chinese Christianity, two further points are worth noting. Firstly, while we can see some historical work by non-ethnic churches to reach ethnic Chinese, the work by ethnic Chinese to other ethnic Chinese appears to have been much more significant. In many ways, we can see parallels with the dynamics in the growth of Christianity in mainland China whereby it would be only after missionaries were expelled from the country that a “Christianity fever” (Jidujiao re 基督教熱) was witnessed in the 1980s–1990s across all sectors of Chinese society as Chinese evangelized other Chinese. Related to this, it is often the case that those who study ethnic-specific churches explain their existence as upholding Donald McGavran’s “homogenous unit principle,” which asserts that, “People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.”62 This is true, in one sense, and can likewise be said for an ethnic Chinese church in the United Kingdom as well as many local congregations of denominations such as the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. Yes, the dominant work of these ethnic Chinese churches is with other ethnic Chinese. But it is undeniable that the work of the Chinese Students’ Christian Union and the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission has necessitated heterogenous ministries which intentionally cross many linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic boundaries. In many ways, a question that remains is whether and how these British Chinese churches will continue to adapt and constructively engage across borders between and beyond other ethnic Chinese.

Issues and Problems,” in The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, 91–114. 62  Donald A.  McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 163. McGavran developed this “church growth” principle after noticing the growth of separate types of churches in India, often focusing on specific castes or tribes. See Donald A.  McGavran, Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from India (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1979).

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

117

Bibliography Baker, Hugh D.R. 1966. The Five Great Clans of the New Territories. Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 6: 25–48. Benton, Gregor, and Edmund Terence Gomez. 2008. The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bitton, Nelson. 1914. The Regeneration of New China. London: London Missionary Society. Broady, Maurice. 1952. The Chinese in Liverpool: Some Aspects of Acculturation. BA thesis, University of Liverpool. Burgess, Alan. 1957. The Small Woman. London: Evans Brothers. Cao Nanlai. 2013. Renegotiating Locality and Morality in a Chinese Religious Diaspora: Wenzhou Christian Merchants in Paris, France. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14 (1): 85–101. Cayford, Joanne M. 1991. In Search of “John Chinaman”: Press Representations of the Chinese in Cardiff, 1906–1911. Llafur: Journal of Welsh Labour History 5 (4): 37–50. Chan, Sharon Wai-Man. 1996. The Dynamics of Expansion of the Chinese Churches in the Los Angeles Basin. PhD diss., Fuller Theological Seminary. Chau, K.L. 1915. The Outlook of Christianity in China To-Day. China’s Millions 41 (7, July): 111. Chen, Carolyn. 2008. Getting Saved in America Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Choa, G.H. 1990. “Heal the Sick” was Their Motto: The Protestant Medical Missionaries in China. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Cook, Faith. 2004. Troubled Journey: A Missionary Childhood in War-Torn China. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth. Cooke, Jean, and Joan Garwood. 2000. A Time and a Season: The Story of St. Michael’s House, Oxford. Cookham, Berkshire: St. Michael’s House Fellowship. Dickson, Deborah. 2013. Coming Home: A Study of Values Change Among Chinese Postgraduates and Visiting Scholars who Encountered Christianity in the U.K. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. “Dr. Arthur Woo.” 1928. China Medical Journal 42 (1, Jan.): 43. Holmes, Colin. 1988. John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971. London: Routledge. Home Affairs Committee. 1984–85. Chinese Community in Britain: Volume I, Report Together with Proceedings of the Committee. HC 102. Inouye, Melissa Wei-Tsing. 2018. China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. Ishizuka, Karen L. 2016. Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties. London and Brooklyn, NY: Verso.

118 

A. CHOW

Jung, Russell. 2005. Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Li Xinan. 2018. Believing through Belonging: A Sociological Study of Christian Conversion of Chinese Migrants in Britain. PhD thesis, Loughborough University. Liu, Garland. 1992. A Sociological Study of the Chinese People in Aberdeen and Elgin with Special Reference to the Catering Business. PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen. ———. 1998. The Role of the True Jesus Church in Communal Development of the Chinese People in Elgin, Scotland. In The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn, 425–446. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. May, J.P. 1978. The Chinese in Britain, 1860–1914. In Immigrants and Minorities in British Society, ed. Colin Holmes, 111–124. London: George Allen & Unwin. McGavran, Donald A. 1979. Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from India. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library. ———. 1990. Understanding Church Growth. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Merwin, Wallace C. 1974. Adventure in Unity: The Church of Christ in China. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Ng, Kwee Choo. 1968. The Chinese in London. London: Oxford University Press. Nyíri, Pál. 2003. Moving Targets: Chinese Christian Proselytising Among Transnational Migrants From the People’s Republic of China. European Journal of East Asian Studies 2 (2, Dec.): 263–301. O’Neill, Julia A. 1972. The Role of Family and Community in the Social Adjustment of the Chinese in Liverpool. MA thesis, University of Liverpool. Oblau, Gotthard. 2011. Chinese Christian Communities in Germany. Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 1 (2): 147–151. Panayi, Panikos. 1994. Immigration, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, 1815–1945. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Parker, David. 1998. Emerging British Chinese Identities: Issues and Problems. In The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn, 91–114. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ———. 1995. Through Different Eyes: The Cultural Identities of Young Chinese People in Britain. Aldershot: Avebury. Petersen, William. 1966. Success Story, Japanese-American Style. New York Times, January 9, 20ff. Pew Forum. 2012. Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Faiths. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Rao Xinzi. 2017. Revisiting Chinese-ness: A Transcultural Exploration of Chinese Christians in Germany. Studies in World Christianity 23 (2, Aug.): 122–144.

5  BRITISH IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND BRITISH CHINESE CHRISTIANITY 

119

Roberts, J.A.G. 2002. China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West. London: Reaktion Books. Sneller, Christopher D. 2015. Let the World Come to Union and Union Go to into the World: Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and the Quest for Indigenous Christianity in Twentieth Century China. PhD thesis, King’s College London. “St Michael’s Pitt Street: The Church of Many Nations.” 1935. Liverpool Diocesan Review 10 (8, Aug.): 589–590. Stafford, Tim. 2006. The Tiger in the Academy: Asian Americans Populate America’s Elite Colleges More Than Ever—And Campus Ministries Even More Than That. Christianity Today: 70–73. Stone, Dan. 2002. Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. “Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S.” 1966. U.S.  News and World Report, December 26: 73–76. Sze, Szeming. 1931. Chinese Students in Great Britain. The Asiatic Review 27: 311–313. Tan, Kang-San. 2010. In Search of Contextualised Training Models for Chinese Christian Diaspora in Britain. Transformation 28 (1, Dec.): 29–41. Todd, Matthew. 2015. English Ministry Crisis in Chinese Canadian Churches: Towards the Retention of English-Speaking Adults from Chinese Canadian Churches through Associated Parallel Independent English Congregational Models. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Tseng, Timothy. 1994. Ministry At Arm’s Length: Asian Americans in the Racial Ideology of American Mainline Protestants, 1882–1952. PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York. ———. 1996. Religious Liberalism, International Politics, and Diasporic Realities: The Chinese Students Christian Association of North America, 1909–1951. Journal of American-East Asian Relations 5 (3–4, Fall–Winter): 305–330. ———. 2004. Protestantism in Twentieth Century Chinese America: The Impact of Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora. Journal of American-East Asian Relations 13: 121–148. Tyau, Min-Ch’ien T.Z. 1920. London Through Chinese Eyes; or My Seven and a Half Years in London. London: Swarthmore Press. Wang Gungwu. 1981. A Note on the Origins of Hua-Ch’iao. In Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese, 118–127. Singapore: Heinemann. ———. 1998. Upgrading the Migrant: Neither Huaqiao nor Huaren. In The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas, ed. Elizabeth Sinn, 15–33. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

120 

A. CHOW

Wang Jiwu. 2006. “His Dominion” and the “Yellow Peril”: Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1859–1967. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Wang, Mary. 1973. Stephen the Chinese Pastor. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Wang, Stephen. 1952. The Chinese on Our Doorstep. World Dominion, September–October: 265–268. Whyte, Maggi, and Sheila Crowe. 2011. The Chinese Community in Britain and Ireland and the Response of the Churches. Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 1 (2): 138–146. Wong, Enoch. 2015. “How Am I Going to Grow Up?” An Exploration of Congregational Transition Among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant-Leadership. PhD diss., Gonzaga University. Wong, Enoch, Jonathan Tam, Kwing Hung, Tommy Tsui, and Wes Wong. 2018. Listening to Their Voices: An Exploration of Faith Journeys of Canadian-born Chinese Christians. Rev. ed. Pasadena, CA: CCCOWE. Wong, Maria Lin. 1989. Chinese Liverpudlians: A History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool. Birkenhead, Wirral: Liver Press. Yang Fenggang. 1999. Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University.

CHAPTER 6

The Politics of Jesus’ Love: K. H. Ting, Contextual Interpretation of the Gospels and Images of Jesus in Modern China Zhixi Wang

Introduction K. H. Ting (Ding Guangxun 丁光訓, 1915–2012) has been widely considered one of the most important but also most controversial Chinese Christian leaders in twentieth-century China. His thoughts shape the mainstream theological framework of the “Three-Self Church,” such as his repeated emphasis on the notion that “God is love” or “God is the lover of the cosmos.” Concerning the interpretation of Ting’s theological mentality, some scholars have stressed the political contexts of

The Chinese version of this chapter was published in Xin Zongjiao Yanjiu (New Century Religious Study) 14, no. 2 (December 2015): 55–77. I would like to extend my thanks to Rev. Dr. Philip L. Wickeri (Professor of Church History, HKSKH Ming Hua Theological College), who generously shared with me many primary sources about K. H. Ting. Z. Wang (*) College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University, Shantou, People’s Republic of China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_6

121

122 

Z. WANG

post-Cultural Revolution China to explain the reasons why Ting proposed his thesis that “God is love.”1 Others argue that both liberal Anglican theology and contextual theology constitute how Ting should be better understood.2 Ting’s contextual theological approach, however, remains to be further elaborated. Although not a few researchers have dealt with Ting’s thought from this perspective, most focus only on the dimension of contextual systematic theology (or constructive theology), while neglecting the aspect of contextual biblical interpretation in his writings. Jieren Li, for instance, when highlighting the limitation of Ting’s contextual theology, concludes that “his Christocentric theology has been Christ-centered rather than Jesus-centered.”3 Li reaches this conclusion perhaps because he analyzes Ting’s Christology without taking into consideration Ting’s interpretation of Jesus of the Gospels (“Jesus-centered”), which in actual fact constitutes a significant part of his writings and theological discourses. For another example, Philip Wickeri in his biography of Ting deciphers the “gospel of love” in Ting’s theology and observes that the theme of “God’s love” “was not very prominent in Ting’s writing in the 1940s and 1950s.”4 In contrast to both of these positions, this chapter argues that Ting’s attention paid to the love of Jesus and its political implications dates back to the 1940s and 1950s, and extends into the decades immediately following the Cultural Revolution. Taking the approach of the reception history of the Bible,5 this chapter examines the following research question: how does Ting in different political contexts construct Jesus’ love through contextual interpretation of the Gospels in modern China? I argue that Jesus’ love is highlighted in varied ways in Ting’s writings on the part of interpreting the specific Gospel texts; meanwhile, Ting interprets the Gospels and remakes images 1  Fuk-tsang Ying, Dangdai Zhongguo Zhengjiao Guanxi [Church-State Relations in Contemporary China] (Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary, 1999), 149. 2  Philip L.  Wickeri, Reconstructing Christianity in China: K.  H. Ting and the Chinese Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007), 113, 352, 366. 3  Jieren Li, In Search of the Via Media between Christ and Marx: A Study of Bishop Ding Guangxun’s Contextual Theology (Lund, Sweden: Center for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, 2008), 394. 4  Philip L. Wickeri, Reconstructing Christianity in China, 249. 5  Zhixi Wang, “Quanqiu Shi Shijiao Xia De ‘Shengjing Jieshou Shi’: Zouxiang ‘Quanqiu Jidujiao Shi’ Yu ‘Jieshou Shi’ De Zhenghe [‘Reception History of the Bible’ from the Perspective of Global History: Toward the Integration of ‘Global History of Christianity’ and ‘Reception History’],” Fu Jen Religious Studies 31 (Autumn 2015): 143–170.

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

123

of Jesus in order to respond to the political concerns of the time. In this chapter, I will focus on four major images of Jesus constructed by Ting: firstly, I explore Ting’s discourses on the relation between Jesus in the Gospels and all human beings (especially of non-Christians); secondly, I deal with a Jesus who both identifies with humankind and separates from it because of human sins; next, I examine how Jesus relates to the oppressed or the sinned against; and finally, I discuss the connection between Jesus and patriotism.

“A Great Lover” There is no lack of the theme that “Jesus loves humans” in Ting’s writings of different periods. The reason why Jesus could take the office of priesthood and pray for humans, Ting wrote in 1955, was that he “goes deep into the world of mortals and identifies with humanity.” Part of the evidence of his argument lies in the Gospel narratives that Jesus “loves people, loves vast numbers of people, partakes in their sufferings, and shares their happiness.” Moreover, Ting believed that the Chinese church ought to imitate Jesus’ example.6 Love embodied by Jesus for human beings would be seen as “politically incorrect,” however, under certain political climates. Since the late 1950s, Ting later recalled, he himself had experienced and even followed in “the route which took class struggle as the central task” and “the route of hate.”7 These “routes,” when applied in the political sphere, signified “attacking good people and alienating those who should have been united.”8 In the religious sphere, these “routes” would easily lead to the consequence of “trampling love at their feet”; that is, many who took class struggle as the central task declared that “talking about love is to sing an opposite tune, to ignore right and wrong, and to surrender to the enemy.”9 After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Ting lamented his own previous attempts to follow this kind of route, and claimed to endeavor from then on to “uphold love” and “let love—Jesus’ love—revive many frozen 6  K. H. Ting, “Shen Yu Ren Zhijian [Between God and Man],” Shenggong [Holy Vocation] (February 1955): 8. 7  K. H. Ting, “Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End],” Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 9 (November 1988): 62. 8  K. H. Ting, “Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End],” 62. 9  K. H. Ting, “Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End],” 61–62.

124 

Z. WANG

hearts.”10 Jesus’ love became Ting’s answer to the Chinese society that used to be full of class struggle. In 1988, Ting gave an opening speech about “love to the end,” based on John 13:1, to the students in the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. According to Ting’s observation, some people thought that, in the world, love “always has some private purposes hidden behind or ulterior motives that cannot bear the light of day.” But Ting believed that the four Gospels demonstrated for Christians the “true love” of Jesus. Ting gave the example of John 11:33–36, in which Jesus saw people weeping over the death of Lazarus and then could not help weeping as well. This text, among others, indicated Jesus’ love “without hidden purpose or self-interest.”11 In 1993 and 1994, Ting gave speeches in Union Theological Seminary (Philippines) and Union Theological Seminary (New York), respectively. In the speech in the Philippines, he proposed two types of Jesus in the New Testament: (1) “Jesus loves human beings deeply” and (2) “Jesus is the cosmic Christ.”12 In this same vein, Ting in his New  York speech addressed Jesus’ love again, though placing the emphasis upon the specific issue of how to introduce Jesus to intellectuals and atheists in China. This “great lover” in the Gospels, as Ting puts it firmly, was able to become the point of contact between Christian faith and non-Christians: Some people might think that I present the Christian doctrines in a manner that is too simple, without mentioning the sinfulness of humanity or proposing a Christology. Nevertheless, I am trying to find a point of contact, since we cannot ask [intellectuals and atheists in China] to swallow up the entire Christian faith all at once. I think that if they see Jesus as a great lover or a revealer of love that operates in the cosmos, then it signifies that they have accepted a very important part of the Christian revelation.13

 K. H. Ting, “Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End],” 62.  K. H. Ting, “Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End],” 61. 12  K. H. Ting, “Yige Zhongguo Jidutu De Shangdi Guan [One Chinese Christian’s View of God],” Typescript (October 1993): 4. Donald E. Messer also noticed these two types of Jesus in Ting’s speech. See Donald E.  Messer, “The Chinese Banyan Tree Theology of Bishop K. H. Ting,” trans. Jing Zhang, in Zai Ai Zhong Xunqiu Zhenli [Seeking Truth in Love], ed. Peng Wang (Beijing: Religious Cultural Press, 2006), 21. Many researchers, however, have paid too much attention to the latter type in Ting’s thought while unfortunately downplaying the importance of the former. 13  K. H. Ting, “Xiang Muxiao Huibao (1994 Nian 10 Yue Yu Niuyue Xiehe Shenxueyuan) [Speech on Receiving Union Theological Seminary Medal],” Typescript (October 1994): 6–7. 10 11

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

125

Ting’s approach of offering the image that Jesus is “a great lover” involved a strong contextualizing tendency and practical concern, despite the fact that the emphases he laid under varied circumstances were different. Concerning the speech delivered in New  York, Ting attempted to build a bridge between Christians and non-Christians, arguing through this image of Jesus that Jesus’ love has something to do with non-­Christians as well. Ting’s point was that Jesus loves not only Christians but also non-­ Christians. In fact, even before the 1980s, Ting had already presented a Jesus whose love goes beyond Christians. Another speech made by him in 1979  in the Timothy Eaton Church of Toronto was based on Luke 9:12–17, in which Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. These five thousand people around Jesus, as Ting speculated, might not all “confess him as Lord,” but Jesus still gave them food to demonstrate his love for them: “[Jesus] is concerned about the entire crowd and the entire human race, not only about those in the crowd confessing him as Lord. We have to understand that God is so great, and if we think he loves and cares only those who praise His name, it is inconsistent with His nature.”14 In sum, through the Gospel narratives, Ting interpreted Jesus’ love for all kinds of people (including non-Christians, supposedly atheist political party members in particular). Apart from responding to the Chinese social reality filled with hate in the Cultural Revolution period of “taking class struggle as the central task,” Ting in his hermeneutics here also sought to find a point of contact between non-Christians and Christians in 14  K.  H. Ting, “Renlei De Ji’e He Pinkun [Human Hunger and Poverty],” in Ding Guangxun Wenji [Collection of Bishop K. H. Ting’s Essays] (Hong Kong: Chinese Christians Literature Council Ltd., 1999), 2. In another much earlier essay, Ting said: “When Jesus fed the five thousand (many of whom could not have heard what he had said or were around just out of curiosity), He fed them just because they were hungry. We too ought to relieve the suffering masses in their distress, even if we know we cannot hope that they be converted to the Christian faith. To administer relief with too conscious an intention of direct evangelism may lead us back to the old, unhappy pattern of producing ‘rice Christians’. I do not think we ought to condemn a ‘rice Christian’ very harshly because, when a man has worked hard and is still hungry, his natural instinct of self-preservation and his noble care for his loved ones drive him to places where he can obtain some rice. If he has to pretend to believe in Christianity it is only because Christians have made that belief a pre-requisite and have thus encouraged the pretension. The Church should give him rice, should not make relief conditional on what one says he believes, and should look into the social system that produces so much hunger.” See K.  H. Ting, “The Task of the Church in Asia,” Student World 42 (1949): 246.

126 

Z. WANG

post-Cultural Revolution China. In Chinese Marxist political contexts, the Gospel texts of Jesus’ love were remade and appropriated into the politics of Jesus’ love.

“Two Principles of Incarnation” Ting also believed that Jesus has not only love but also hate. Jesus’ hate for the sinfulness of sinners, Ting reasoned in the end of the 1940s, is an integral part of Jesus’ love. This paradoxical nature, reflected in Jesus of the Gospels, was described by Ting as “two modes of the existence of Immanuel” or “two principles of incarnation.” As early as 1948 during his stay in the North America, Ting, in an article published in Student World (the organ of the World Student Christian Federation), proposed the binary relationship of both Jesus’ “identification” with people out of his love for them and his “separation” from them because of their sins. On the one hand, according to the doctrine of incarnation, Ting stated, Jesus became one of us and identified with humans. In the Gospel texts, Jesus lived, worked, and ate with people; he shared with people’s joy and sorrow; he bore people’s burden and suffering; and he understood people’s groanings. This is called the first principle of incarnation. Jesus’ identification with people, on the other hand, was for the sake of saving them, rather than indulging them. Thus, Jesus would not identify with people’s sins; instead, he separated from them, what Ting called the second principle of incarnation. With these two principles in mind, Ting wrote aptly that a Christian “knows only too well how Christ is at once both intimate and yet uncompromising, understanding and yet demanding; and how He loves intensely and yet judges penetratingly. Christ forgives, comforts, and sympathizes; yet He rebukes, and is severe and stern.”15 Similar to Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong 吳耀宗) who influenced Ting profoundly, Ting’s view of Jesus could be seen “between love and hatred.”16 15  K. H. Ting, “Power and Its Denial on the Cross,” Student World 41 (1948): 210–211. See also K. H. Ting, “A Chinese Answers the Question,” Student World 41 (1948): 320; K. H. Ting, “The Task of the Church in Asia,” 245; K. H. Ting, “Tan Jidujiao Youshen Lun [On Christian Theism],” Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 7 (August 1957): 19; K.  H. Ting, “Zenyang Du Shengjing [How to Study the Bible],” Tianfeng [Heavenly Wind] 1 (October 1980): 51. 16  For Y. T. Wu’s images of Jesus in Republican China, see Zhixi Wang, “‘Aihen Jiaozhi’: Wu Yaozong De ‘Wei’ai Zhuyi,’ ‘Fuyin Shu Wenben’ Yu ‘Yesu Xingxiang’ (1918–1948

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

127

The implication of the two principles of identification and separation lies in how the church should imitate Jesus in a similar way. Ting argued that the church, instead of ignoring the temporal world and focusing on so-called spiritual things, needs to identify itself with humanity’s real need, just as Jesus did. Having said that, the church must also separate from the world on the part of sinful things, following the example of Jesus again. In other words, Ting implored the church to pay heed to what Jesus says in John 17:14–16, both being “in the world and not of the world.” However, when expounding this implication for the church in 1948, Ting put a heavy emphasis on the principle of separation, with the reminder that a Christian “is perpetually a stranger, engaged in a perpetual revolt against the human world as it is,” and that the church must beware of not taking upon itself “the world’s standards.”17 Four years later in 1952, during “New China,”18 Ting translated and rewrote this 1948 English article into Chinese, which was published as the second part of a booklet, Behold the Lamb of God. Jesus’ binary nature of identification and separation was kept in this Chinese version, but the ways these two principles were put into practice had already been very different. The difference reflected the completely new political context in which Ting lived during the early 1950s. The 1952 version was written under the circumstances of the Cold War and a “hot” war (Korean War), when socialist China and the so-called capitalist America were fiercely in conflict with one other. Unlike the 1948 English version, in which Ting had not differentiated specifically between what Christians should identify with and what they should separate from, the 1952 Chinese version announced clearly and bluntly that it was only the churches in “New China” (instead of those in the “Old World”) that were capable of doing what Jesus exemplified: identification with the common people and separation from sins. The churches in the “Old World,” which implied the Western churches, could not imitate Jesus’ two principles in a sincere and free way. Christians in the “Old World,” Ting insisted, “have no freedom to unite with the people, nor freedom to separate from sins.” In the “Old World,” financial, economic, political, and military magnates “trained pastors and sent them Nian) [Between Love and Hatred: Pacifism, Gospel Texts and Images of Jesus in the Writings of Y. T. Wu, 1918–1948],” Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology 43 (Autumn 2015): 235–266. 17  K. H. Ting, “Power and Its Denial on the Cross,” 212–215. 18  “New China” is a term commonly used to describe China in the years immediately following the 1949 Communist victory over the civil war with the Nationalists.

128 

Z. WANG

to the frontier of Korea in order to boost soldiers’ morale and to improve their arrogance in slaughtering Korean people… American churches never say ‘no’ to the crime of [their country’s] use of germ bombs,” Ting believed.19 Christians in “New China,” on the contrary, were said to be “free to pray for peace or sign in the peace pact” as evidence of their attaining of Jesus’ principles of identification and separation.20 In this regard, Ting once again read international politics into the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, whereby legitimating the ruling party’s political discourse: the communist-led “New China” was undoubtedly superior to the capitalist “Old World.”

“Christ’s Sympathy with the Sinned Against” Another image that Ting constructed, under the influence of his spiritual mentor Y.  T. Wu,21 was a Jesus who cares and has compassion on the oppressed and the sufferers. This image in some sense resembled the Christology of “liberation theology”22 of Latin America arising in the second half of the twentieth century, despite the fact that this Chinese version was earlier. Dating back to 1940, during the Sino-Japanese War, Ting in Shanghai had begun to seek “the special meaning of Jesus of one thousand years ago for the world of today.” In the article “What Is the Deepest Love?,” Ting 19  K. H. Ting, Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God] (Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1952), 20–22. 20  K. H. Ting, Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God], 23–24. 21  Ting later recalled how, in 1930s, he heard Wu in his speech constructing a Jesus who was present with the suffering people: “Y. T. in his speeches presented a Jesus who stood with the masses of the suffering people, ready to go through the torture of the cross and to shed his blood for their liberation. This quality on the part of Jesus was presented as in harmony with the very constitution of the universe, i.e., benevolence, and was therefore of eternal value.” See K. H. Ting, “Forerunner Y. T. Wu,” Typescript (1982): 3. 22  When asked in an interview concerning whether the Chinese Christian claims of anti-­ pacifism and supporting military resistance could be seen as a kind of “liberation theology,” he replied: “Well, I think it was some sort of theological thinking that justified us to support the war of resistance and as we look back, the war of resistance was pretty much a part of our movement towards the people’s liberation.” See  John Gardner and K.  H. Ting, “An Interview with Bishop K. H. Ting,” China and Ourselves (May 1980): 6. Jieren Li also argues that “Ding’s early theology was close to classical liberation theology. He emphasized option for the poor, the oppressed, and the masses… His early theology provided a contextualization ‘from below’.” Jieren Li, In Search of the Via Media between Christ and Marx, 408.

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

129

(with a pseudonym) found two Gospel texts with respect to Jesus’ mission for those at the bottom of the society: Luke 1:51–52 (Mary’s song of praise) and Luke 4:18–19 (Jesus’ Nazarene declaration). In the latter text Jesus quoted a well-known paragraph from the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised [oppressed], to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”23 There were also at least another three references to these two texts in Ting’s writings in his later years after the 1980s. Ting began the article “What Is the Deepest Love?” with a distinction between what he termed the “deepest love” (chedi de ai 徹底的愛) and what some of his contemporary Christians called the “absolute love” (juedui de ai 絕對的愛), the latter relating to Christian pacifism in the Republican era. The difference, as Ting puts it, lay in the attitudes toward war. The “absolute love” denoted non-resistance-ism (bu dikang zhuyi 不 抵抗主義) and non-violence under any circumstance, thus “considering love absolutely incompatible with war.” But those who advocated for the “deepest love,” bearing in mind the presupposition of “no compromise with evil,” “would absolutely support the wars which were against invasion and for elimination of war itself.”24 Advocating for the “deepest love” himself, Ting obviously stood by the Chinese version of a form of Just War theory or Christian realism, which for him rightly corresponded to what Jesus proclaimed: “to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are oppressed.”25 It is clear in Ting’s mind that, during the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese people were the captives and the oppressed, and Japan the oppressor. In retrospect, Ting in his later years expressed his nationalistic feeling for the Mukden Incident of 1931 and his dissatisfaction with pacifism to which many church leaders at that time held. When interviewed by one of his biographers, Ting once said of this feeling: “Concerning Japan’s invasion of China and its occupation after the ‘September 18, [1931]’ in Northeast China, there was indignation indeed in me as an ordinary

23  Si Bei (K. H. Ting), “Chedi De Ai Shi Shenme? [What Is the Deepest Love?],” Xiaoxi [Information] 1 (1940): 17. 24  Si Bei (K. H. Ting), “Chedi De Ai Shi Shenme? [What Is the Deepest Love?],” 17–18. 25  Si Bei (K. H. Ting), “Chedi De Ai Shi Shenme? [What Is the Deepest Love?],” 17.

130 

Z. WANG

Chinese.”26 Another earlier interview in 1980 recounted how, in the 1930s, he cast doubts on his own Christian faith due to fellow Christians’ pacifism and the so-called absolute love: At that time [after the Mukden Incident of 1931] many church leaders were also talking about pacifism, love of our enemy and non-resistance, and the suppression of the Communists within China first. All these things made me doubt about Christianity. My doubt was chiefly in the area of ethics and politics.27

Facing up to this geopolitical conflict between China and Japan and to the severe national trauma of war in the 1930s and 1940s, Ting appropriated the sayings of Jesus’ love for the captives and the oppressed in the Gospel of Luke so as to challenge unreserved pacifism and to construct his Christian realism in wartime China. During the Sino-Japanese War, Ting focused on the relation between the oppressed (Chinese people living in the war) and the oppressor (Japan) in terms of how he read the Gospel of Luke. In “New China,” however, he shifted his attention more to the appropriation of another element of Luke, that is, the relation between the oppressed (Chinese people living before the “Liberation” of 1949) and the liberator (Christ/the Chinese Communist Party  [CCP]). An article originally written in the 1950s, “How Should Theological Students Study the Bible,” was revised and republished in the first resumed issue of the TSPM organ Tianfeng (Heavenly Wind) after the Cultural Revolution in 1980, and was renamed “How to Study the Bible.” Ting added one paragraph in a part of this article, quoting again Luke 1:51–52 and 4:18–19. According to Ting, these texts demonstrated that “our Lord Jesus has genuine compassion on the oppressed people,” and “the Lord Jesus cares very much for the misfortune and destiny of the masses, the liberation of whom ought to be achieved.”28 This “liberation” had been achieved, in Ting’s view,29 though expressed in an implicit way: “After the Liberation of China [in 1949],

26  Jia Ma, Ai Shi Zhenli: Ding Guangxun Zhuan [Discerning Truth through Love: Biography of K. H. Ting] (Hong Kong: Chinese Christians Literature Council Ltd., 2006), 14. 27  Gardner and Ting, “An Interview with Bishop K. H. Ting,” 4. 28  K. H. Ting, “Zenyang Du Shengjing [How to Study the Bible],” 54. 29  In China, the word “liberation” (jiefang) after 1949 is often used in reference to the success of the CCP in establishing “New China.”

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

131

many Christians felt the particularly intimate relationship with these texts [Luke 1:51–52 and 4:18–19].”30 In a sermon which was delivered in the Riverside Church (New York) in 1979, Ting contended that one of the new insights gained by Chinese Christians living in “New China” for thirty years since 1949 was that “man is not only sinner but also the sinned against.”31 Broadly speaking, by the terminology of “the sinned against,” Ting referred firstly to those on whom Jesus in the Gospels has compassion: that is, “the weak and poor and hungry,” “those deeply hurt by an unjust system,” and “those non-­ persons who for generations have been alienated, dehumanized, and marginalized.”32 Contextually speaking, Ting likened to “the sinned against” the Chinese people living under the oppression of “three mountains” (imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and feudalism) in “Old China,” and to “the liberator” (which used to describe Jesus in the Gospel of Luke) the role played by the CCP, who was said to have overthrown those “mountains” for the Chinese people. The image of “Christ’s sympathy with the sinned against” was again applied to the political situation of Communist-led China: It is only after Chinese Christians shed off our aloofness and get close to our own people that we come to know how much they have been sinned against, and that a Christian compassion grows in us. This compassion becomes our common language with them [Chinese people]. Then when returning to the New Testament, bringing with us this understanding of the age-long plight of our people, we seem to understand better Christ’s sympathy with the sinned against, and are moved by his love more deeply. Bearing in mind what have been obtained from the New Testament, we listen to the Chinese revolutionaries who point out how our people have suffered under, and are still bearing, the consequences of the oppression of imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and feudalism (commonly called the three mountains).33

Overall, Ting in wartime China found in the Gospel of Luke a Jesus opposing absolute pacifism and supporting Chinese people (the oppressed) to stand against Japan (the oppressor). After 1949, Ting believed that the  K. H. Ting, “Zenyang Du Shengjing [How to Study the Bible],” 54.  K.  H. Ting, “Human Collectives as Vehicles of God’s Grace,” Typescript (September 1979): 2. 32  K. H. Ting, “Human Collectives as Vehicles of God’s Grace,” 2. 33  K. H. Ting, “Human Collectives as Vehicles of God’s Grace,” 2. 30 31

132 

Z. WANG

ideal of Jesus (the liberator) had come true. For Ting, the CCP to some extent took the role of Jesus. The Chinese people again as the oppressed and “the sinned against” were said to be liberated, and Ting believed that only then could Chinese Christians come to understand truly Jesus’ compassion and love for his compatriots recounted in the Gospel narratives.

“Would He Love or Hate Today’s New China?” In his post-1949 writings, Ting frequently mentioned Jesus’ love for humanity, which I have touched upon throughout this chapter. This love is referred to either as “two principles of incarnation” or “Christ’s sympathy with the sinned against,” both of which are epitomized by the political requirement of patriotism. In his writings in the 1950s and 1980s, there were other examples in which Ting offered images of Jesus which more closely identified with patriotism in “New China.” In the booklet Behold the Lamb of God, Ting raised the question of the relevance of Jesus to “New China”: “How does Jesus feel about our new country? Would he love or hate today’s New China?”34 There was no doubt that Jesus would love the new country, Ting replied, just as Ting himself loved it. In 1950, Ting chose to ignore his many foreign friends’ advice and returned to his motherland from Geneva. The textual evidence of Jesus’ patriotism, to which Ting pointed to in this booklet, included Luke 19:41 and 10:18 as well as Matthew 11:16–17. Luke 19:41 recounts Jesus’ weeping over the city of Jerusalem, which in Ting’s understanding indicated “how Jesus wept for his people who were plunged into misery and suffering when he saw that Jerusalem fell into the enemy’s hands.” Ting also took Jesus’ victory over Satan in Luke 10:18 as an analogy to China’s independence from imperialist enemies. “Jesus must have rejoiced over the fact that the enemies’ iron heels would never again trample on us [Chinese people],” Ting imagined.35 In Matthew 11:16–17, Jesus once said: “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” Ting quoted this verse to criticize Chinese Christians for their “indifference towards the Chinese people, justice, and progress in ‘New China’,” probably because, he believed, they  K. H. Ting, Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God], 40.  K. H. Ting, Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God], 40–41.

34 35

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

133

had lived in the ugly old society for too long. Ting urged, thereby, “we [Christians] are not supposed to be sleepy and to show no interest, as our country calls upon Christians to construct a new life together.”36 Two years later, Ting again railed against one prevalent fundamentalistic view of his day that “spiritual” Christians must not be concerned about their country’s fate. Ting reasoned that although “the phrase of ‘patriotism’ could not be found directly in the Bible,” “the true feeling of loving one’s motherland was expressed in the Bible too explicitly.”37 In addition to Luke 19:41, John 1:47 was also used by Ting to justify his claim about biblical patriotism. Jesus’ lauding of Nathanael, Ting asserted, “revealed Jesus’ feeling for the Israelite people, just as we today say that laboring people in China are the most honest, diligent, and sincere.”38 This kind of rediscovering Jesus in the Gospels as a patriot was thought of as Chinese Christians’ “new light” inspired by “New China.”39 This type of argument was prevalent among a number of individuals within the Three-Self churches, extending into the post-Mao era. Whether in the third Chinese National Christian Conference of 1980, or in the (Enlarged) Committee Meeting of the TSPM and the China Christian Council of 1982, among other occasions, Ting integrated the idea of patriotism with the image of Jesus in order to defend the legitimacy of the TSPM. The doctrine of the incarnation has identified Jesus as an Israelite “with a specific nationality,” Ting argued, rather than as “a national nihilist without any nationality.” In another example, Ting used Matthew 5:17 to testify that Chinese Christians need to learn from Jesus, who “studied the culture and religious tradition of his own nation, saying he has not come to destroy but to fulfil.”40 Overall, Ting reinterpreted different Gospel texts and remade the politics of Jesus’ love, this time a love for his country, so as to endorse the claim that Christians should love their socialist country led by the CCP.  Philip Wickeri comments that “Sometimes Ting’s biblical  K. H. Ting, Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God], 41–42.  K. H. Ting, “Weishenme Jintian Haiyao Zuo Chuandao Ren? [Why Must We Still Be Preachers?],” Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 2 (April 1954): 6. 38  K. H. Ting, “Weishenme Jintian Haiyao Zuo Chuandao Ren? [Why Must We Still Be Preachers?],” 7. 39  K. H. Ting, “Weishenme Jintian Haiyao Zuo Chuandao Ren? [Why Must We Still Be Preachers?],” 6. 40  K.  H. Ting, “Sanzi Zai Renshi [Another Look at Three-Self],” Tianfeng [Heavenly Wind] 2 (February 1983): 4. 36 37

134 

Z. WANG

interpretation seemed forced, as… when he searched for proof texts to support his position on patriotism.”41 With regard to the fact that he began to examine urgently the relevance of Jesus to every new era as early as the 1940s, however, Ting’s advocacy of Jesus the patriot since the 1950s was understandable, though not necessarily acceptable.

Conclusion How should the politics of Jesus’ love, advocated by Ting, be evaluated? First of all, it shows Ting’s eagerness to demonstrate the relevance of Christianity to his time. Facing up to the challenges of the Sino-Japanese War and of “New China,” Ting endeavored to relate the ancient Christian scriptures to the contemporary political contexts, so as to respond to the “trials” for Christians. Instead of leaving those texts in the “museum” of history, Ting strived to let the Gospel texts speak contextually to Chinese Christians. Philip Wickeri puts it concisely: “Ting never claimed to be a biblical scholar, but he was willing to wrestle with the biblical text, personally as well as theologically.”42 In this way, the incarnational Jesus illustrated by Ting loves not only Christians but also non-Christians, he not only identifies with the people but separates from sins, he loves not only sinners but the sinned against, and he loves not only individuals but also his own motherland. However, although it is important to consider the contexts for biblical interpretation, this does not mean that all contexts are indiscriminately positive or good. Relating the context unconditionally to the biblical text may result in the lack of indispensably critical reflection on the context itself. This problem, unfortunately, was embodied in Ting’s interpretation of the Gospels, especially in his writings after 1949. Before 1949, Ting still stressed that Christians, like Jesus, should try to separate from people in their sins when identifying with them. Identifying and separating constitute “two principles of incarnation” in which Jesus plays the role of a “double-edged sword.” But after the 1950s, the image of Jesus was used in a political way mainly for the purpose of differentiating “New China” from the “Old World.” “New China” was represented as a utopia free of sins and Ting urged Christians to completely identify with “New China” and to totally separate from the “Old World.” It is not surprising that, in  Philip L. Wickeri, Reconstructing Christianity in China, 113–114.  Philip L. Wickeri, Reconstructing Christianity in China, 114.

41 42

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

135

his study on Ting’s contextual theology, Jieren Li concludes: “[Ting’s] early theology was close to classical liberation theology. He emphasized option for the poor, the oppressed, and the masses… [After 1949] it seems that [Ting]’s theology changed accordingly from a theology supporting the oppressed to a theology of supporting the powerful.”43 While adapting to the changing contexts is necessary to approach the interpretation of the Bible, let us not forget that it does not mean an unconditional identification of each and every new context. Instead, a prudent attitude should be taken in adapting to any new context. Just as Y. T. Wu pointed out before 1949, “the primary allegiance of a Christian community should not be any political party, any school of thought, or any ‘-ism’; instead, it must be the Word of God, the truth revealed by Jesus, and the human value and dignity that is acknowledged by God’s family where God is the Father of all human beings.”44 However, at the time when he wrote these words, Wu believed that “the greatest weakness of Christianity lies in its excessive identification with the current society, resulting in its inability to take responsibility by critically examining the society and by offering proper guidance for public opinion.”45 Wu’s statement here could be rephrased as below by adopting Ting’s terminology of “two principles of incarnation” proposed in the late 1940s: If excessively identifying with the current society, on the one hand, then Christians only take Jesus’ example of identification and totally lose his spirit of separation. If Christianity, on the other hand, still resolves to take responsibility by critically examining the society and by offering proper guidance for public opinion, it has to abandon its excessive identification with the current society, no matter what the so-called current society is— whether the “Old World” or “New China.” In this regard, a story about a brave Chinese pastor in Japanese-­ occupied Shanghai, which was recounted by Ting himself in 1948 as he was illustrating Jesus’ principle of separation and its ramifications, has even until now left us so much to ponder over: At a meeting of Christian representatives called by the military authorities in Shanghai early in 1942, a Chinese pastor was called upon to open the  Jieren Li, In Search of the Via Media between Christ and Marx, 408.  Yaozong Wu [Y. T. Wu], “Jidujiao Yu Zhengzhi [Christianity and Politics],” in Jidujiao Jianghua [Address on Christianity] (Shanghai: Association Press of China, 1950), 101. 45  Yaozong Wu [Y. T. Wu], “Jidujiao Yu Zhengzhi [Christianity and Politics],” 108–109. 43 44

136 

Z. WANG

­ eeting with a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the victory of the Japanese m Imperial Army. This was not just a test of the Chinese Church’s patriotism, but more fundamentally one of its character as Church, of its real identification and separation. The pastor stood up and offered a prayer for peace instead. And let us remember that in those days to advocate for peace was treason itself. That prayer told us that the Church has a resource of power of its own which the world did not understand.46

Bibliography Primary Sources Gardner, John, and K.  H. Ting. 1980. An Interview with Bishop K.  H. Ting. China and Ourselves, May: 168–171. Si Bei (K. H. Ting). 1940. Chedi De Ai Shi Shenme? [What Is the Deepest Love?]. Xiaoxi [Information] 1: 17–20. Ting, K. H. 1948a. A Chinese Answers the Question. Student World 41: 318–325. ———. 1948b. Power and Its Denial on the Cross. Student World 41: 210–215. ———. 1949. The Task of the Church in Asia. Student World 42: 235–248. ———. 1952. Kanna Shangdi De Gaoyang [Behold the Lamb of God]. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society. ———. 1954. Weishenme Jintian Haiyao Zuo Chuandao Ren? [Why Must We Still Be Preachers?]. Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 2 (April): 4–9. ———. 1955. Shen Yu Ren Zhijian [Between God and Man]. Shenggong [Holy Vocation], February: 6–8. ———. 1957. Tan Jidujiao Youshen Lun [On Christian Theism]. Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 7 (August): 13–21. ———. 1979. Human Collectives as Vehicles of God’s Grace. Typescript, September: 1–4. ———. 1980. Zenyang Du Shengjing [How to Study the Bible]. Tianfeng [Heavenly Wind] 1 (October): 45–63. ———. 1982. Forerunner Y. T. Wu. Typescript: 1–16. ———. 1983. Sanzi Zai Renshi [Another Look at Three-Self]. Tianfeng [Heavenly Wind] 2 (February): 2–9. ———. 1988. Ai Daodi De Ai [The Love That Loves to the End]. Jinling Shenxue Zhi [Nanjing Theological Review] 9 (November): 60–62.

 K. H. Ting, “Power and Its Denial on the Cross,” 214.

46

6  THE POLITICS OF JESUS’ LOVE: K. H. TING, CONTEXTUAL… 

137

———. 1993. Yige Zhongguo Jidutu De Shangdi Guan [One Chinese Christian’s View of God]. Typescript, October: 1–9. ———. 1994. Xiang Muxiao Huibao (1994 Nian 10 Yue Yu Niuyue Xiehe Shenxueyuan) [Speech on Receiving Union Theological Seminary Medal]. Typescript, October: 1–7. ———. 1999. Renlei De Ji’e He Pinkun [Human Hunger and Poverty]. In Ding Guangxun Wenji [Collection of Bishop K. H. Ting’s Essays], 1–7. Hong Kong: Chinese Christians Literature Council Ltd.

Secondary Sources Li, Jieren. 2008. In Search of the Via Media between Christ and Marx: A Study of Bishop Ding Guangxun’s Contextual Theology. Lund, Sweden: Center for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University. Ma, Jia. 2006. Ai Shi Zhenli: Ding Guangxun Zhuan [Discerning Truth through Love: Biography of K.  H. Ting]. Hong Kong: Chinese Christians Literature Council Ltd. Messer, Donald E.. 2006 The Chinese Banyan Tree Theology of Bishop K. H. Ting. Translated by Jing Zhang. In Zai Ai Zhong Xunqiu Zhenli [Seeking Truth in Love], ed. Peng Wang, 11–33. Beijing: Religious Cultural Press. Wang, Zhixi. 2015a. ‘Aihen Jiaozhi’: Wu Yaozong De ‘Wei’ai Zhuyi,’ ‘Fuyin Shu Wenben’ Yu ‘Yesu Xingxiang’ (1918–1948 Nian) [Between Love and Hatred: Pacifism, Gospel Texts and Images of Jesus in the Writings of Y.  T. Wu, 1918–1948]. Logos & Pneuma: Chinese Journal of Theology 43 (Autumn): 235–266. ———. 2015b. Quanqiu Shi Shijiao Xia De ‘Shengjing Jieshou Shi’: Zouxiang ‘Quanqiu Jidujiao Shi’ Yu ‘Jieshou Shi’ De Zhenghe [‘Reception History of the Bible’ from the Perspective of Global History: Toward the Integration of ‘Global History of Christianity’ and ‘Reception History’]. Fu Jen Religious Studies 31 (Autumn): 143–170. Wickeri, Philip L. 2007. Reconstructing Christianity in China: K. H. Ting and the Chinese Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Ying, Fuk-tsang. 1999. Dangdai Zhongguo Zhengjiao Guanxi [Church-State Relations in Contemporary China]. Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary.

PART III

Chinese Churches and Urban Identity

CHAPTER 7

The Politics of Space: Affect, Church Membership, and Ecclesial Identity in Contemporary Chinese Reformed Churches Steven Hu

Introduction In the past decade, the growth of Reformed Christianity in China has attracted increasing attention both outside and within the country. North American observers have been especially quick to pronounce the rapid development of Reformed Christianity in China as evidence of widespread acceptance of Christianity in a secular socio-political context. These pronouncements typically originate from North American New Calvinists (Hansen 2008) who see China as a burgeoning spiritual market ripe for acceptance of Reformed theology. However, the exact number of Reformed Chinese Christians is hard to come by, and conservative

S. Hu (*) Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_7

141

142 

S. HU

estimates place the count of Chinese Christians who adhere to this theological tradition around 100,000 while others suggest there could be as many as 3 million (see Zylstra 2017). This development is most evident in China’s urban centers where Reformed Christianity has carved out a space for itself. Reformed Christianity is especially prevalent in urban churches (chengshi jiaohui 城市教會) whose membership primarily consists of college students, white-­ collar professionals, intellectuals, and the burgeoning middle class. In cities like Shanghai, Reformed churches differentiate themselves from traditional house churches by engaging the public in order to win converts and assert a public presence. Reformed Chinese Christians are ordaining pastors and elders, composing church by-laws, and enacting church discipline with hopes of constructing viable ecclesial and denominational structures in the greater Shanghai metropolitan area. Reformed Christianity has had a long history in China. First introduced by Scottish Presbyterian missionary Robert Morrison in 1807 (Baugus 2014), Reformed Christianity remained a western import for most of the next century until the Chinese government closed the country from foreign influence in 1952. The opening of China and socioeconomic reforms immediately after the Maoist period saw the revival of religious association and practice in contemporary China. Scholars typically have offered two explanations of why Reformed Christianity has garnered wide appeal in contemporary China. First, Fredrik Fällman (2013, 2016) points out that Chinese intellectuals were first drawn to Max Weber’s analysis of Calvinistic doctrines and Puritan practices as the primary foundation of modern capitalism and democracy. For these intellectuals, Calvinistic thought offers a potential pathway to modernization and democratization for China. While the widespread acceptance of Calvinistic thought among Chinese intellectuals does not necessarily mean they are converting to Christianity, it does signal a “conversion to modernity” (van der Veer 1996). Second, the appeal of Reformed Christianity in China can also be attributed to the robust political theology this system of thought provides for Chinese Christians. Alexander Chow (2016, 2018a), Chloë Starr (2016), and Gerda Wielander (2013) demonstrate that Calvinistic concepts regarding human rights, statechurch relations, and constitutionalism are being deployed by Chinese

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

143

Christians both online (Vala and Huang 2017) and offline to challenge the state. For example, Alexander Chow (2016, 2018a) shows that the neo-Calvinist concept of sphere sovereignty, first articulated by Dutch Prime minister Abraham Kuyper, has been appropriated by Reformed Chinese intellectuals and church leaders in their engagements with the Chinese state. While these approaches illuminate how Reformed thought supplies Chinese Christians with discursive resources for engagement with the wider Chinese public, what is missing in this analysis is the manner in which Reformed denominational identity is deployed as a marker to distinguish differences between Christians, churches, and the wider Chinese public. By taking ecclesial identity as a “living reality” (C. Chow 2017), this article investigates the production of Reformed social spaces (Lefebvre 1992) in contemporary China. Specifically, I examine how Chinese Christians in Shanghai appropriate Reformed theology to affectively delineate between insider and outsider through the practice of church membership. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Shanghai, this case study demonstrates that Protestant churches in contemporary China are reconstituting denominational structures after a period of post-­ denominationalism (Bays 2012; Starr 2015). Furthermore, the development of Reformed Christianity in contemporary China must be understood as a spatial phenomenon since religious belief and practice have become more sectarian in the post-reform era. In analyzing the unique social spaces produced by Reformed churches in Shanghai, I take up Kevin O’Neill’s suggestion to examine religious communities as “affective spaces” since these churches are sites where affect is a “religiously managed and politically manipulated sensation that makes legible a series of spaces that are not necessarily territorial but that are nonetheless deeply political” (O’Neill 2013: 1095). During my fieldwork in Shanghai, I was constantly made aware of the differences between “Reformed” (gaigezong 改革宗) and what is perceived as non-Reformed churches. What was striking was the ease in which Reformed Christians— both clergy and laity—affectively mapped these differences onto categories of orthodoxy versus heterodoxy that in turn created a “felt difference between us and them” (Ibid.: 1105). This article draws on the “affective turn” in critical theory and social sciences to analyze Reformed churches in Shanghai as “zone(s) where emotion intersects with processes taking place at a more corporeal level” (Mazzarella 2009: 291). While Pentecostal communities are typically

144 

S. HU

associated with effervescent displays of emotion (cf. Corten 1999; Mossière 2007; Alexander 2009; Althouse 2017), Reformed churches in Shanghai are also spaces where emotion and feeling flow. I examine how pride, joy, and conviction circulate to produce what Sara Ahmed calls an “affective economy” where emotions “create the very effect of the surfaces or boundaries of bodies and worlds” (Ahmed 2004: 117). In these churches, emotions are deployed to encourage bodies to act and generate affinity for Reformed identity because “emotions do things, and they align individuals with communities—or bodily space with social space, through the very intensity of their attachments” (Ibid.: 119; emphasis in original). Therefore, to approach Reformed congregations as affective spaces is to understand “it is affect that ultimately binds bodies, creating a range of spaces” that are marked by particular boundaries (O’Neill 2013). I begin with a brief examination of Reformed Christianity’s recent growth in China and a look at affect theory. I then offer a brief case study of how affect—feelings, emotions, and attachment—is deployed in a Reformed congregation’s membership system. I suggest that church membership incorporates affect to mark the church as a Reformed entity.

The Resurgence of Reformed Christianity in Contemporary China This article understands Reformed Christianity as an expression of the broader movement of evangelicalism (Lewis and Pierard 2014). Reformed Christianity’s theological lineage is linked to the key figure of John Calvin. The Reformed tradition is derived from a commonality of theological positions developed in continental Europe which includes the Scots Confession (1560), Belgic Confession (1561), Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Synod of Dort (1618), Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) for Presbyterians, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith for reformed Baptists (Conklin 1995; see Foord 2017). More importantly, Reformed Christianity encompasses a specific “set of theological instincts” and “a certain Christian sensibility” toward doctrinal belief and institutional practices as basis of denominational identity (Nimmo and Fergusson 2016: 4–5). Lastly, the neo-Calvinist strand of the Reformed tradition emphasizes the concept of “cultural mandate” articulated by Abraham Kuyper in his 1898 lectures at Princeton University (Kuyper 2008). The concept has meant that churches prioritize public engagement

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

145

in issues of ethics and politics (Heslam 1998; Shadd 2017). This is particularly true for Reformed Christians in contemporary China. A number of factors, both external and internal, have contributed to the growth of this tradition in contemporary China. Western observers were first made aware of this growing segment of Christianity by a report in 2009, coincidentally the same year as the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, when the British newspaper The Guardian examined the increasing interest in Calvinistic writings among intellectuals and elites in contemporary China (see Brown 2009). In commemorating the “Calvin Jubilee,” a new translation of the Institutes of the Christian Religion was released in 2010 by Shanghai Sanlian Publishing House (Gordon 2016). The new translation not only made Calvin’s text more accessible, it also generated a re-examination of Calvin’s relevance for contemporary Chinese society. While a number of Reformed titles have already been translated into Chinese by Jonathan Chao’s Reformed Translation Fellowship prior to 2000 (A.  Chow 2019), North American publishers seized upon the interest generated by the Calvin Jubilee to translate contemporary classics to meet the growing demand for Reformed literature in China. Books such as John Piper’s The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, D.A. Carson’s The Intolerance of Tolerance, and James K.A.  Smith’s Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition have made their way into Chinese bookstores (both physical and online) and are now widely available to the general reading public. In addition, books on work, marriage, and family life written by Reformed authors like Timothy Keller and Tedd Tripp have become especially popular among Chinese readers. Academic publications such as the abridged one-volume Chinese edition of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics in 2017 further demonstrate the desire among Chinese Christians for Reformed literature, especially Reformed theological treatises. The growth of Reformed Christianity in China can also be attributed to a number of Chinese intellectuals whose writings have helped spread the tradition for popular consumption (A. Chow 2014, 2018a). Among them are Sun Yi (孙毅), Wang Zhiyong (王志勇), and Yu Jie (余杰). Also notable is constitutional law scholar and pastor Wang Yi (王怡) of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan province. A prolific writer, Wang Yi is most known for his 2006 book On Constitutionalism: Turning Points in Views and Systems (Xianzheng zhuyi: Guannian yu zhidu de zhuan lie 憲 政主義: 觀念與製度的轉捩) which examines the religious foundation of modern constitutionalism and separation of church and state which he

146 

S. HU

sees stemming from the concept of covenantal community in Calvinistic theology (A. Chow 2014). Aside from Wang Yi’s writings on legal matters, his reviews of American films have also been published in several volumes. In reviews of films such as The Dark Knight, The Kite Runner, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Wang Yi introduces his readers to Reformed thought by skillfully synthesizing popular culture, philosophy, and theology. In addition, Wang Yi’s writings are widely shared and read online. A lecture he gave at the Shanghai Lawyer’s Salon in early 2007 entitled “Constitutionalism and Worldview” (Xianzheng zhuyi yu shijieguan  憲政主義與世界觀)1 examined  the relationship between jurisprudence, state power, and a biblical worldview based on Reformed theology. This lecture has been transcribed and posted on various Chinese blogs and websites. Wang Yi had also maintained an active online presence on Weibo2 where he engaged the public on issues such as civility, ethics, and citizenship “as a way to openly communicate Christian concerns that previously had been shared secretly between congregants” (Vala and Huang 2017: 172). For all Wang Yi’s engagement in the public sphere, he has indeed done much to lay bare his Reformed sensibilities and generate interest among his audience in Reformed theological thought. As an intellectual, Wang Yi exemplifies the public theologian who through a Reformed framework “engage(s) issues of common interest in the public sphere with individuals inside and outside of the church” (A. Chow 2014). Indeed, Reformed Christianity has had a long presence in the region since the 1600s when Dutch Reformed missionaries first set foot on Formosa (present day Taiwan) via the Dutch East India Company (A. Chow 2016; Heylen 2017). Reformed Christianity reached mainland China in the form of Scottish Presbyterianism through the missionary endeavors of Robert Morrison who later produced a catechism based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism in 1811 (A. Chow 2016). By 1905, the number of North American Presbyterian missionaries in China rose to approximately 350 and fell to 126 in 1950 before all foreign missionaries 1  The lecture was sponsored by the Shanghai Lawyer’s Salon under the auspice of Shanghai Bar Association. Wang’s lecture is shared on Baidu’s Wenku and on various Chinese blogs. The most accessible copy of Wang’s lecture can be found at https://groups.google.com/ forum/#!topic/lihlii/dLduIQEQPUI. 2  At the time of this writing, Early Rain Covenant Church has been disbanded by Chinese authorities and Wang Yi and his wife, Zhao Ang, have been placed in secret detention. Wang Yi’s Weibo account has also been shut down.

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

147

were expelled (Tiedemann 2010). With the consolidation of all Protestant churches after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, theological development under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) shifted toward a “sino-centric focus” (Starr 2016). As this shift was engendered by the wholesale centralization and militarization of society which the Chinese Communist Party brought upon the entire nation, the Protestant Church was also caught up in this process. Furthermore, theological development all but ceased during the Cultural Revolution when all religious activities were banned. Another reason that Reformed theology was put to the wayside was TSPM’s ambivalence toward Calvinism. As the preeminent leader of the TSPM, K.  H. Ting (Ding Guangxun丁光訓) sought to minimize Calvinistic soteriology in order to prioritize a “cosmic Christology” that envisions Christ’s domain and love as universal thereby enabling Christians to work with all peoples for the betterment of society (A. Chow 2018a). As China entered the reform and opening up period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Reformed Christianity began its slow reintroduction to Chinese churches aided by foreign and Chinese American missionaries. Diasporic Chinese Reformed Christians such as Jonathan Chao and Samuel Ling were among the first to return to China bringing with them Reformed thought (A. Chow 2014, 2019). Media played a major role in the spread of Reformed tradition during this period. By the 1990s, sermon tapes of Indonesian Chinese and Reformed evangelist Stephen Tong became widely available in China, mostly among urban Christians (Ma and Li 2018). Reformed literature translated into Chinese by Charles Chao since the 1940s also began to circulate in China.3 Events after the 1989 Tiananmen incident also proved vital in the rise of Reformed thought in China. The collapse of the student pro-­democracy movement in 1989 precipitated much soul searching among Chinese intellectuals, especially among college students. At the same time foreign missionary activity in China increased due to the perceived need to “reach” college students as future leaders of Chinese society which resulted in a 3   Charles Chao, who is Jonathan Chao’s father, founded Reformation Translation Fellowship in 1949 to translate Reformed literature into Chinese. Charles Chao studied under Johannes Geerhardus Vos, son of Reformed theologian Geerhardus Vos, at Yingkuo Bible Seminary in Manchuria (present day Yingkuo, China near Dalian). Vos served as a missionary in China from 1931 until 1941 under the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America’s Foreign Mission Board and taught at Yingkuo Seminary from 1938 until 1941 when he was forced to leave due to the Japanese occupation.

148 

S. HU

number of North American mission organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ, InterVarsity, and English Language Institute/China to proselytize on Chinese college campuses. Chinese college students were eager to learn all things American including Christianity and many converts to Christianity maintained contact with their missionary counterparts well after graduation. Campus proselytization in the 1990s and early 2000s laid the groundwork for denominational bodies such as Mission to the World (Presbyterian Church in America) and the International Mission Board (Southern Baptist Convention) to engage in church planting in China. Such missionary activities in the 1990s and 2000s help forged transnational networks between China and North America. Today, these transnational networks are vital in promoting the circulation of people, books, media, and Reformed ideas across the Pacific. As of this writing, there are approximately 75 Chinese Christians pursuing theological studies at Westminster Theological Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, two leading North American educational institutions teaching Reformed theology.

Theorizing Affect Since the 1990s, critical theorists and social scientists have sought to develop a critical concept of affect. While the “affective turn” has generated fruitful examinations of the concept across disciplines, affect remains a much-debated analytical category since its sense is difficult to pin down. One major contention in this debate is the distinction between affect and emotion. In Parables for the Virtual, Brian Massumi describes affect as autonomous to the degree to which it escapes confinement in the particular body whose vitality, or potential for interaction, it is. Formed, qualified, situated perceptions and cognitions fulfilling functions of actual connection or blockage are the capture and closure of affect. (Massumi 2002: 35)

Affect is indeterminate and unbounded. It is also simply the “power to affect and be affected” (Massumi 2015: 48). Similarly, Kathleen Stewart argues affects eschew representation since they operate in “not what they might mean in an order of representations, or whether they are good or bad in an overarching scheme of things, but where they might go and what potential modes of knowing, relating and attending to things” (Stewart 2007: 3). William Mazzarella notes the indeterminacy of affect is

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

149

“unlike emotion [and] it is not always already semiotically mediated” (Mazzarella 2009: 292). Affect is not only experiential and sensual, dynamic, and pre-personal; it is also pre-discursive. On the contrary, some describe emotion as the socio-linguistic capture of affect. Mediated and qualified semiotically, emotion is the “cultural mediation” of affect (Mazzarella 2009: 292). Emotion is a subjective content, the sociolinguistic fixing of the quality of an experience which is from that point onward defined as personal. Emotion is qualified intensity, the conventional, consensual point of insertion of intensity into semantically and semiotically formed progressions, into narrativizable action-reaction circuits, into function and meaning. It is intensity owned and recognized. It is crucial to theorize the difference between affect and emotion. (Massumi 2002: 28)

However, for others, affect is equated to emotion or feelings. Lawrence Grossberg suggests that while affect is “the energy invested in particular sites,” it is “often described as will, mood, passion, attention, etc.” (Grossberg 1992: 327). Similarly, in her study of an evangelical megachurch network in Seattle, Jessica Johnson found herself, like her informants, emotionally “moved” by affective assemblages that circulated within a megachurch network in Seattle where she became entangled emotionally “in unexpected ways” (Johnson 2018: 13). Johnson understands affect as a mood, a sensation, a gut feeling, an intensification felt in bodies. Following Christian von Scheve and Jan Slaby’s (2019a) approach, this article understands the relationship between affect, emotion, and feeling as a constructive interplay. I do not hold to the rigid distinction between affect and emotion as some theorists suggest. Taking affect as a “dynamic building block” therefore allows for a more productive analysis of emotion, feeling, and attachment—three concepts closely related to affect (von Scheve and Slaby 2019b: 44). Here, I take emotion as the situated object-oriented affective comportments mediated through language (ibid: 43). Put simply, emotions are “bodily feelings” directed toward objects and events in the world which are then linguistically categorized and labeled as “emotions” (Ibid.: 44). Feeling is tightly linked to emotion, and feelings “are intentional experiences that pertain to an essentially shareable, culturally modulated, concern-driven engagement with the world” (Thonhauser 2019: 53). Feeling is both self-awareness and an evaluative

150 

S. HU

world-orientation. Attachment is the “enduring affectional bond” to other human and non-human actors—objects, places, spiritual beings—in either individual or collective situations that persist over a period of time (Scheidecker 2019: 73). While it may appear to bind and stabilize the fluidity and circulation associated with affect, attachment “integrates stability and transformation, social relationalities and individual dispositions” (Ibid.: 74). What is common for these concepts of emotion, feeling, attachment, and sentiment is the substratum of affect that undergirds their operation. This will become clearer in the context of Reformed congregations which I discuss in the next section. I demonstrate that in enforcing ecclesial and theological boundaries through the process of church membership, Reformed churches are indeed employing emotion, attachment, sentiment in order to construct distinct Reformed spaces in Shanghai.

Affect Through Church Membership Since 2014, Reformed congregations in Shanghai have been instituting church membership requirements as a way to delineate ecclesial boundaries. The increasing adoption of church membership in urban churches indicates dissatisfaction with house church ecclesiology which is perceived as unsystematic and unstructured. Hence, church membership is an explicit sign that incorporates affect and marks these congregations as Reformed bodies, that is, churches which systematize structure and theology. This section examines how a self-described Reformed and Baptist church, Light of the World Baptist Church (LWBC), conceives and practices church membership. I draw on the six-article membership coursebook, interviews, and fieldwork conducted in LWBC.4 Located near Guilin Road metro station in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, LWBC began as a small bible study group in 2001. The group consisted of young professionals and was organized by Caleb Xue who worked as a mid-level manager at an international technology firm in Shanghai. By 2004, the bible study had grown to a small network of groups scattered throughout the city. In 2011, Xue began studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) located north of Chicago. Prior to completing his Master of Divinity degree at TEDS, Xue interned as a church planter at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Southern Baptist Convention) in Washington, D.C. under the mentorship of Mark Dever, a well-known Reformed 4

 The names of the church and the informants are all pseudonymized.

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

151

theologian in the North American New Calvinist movement. Xue returned to Shanghai in 2015 to take over the merger of the Bible study network and the founding of LWBC. Because of Xue’s relationship with Capitol Hill Baptist Church, LWBC’s ecclesiology and membership system is heavily influenced by Dever’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (2000). LWBC describes itself as a “Christian, Reformed, congregational, and Baptist church” whose statement of faith, consisting of 18 articles, is based on the New Hampshire Confession of Faith adopted by the first American national Baptist denomination in 1833 (see Leonard 1979 and Estep 1987). The entire Confession of 1833 is provided in the Light of the World membership coursebook. Specifically, Article 13 of the Confession spells out the makeup of the church: We believe that a visible church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant (yue 約) in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by his laws; and exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by his word; that its only scriptural officers are bishops or pastors and deacons whose qualifications, claims and duties are defined in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.

The language of Article 13 conceives the church as a collective of Christians who establish themselves and understand their identity within this group primarily through the sacrament of baptism. Hence, baptism is the main requirement for membership (chengyuan 成員). Article 13 also envisions church members relating to each other on the basis of a public agreement, or covenant, that binds all members to the teachings, by-laws, structure, and leadership of the church. Lastly, the church is understood not only as a community where people equally belong, it is also a community in which members relate to each other through a hierarchal social structure. Members are required and regularly reminded to adhere to the covenant established by church leadership, to “obey” (xunfu 馴服) the teaching of the pastor and church elders. The symbols of Article 13—baptized believers, covenant, fellowship, gospel, and so on—delineate the church as a specific kind of community that is a voluntary association of Christians who differentiate themselves from others by belief and practices through a public agreement. This concept of community demarcates the church as a bounded entity and distinguishes between qualified members and non-members. While Article 13 of the LWBC’s statement of faith describes a specific type of sociality

152 

S. HU

among church members and non-members, what is also implied is how the church community relates to those outside of it. Therefore, Article 13 delineates the church community in terms of “symbolic boundaries” or “conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space. … [that] also separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership” (Lamont and Molnár 2002: 168). When symbolic boundaries such as Article 13 are widely agreed upon by a group, they shape social interaction and patterns of social exclusion (ibid.). In other words, symbolic boundaries and the concept of community described in Article 13 and in Light of the World Baptist Church’s statement of faith function to both include and exclude by drawing together those who do belong and separating those who do not belong. Along with its statement of faith, what is consistently presented in LWBC sermons, Sunday School classes, and small group gatherings is the concept of church community as a bounded group of people. This model of sociality therefore exists at the intersubjective level (Lamont and Molnár 2002). Scholars have long observed that groups are concretized when grounded practices such as class and education are enacted to make symbolic boundaries visible (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1979; Ortner 1984). In Christie Chow’s (2018b) study of Seventh-Day Adventist ecclesial divisions in Wenzhou, China, ritual practices such as hymnal singing and guanxi are central to the formation of institutional and social relations. Huang Jianbo’s examination (2013, 2014) of a migrant worker church in Beijing demonstrates social interaction between urban Christians and newly arrived workers are structured along socio-economic factors primarily through class and education. Similarly, Nanlai Cao (2011) found social relations in Wenzhou churches are dictated along class and rural-urban divides in which migrant workers found themselves unable to assimilate in Wenzhou churches. In the case of LWBC, however, social relations within the church are delineated by the enactment and deployment of church membership. That is, grounded practices of church membership enact categories of “members” and “non-members” and structure how these categories relate with one another. In order for these categories to be deployed at LWBC, church members are produced through a membership course taught by the pastor and elders of the church. Through the process of church membership, members are produced with an affective orientation toward the church and those outside the church. Thus, the membership system

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

153

delineates what I call “affective spatial logic” in that boundaries of who is in and outside the church is clearly conceptualized and marked through emotions, feelings, and attachment. In order to produce members who actively participate and contribute to the church community, LWBC holds quarterly church membership courses throughout the year. The course—consisting of six one-hour sessions—introduces prospective members to topics such as church history, sacraments, church history, and the church’s statement of faith. Classes are led by Xue or an elder of the church. At the conclusion of the six sessions, new church members agree to and sign a covenant signifying their commitment to the church, and are introduced to the congregation via a public membership ceremony and inducted as full members of Light of the World church. In interviews with LWBC members, one of the primary reasons they expressed for becoming a member was the desire to demonstrate commitment to Christian community, especially to a local congregation. Membership equates to belonging, and as Pang Li, a law student at Shanghai Jiaotong University and a member of LWBC, expressed, there are “benefits” (haochu 好處) when a church utilizes a membership system. Because people are sinners (ren doushi you zuixing 人都是有罪性), there will always be ups and downs in their spiritual life especially when they experience hardship. Their commitment to the church will be of great help to their spiritual life … especially for those who don’t believe (buxin 不信) and those who haven’t heard the gospel, members have a responsibility to lead them to the message of the gospel.

Since Xue became pastor of the church in 2015, LWBC has emphasized the importance of church membership. The push to emphasize membership in Reformed churches in Shanghai also grows out of a perceived need among pastors and church leaders to standardize church governance. Given the manner Chinese Christianity developed under the house church model since 1949 (Chao 1997: 281–5), Chinese Christians in contemporary China are eager to systematize ecclesiology. Xue conceptualizes church as a group of people who come together and form a unique “community” (gongtongti 共同體) based on the Christian gospel. The church is not any ordinary organization (putong de tuanti 普通的團體), but it is on the basis of the Gospel message that it is formed. What is the source of this message? Scripture. We aim to show we are serious about Scripture … and

154 

S. HU

it’s on the basis of belief (xin 信) that people enter into this community. This community has a goal which is to demonstrate to the world God’s glory (rongyao 榮耀). Because of this, we need to define (jieding 界定) the borders (bianjie 邊界) of this community, which is the membership system (chengyuanzhi 成員制). Membership confirms the make-up of this community (gongtongti de bianzhi 共同體的編制), who is who in this community, and who is outside of this community. We welcome all to join, but they must enter through the gate because Jesus said “I am the gate.” Therefore, we need to verify (queren 确認) the faith (xinyang 信仰) of those who join this community. Other than the person being a Christian, we need to verify that they must, for the sake of the unity of the church, have the same belief as our church.

While such affective spatial logic is indeed used for delineating the make­up of the community church, Xue’s purpose for making clear ecclesial boundaries (bazhigebianjie jiangde hengqingchu 把這個邊界講得很清楚) is to ward off conflicts in the church, whether interpersonal or doctrinal, which will certainly exact an emotional toll. Using the term “antipathy” (fangan 反感) to describe how some people will react to Baptist ecclesiology, Xue points out that it is better for those who have strong feelings not to become members in this kind of church structure. These boundaries, when enacted and enforced, therefore allow people’s emotions and their feelings about church to be revealed as “intentional experiences that pertain to an essentially shareable, culturally modulated, concern-driven engagement with the world” (Thonhauser 2019: 53). LWBC emphasizes “explicit membership” (mingxian de huiyuanzhi 明 顯的會員制). This approach effectively delineates the symbolic boundaries of the church as a group consisting of bible-reading, repenting Christians who are committed to one another. Explicit membership therefore makes visible who is and who is not a Christian. As the membership coursebook points out one of the reasons for joining the church is to clearly present (chengxian 呈 現) the gospel. The gospel is visibly proclaimed to the world through Christians gathering together to form a church. … This is why we implemented an “explicit” membership system and abandoned “implicit” (yinhande 隱含的) membership. The purpose of explicit membership is to reveal (tixian chulai 體現出来) those who truly demonstrate repentance, submission to the gospel, and commitment to the church. If someone

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

155

responds to an altar call, kneel and pray, or even evangelize to others—these actions do not necessarily show they clearly understand the essence of the gospel and that they follow Jesus.—during moments of pray, cry, tears. (LWBC 2016: 23)

The church member is characterized as one who “truly demonstrate[s] repentance, submission to the gospel, and commitment to the church.” In other words, members are those who embody visible qualities that reveal their interior orientations—repentance and submission—that mark them as true (zhenshi 真實) Christians. While these qualities are descriptive, they are also prescriptive since they clearly define the attributes of a church member. The language stated in the membership coursebook points out that it is through the demonstration of one’s membership in the church that marks one as a true Christian. The third article of the membership coursebook makes this clear: How can true Christian faith (zhenshide jidutu xinxin 真實的基督徒信心) be expressed? In our explicit membership system, we ask those who want to be Christians to “repent and believe” (huigai xiangxin  悔改相信) as the bible teaches in the Gospel of Mark, that is, to repent from your sins, turn to Christ, and believe in what Christ himself declared. (LWBC 2016: 23)

Membership at LWBC is an embodied practice designed to reveal the subjective interior of Christians. Since membership is also understood as a commitment to the church community, becoming a member of LWBC is first and foremost a declaration of devotion to the church and the Christian faith. Furthermore, the coursebook conceives church membership not as abstract concept, but a visible and demonstrable action expressed through the concept of “mutual love.” As stated in the coursebook, “the external mark of the Christian is the mutual love between them, and their love for each other is inseparable from the fact that they love Christ” (LWBC 2016: 43). For Pang, the law student, she herself has experienced this feeling of love during her time at LWBC because “members have a mutual responsibility to each other (xianghu jinze 相互盡責) and can help each other.” Similarly, in the agreement new members sign, mutual love is other-oriented.

156 

S. HU

We will endeavor and pray for the unity given to us by the Holy Spirit, speak to each other in kindness; we will not resent or be easily angered by one another; we will make every effort to pursue reconciliation. We will, for the love of the body (the church), walking hand in hand, caring for one another, looking after one another, watching over one another, admonishing and encouraging one another when necessary. We will rejoice when the body rejoices, and we will endeavor to bear each other’s sorrows with tenderness and compassion. (LWBC 2016: 11-2)

In Article Three of the membership coursebook, Christian love is described as “for each other” and “not simply being good and friendly to others” but “visible to brothers and sisters, a love from God, which is embodied (seen) in the church and modeled on Christ” (LWBC 2016: 25). It says in the book of John, “If anyone says that I love God, but hate his brother, he is a liar. If you don’t love the brother you see, you can’t love the God you don’t see.” If you think you are a strong Christian, but can’t commit to a group of people, you can’t love someone different from you, then I think it is difficult for you to say you are a believer who is born again and saved. The more we know our sins, the more we understand how God forgives us in Christ, the more capable we are in our hearts to love others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. (LWBC 2016: 25)

Mutual love is when feelings of joy and compassion are directed toward others. Since mutual love is conceived with intentionality within a social context involving others, it is a kind of feeling since it pertains to a “shareable, cultural modulated, concern-driven engagement with the world” (Thonhauser 2019: 53). It is also important to note “mutual love” is an emotion since it is a linguistic category which labels the visible and “situated object-oriented affective comportments” (von Scheve and Slaby 2019: 45). LWBC members are encouraged to pursue and manifest these types of feelings as a way to demonstrate commitment to the church and to each other. As Robert Fang, a 33-year-old IT professional and member of LWBC, pointed out during membership class, attending church is not a matter of merely showing up on Sunday mornings. Church is a space where members and non-members interact in order to sense the needs desires of others (ganshoudao duifangde xuyao 感受到對 方的需要), to feel their hardships (ganshoudao duifangde nanchu 感受到對 方的難處) … we need to come to church in order see how others are doing

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

157

(bichi wenan 彼此問安). Scripture tells us that we ought to inspire each other to love (jifa aixin 激發愛心), to encourage one another toward good deeds (mianli xingsan 勉勵行善), and exhort one another (bichi quangao 彼此勸告).

In other words, all participants of LWBC should interact via an affective spatial logic by directing their feelings and emotions of love, fear, anger, anxiety, excitement, and disappointment toward one another. These kinds of feelings and emotions are clearly evident in small group settings outside Sunday mornings especially when both members and non-members gather for meals. Laughter and intimate personal concerns are shared in these groups, strengthening the social feelings and bonds between Christians. Feelings and emotions are also manifested within the physical space of LWBC.  This is seen in emotive displays of tears or quiet crying during Sunday service especially when worship songs and hymns are sung. One LWBC member related that during these moments, she is reflecting upon her relationship with God. Sometimes I feel I haven’t measured up to God’s standards (biao zhun 標 準). In these moments, I think about what Jesus Christ did for me, and I feel sorrowful (bei shang 悲傷). In these moments you can see my emotions on display (biaoluo zhijide gangqing 表露自己的感情).

In these visible displays of affect, LWBC participants embody an intense “self-awareness and an evaluative world-orientation” (Thonhauser 2019: 53). These affective moments occur during the musical worship segment of LWBC’s Sunday service. Emotional displays indicate one’s affect is correctly directed toward the right object as the member coursebook points out during worship We (LWBC) strive to emphasize important biblical truths with hymns in order to elicit appropriate emotional responses (qingganhuiying 情感回 應) …. It’s true that music can evoke certain emotions (qinggan 情感), and the emotions can be independent of the lyrics. We thus need to carefully select hymns, so the lyrics can reflect the message of the Bible in order to not prompt emotions beyond what the lyrics convey. Emotions in worship is a response to who God is and a response to what he has done on our behalf. (LWBC 2016: 40)

158 

S. HU

This tempering of emotions through a prescription of how one should react to singing and music during Sunday worship may explain why such displays are not common during LWBC’s worship services. Emotions nevertheless do appear on the faces of LWBC participants. This is because emotions and feelings are deeply affective, and feelings of sorrow and grief displayed reveal the “bodily experience dimension of affect” (Thonhauser 2019: 52) that individuals have about their faith and relationship with God. In these moments of intense self-awareness, these visible signs demonstrate one understands their “sinfulness” (zui 罪). In other words, these feelings authenticate one’s identity as “true Christian” (zhengshide jidutu 真是的基督徒) since they are visible signs that reveal an affective interior state. Therefore, feelings and emotions reveal the “conversion of the materiality of the body into an event” (Massumi 2002: 14). These feelings are thus “event-encounter(s) with other bodies” (Johnson 2018: 21) in that they disclose affect as intensifications of one’s body with itself and with others in an assemblage that includes scripture, hymns, and non-­ members and members of LWBC. These intensifications are also powerful demonstrations of affect that draw others into the church community. Displays of commitment and emotions attract and affix others to LWBC. Such attachment to LWBC illuminates how affect works to bind outsiders to the church. As explained in the membership coursebook, church membership is attractive to others—especially non-Christians—as it allows others to see the “Gospel clearly presented” since the church “is a place to see, experience, and present God’s love” (LWBC 2016: 23, 25). The gospel is tangibly proclaimed to the world through Christians when they gather to form a church. Therefore, non-Christians will see the church and say, “I think I am a Christian, but the way I live my everyday life does not correspond to the way these Christians live. Maybe I’m not a Christian yet.” Thus, when people see the church, they will see what true Christians are like and say, “Ah, Christians are indeed like this.” (LWBC 2016: 23)

In the membership process, participants are encouraged to commit (weishen 委身) to LWBC. For LWBC and its members, explicit commitment to church is also a productive way to resist the consumeristic behavior (xiaofeizhuyi 消費主義) perceived by Christians as pervasive in contemporary Chinese society. This behavior is manifested in how Christians “church hop” (chuanjiaohui 串教會) in search of sermons,

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

159

worship music, and the best church experience that suit their taste. As Fang, the 30-year-old IT professional and member, explains it, even when people convert to Christianity, their “old utilitarian” ways (gongli sixiang 功力思想) can’t be corrected. Although their new identity has been transformed (zhuanbian 轉變), the old self will awaken (huanxing 喚醒); they are still subject to the old way of behaving and thinking.” For him, the reason for this persistent consumerism is a “discomfort in one’s heart” (xingling bu shufu 心零不舒服), that this really has to do with the influence of popular media. What is the media advertising every day? Personal comfort (wei zijishufu, shusi 為自己舒服, 舒 適). The media has made comfort into something really worthy to be pursued. The pursuit of money, career, etc. all are concrete manifestations (juti de biaoxian 具體的表現) of comfort. Everyone talks about this because of what popular media has presented, that one ought to strive (nuli 努力) and pursue (zhuiqiu 追求) a comfortable life.

Many of the LWBC members I interacted with have expressed to me that prior to becoming LWBC members, they behaved like “consumers” (xiaofeizhe 消費者) and attended various churches in Shanghai on a rotating basis to see which had the best sermons and programs. This left them unsatisfied and unfulfilled. In turn, the self-awareness and feelings of dissatisfaction compelled them to seek attachment to LWBC. As Fang puts it, in the same way consumeristic desires are manifested in the pursuit of money and comfort, commitment to a local church concretely demonstrates one’s willingness to be subject—spiritually or emotionally—to the church. In this manner, attachment is the “processes of emotional and affective stabilization” (Scheidecker 2019: 74) whereby feelings of dissatisfaction are redirected toward and affixed to LWBC. In stressing the importance of attachment, members are encouraged to stay connected, whether physically or emotionally, to LWBC.  Members are taught how to engage and “relate” (xianglianjie 相連結) to one another in order “to build and strengthen this church through relationships and exhorting others” (LWBC 2016: 44). This is evident every Sunday worship when participants greet newcomers and invite each other to lunch. Members are also exhorted to actively participate in the “life of the church” (jiaohui shenghuo 教會生活) by joining a bible study group, engaging another person in a mentoring relationship, having others over one’s home to share meals. The combined effect of these actions is that

160 

S. HU

they generate affinity and feelings of solidarity among LWBC members and other participants, a model of community that is modeled in Christian scripture. In Thessalonian 2:7-9, we see that Christians love each other, love those who are very different from themselves, and even are willing to pay the price to make their lives less convenient because they share Love for Christ. We also read about a love that shares life, shares property, helps each other, invests time in others, and braves the danger of being. Our hope is that when you are part of this church, you can experience this visible love, which is what the Apostle John describes and the love that Christians should embody. (LWBC 2016: 42)

Although I was an outsider, I was often  invited to lunch with church members during my fieldwork at LWBC. While eating and conversing in restaurants on these occasions, I felt a palpable camaraderie and intimacy between LWBC members in the laughing and sharing a meal together. Such emotions and feelings between LWBC members produce attachments toward each other and the church that “persist over time and across contexts” (Scheidecker 2019: 73) which further establishes affectional bonds between members to one another and the church thereby producing cohesion for the church community.

Conclusion At the end of the three-month membership course, a ceremony (chengyuan dahui 成員大會) inducting new LWBC members was held on the last Sunday afternoon of June 2016. On that Sunday, 12 new members were confirmed. The ceremony, held after Sunday service, not only highlighted the importance of membership and commitment to a church, it also functioned as a sign revealing the interior state—joy, happiness, pride—of new members. The atmosphere felt different than the typical Sunday service. Everyone was excited to see the new members inducted. After the singing of hymns, Caleb Xue, the pastor of LWBC, led an audience of about 50 people in reading the membership covenant in order to “renew our commitment to the church.” The new members were called up front to the pulpit where they were introduced to the church one by one, each with smiles on their faces. After each introduction, Xue asked those attending for their formal support in inducting these new members: “If you agree to

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

161

accepting those standing in front of you in becoming a member of this church, please say, ‘I agree’.” And with a loud “I agree” from the audience, 12 new members were inducted into LWBC. The room then was immediately filled with shouts of congratulations and laughter among other members of LWBC. When employed and deployed in these emotional moments, the manner in which affect is made visible becomes a marker of difference. “True faith” (zhenshi de xinxin 真實的信心) in Jesus Christ is therefore mediated through the concept of membership. A member is not just a baptized Christian, but one who engages others by directing their feelings and emotions toward one another. This article argues that affect is made visible in feelings, emotions, and attachment LWBC participants demonstrate as they enact their membership requirements. Because LWBC exists as a physical space that contains multiple physical bodies within it, the church operates with an affective spatial logic when its membership process is enacted. The church is an affective space in that it delineates between insiders and outsiders, Reformed and non-Reformed identity. It is also a space in which “religiously managed and politically manipulated sensation makes legible a series of spaces that are not necessarily territorial but that are nonetheless deeply political” (O’Neill 2013: 1095). While theorists have argued that affect and emotions are distinct, this article shows that the difference between affect, emotions, and feelings enacted and displayed in and through the actions of LWBC members is not clear-cut. As the case of LWBC’s membership system demonstrates, social relations within the church are delineated by the enactment and deployment of church membership. Ecclesiology and doctrinal orthodoxy, even though they operate on a discursive level unlike affect which is indeterminate and pre-discursive, can also generate feelings of affinity for Reformed identity and bind people to the church. Ultimately, affect generates a set of political spaces in which members and non-members, insiders and outsiders, Reformed and non-reformed are clearly marked and differentiated. As the Chinese church continues to expand and construct denominational structures in the coming decades, ecclesial (and doctrinal) boundaries will become clearer and more visible. However, it remains to be seen whether this will result in the fragmentation of the church, a

162 

S. HU

process that will be exacerbated by a widening gap between social classes in contemporary China.

Bibliography Ahmed, Sara. 2004. Affective Economies. Social Text 22 (2): 117–139. Alexander, Paul. 2009. Signs and Wonders: Why Pentecostalism Is the World’s Fastest Growing Faith. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Althouse, Peter. 2017. Emotional Regimes in the Embodiment of Charismatic Prayer. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 8: 36–54. Baugus, Bruce, ed. 2014. China’s Reforming Churches: Mission, Polity, and Ministry in the Next Christendom. Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books. Bays, Daniel. 2012. A New History of Christianity in China. Malden: MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Andrew. 2009. Chinese Calvinism flourishes. The Guardian (May 27) Accessed December 5, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ andrewbrown/2009/may/27/china-­calvin-­christianity. Cao, Nanlai. 2011. Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chao, Jonathan 趙天恩. 1997. A History of Christianity in Socialist China: 1949–1997 當代中國基督教發展史: 1949–1997. Taipei, Taiwan: CMI Publishing 中國福音出版部. Chow, Alexander. 2014. Calvinist Public Theology in Urban China Today. International Journal of Public Theology 8: 158–175. ———. 2016. Reformed theology in Asia and Oceania: China. In The Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, ed. Paul Nimmo and David Ferguson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chow, Christie. 2017. Indigenizing the Prophetess: Toward a Chinese Denominational Practice. In China’s Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church, ed. Anthony Clark. Boston: Brill. Chow, Alexander. 2018a. Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chow, Christie. 2018b. Revive, Survive, and Divide: Rebuilding Seventh-Day Adventism in Wenzhou. In Church as Safe Haven: Church Governance In China, ed. Lars Peter Laamann and Joseph Tse-Hei Lee. Leiden: Brill. Chow, Alexander. 2019. Jonathan Chao and ‘Return Mission’: The Case of the Calvinist Revival in China. Mission Studies 36 (3): 442–457.

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

163

Conklin, Paul. 1995. The Uneasy Center: Reformed Christianity in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Corten, André. 1999. Pentecostalism in Brazil: Emotion of the Poor and Theological Romanticism. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Dever, Mark. 2000. Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Estep, W.R. 1987. Baptists and Authority: The Bible, Confessions, and Conscience in the Development of Baptist Identity. Review & Expositor 84 (4): 599–615. Fällman, Fredrik. 2013. Calvin, culture and Christ? Developments of faith among Chinese intellectuals. In In Christianity in Contemporary China: Socio-cultural Perspectives, ed. Francis Khek Gee Lim. New York: Routledge. ———. 2016. Public Faith? Five Voices of Chinese Christian Thought. Contemporary Chinese Thought 47 (4): 223–234. Foord, Marty. 2017. What Makes a Christian Reformed? The Gospel Coalition, August 30. Accessed January 27, 2020. https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/ article/what-­makes-­a-­christian-­reformed/. Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gordon, Bruce. 2016. John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture. New York: Routledge. Hansen, Colin. 2008. Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Heslam, Peter. 1998. Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Heylen, Ann. 2017. Mobility and Consistorial Discipline in Dutch Formosa: An Examination of Kercboek, 1643–1649, Tayouan Consistory. Taiwan Historical Research 24 (1): 1–36. Huang Jianbo 黃劍波. 2013. Village church in the city: Chinese urbanization and migrant Christian 都市裡的鄉村教會: 中國城市化與民工基督徒. Hong Kong: Institute of Sino-Christian Studies 道風書社. ———. 2014. Being Christians in Urbanizing China the Epistemological Tensions of the Rural Churches in the City. Current Anthropology 55 (10): 238–247. Johnson, Jessica. 2018. Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kuyper, Abraham. 2008. Lectures on Calvinism: Six Lectures Delivered at Princeton University Under Auspices of the L.  P. Stone Foundation. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Lamont, Michèle, and Virág Molnár. 2002. The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 167–195. Lefebvre, Henri. 1992. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-­ Smith. Oxford: Blackwell.

164 

S. HU

Leonard, Bill. 1979. Types of Confessional Documents Among Baptists. Review & Expositor 76 (1): 29–42. Lewis, Donald, and Richard Pierard. 2014. Introduction. In Global Evangelicalism: Theology, History and Culture in Regional Perspective, ed. Donald Lewis and Richard Pierard. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Light of the World Baptist Church (LWBC). 2016. Membership Course Book. Ma, Li, and Jin Li. 2018. Surviving the State, Remaking the Church: A Sociological Portrait of Christians in Mainland China. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications. Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ———. 2015. Politics of Affect. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Mazzarella, William. 2009. Affect: What is it Good for? In Enchantments of Modernity: Empire, Nation, Globalization, ed. Saurabh Dube. New  York: Routledge. Mossière, Géraldine. 2007. Sharing in Ritual Effervescence: Emotions and Empathy in Fieldwork. Anthropology Matters 9 (1): 1–14. Nimmo, Paul, and David Fergusson. 2016. Introduction. In The Cambridge Companion to Reformed Theology, ed. Paul Nimmo and David Fergusson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, Kevin. 2013. Beyond Broken: Affective Spaces and the Study of American Religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81 (4): 1093–1116. Ortner, Sherry. 1984. Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History. 26 (1): 126–166. Scheidecker, Gabriel. 2019. Attachment. In Affective Societies: Key Concepts, ed. Christian von Scheve and Jan Slaby. New York: Routledge. Shadd, Philip. 2017. Understanding Legitimacy: Political Theory and Neo-Calvinist Social Thought. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Starr, Chloë. 2015. The Chinese Church: A Post-Denominational Reality. In The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics, ed. Stanley Brum, vol. 3. New York: Springer. ———. 2016. Chinese Theology: Text and Context. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Thonhauser, Gerhard. 2019. Feeling. In Affective Societies: Key Concepts, ed. Christian von Scheve and Jan Slaby. New York: Routledge. Tiedemann, R.G., ed. 2010. Handbook of Christianity in China Volume Two: 1800 to the Present. Boston: Brill. Vala, Carsten, and Huang Jianbo. 2017. Three High-Profile Protestant Microbloggers in Contemporary China: Expanding Public Discourse or Burrowing into Religious Niches on Weibo? In Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, ed. Stefania Travagnin. New York: Routledge.

7  THE POLITICS OF SPACE: AFFECT, CHURCH MEMBERSHIP… 

165

van der Veer, Peter. 1996. Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity. New York: Routledge. von Scheve, Christian, and Jan Slaby, eds. 2019a. Affective Societies: Key Concepts. New York: Routledge. ———. 2019b. Emotion, Emotion Concept. In Affective Societies: Key Concepts, ed. Christian von Scheve and Jan Slaby. New York: Routledge. Wielander, Gerda. 2013. Christian Values in Communist China. New  York: Routledge. Zylstra, Sarah. 2017. Young, Restless, and Reformed in China. The Gospel Coalition, March 27. Accessed December 1, 2019. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/young-­restless-­and-­reformed-­in-­china/.

CHAPTER 8

Isolation and Outreach: Christian Churches in Shanghai and Beyond Benoît Vermander

Between 2012 and 2017, Liz Hingley, Liang Zhang and I worked together on an in-depth exploration of the various religious and spiritual communities active in Shanghai, a metropolis of 24 million inhabitants. The book that came out of it attempts at modifying and enriching the way Chinese religions are usually described and understood, as rapid urbanization and globalization have diversified the array of creeds available to Chinese urbanites as well as modes of practicing one’s faith and bonding into one believing community.1

1  Benoît Vermander, Liz Hingley and Liang Zhang, Shanghai Sacred, the Religious Landscape of a Global City (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018). Other results of our common investigation include: Liz Hingley, Benoît Vermander and Liang Zhang, “(Re) locating Sacredness in Shanghai,” Social Compass 63, no. 1 (2016): 38–56; Benoît Vermander, “From Ethnography to Theology—Religious Communities in Contemporary Shanghai and the Tasks of East Asian Theology,” Korean Journal of Systematic Theology, no. 39 (2014): 7–33.

B. Vermander (*) Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_8

167

168 

B. VERMANDER

The focus of the aforesaid book was on Shanghai’s religious landscape in its totality. In contrast, this chapter focuses on Christian communities, mainly Catholic and Protestant.2 However, two lessons drawn from our general inquiry need to be stressed from the start: first, Christian communities are operating within an environment, both material and spiritual, that determines their expressions and ways of proceeding: they may isolate themselves from their environment, but they cannot be studied independently from it; second, Shanghai is one of the world’s largest metropolises (the most populous municipality in the world), which makes for patterns of religiosity differing from the ones found in Chinese villages or market towns. I will first critically review and reorganize the material gathered during our study of Shanghai’s Christian communities, also making use of material not included in the book, and will try to summarize the way these communities insert themselves into a general sacred geography. I will divide this appraisal into two parts, one centered on “boundaries,” and the other on “practices.” Afterward I will further the analysis by examining three questions: (a) is “sacredness” an adequate research focus when dealing with Chinese Christian communities? (b) Are the “tactics” used by these communities for ensuring their survival and expansion evolving in response to the recent changes affecting the Chinese polity? (c) Do the answers to the two previous questions help the analyst to sketch the tasks ahead for Christian communities in China’s largest cities?

Redrawing Boundaries As is well known, in China, the term “religion” is marred by so many ambiguities that its very use is considered potentially misleading. While the uncertainty attached to the term applies to most contexts, the Chinese case is further complicated by a number of factors. First, “Religions” are officially restricted to: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, by state authorities. These five religions’ structures and functions are strictly regulated and are starkly contrasted by the existence of other cults, popular beliefs and practices, as well as unofficial 2  There is also a tiny but very active Orthodox community, composed mainly of foreigners. White Russians were an important component of the cosmopolitan Shanghai in the 1920s and the 1930s, and have left their imprint on the city. See Vermander, Hingley, and Zhang, Shanghai Sacred, 56–59.

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

169

expressions of the same five recognized religions, all proliferating well beyond the official domain even though they do not officially qualify as “religions.” Second, the term “religion,” borrowed from Western languages via Japanese translation, is inadequate for describing many of the mental and social structures endogenous to China, even when specifically tailored for taking into account Chinese realities.3 Finally, the study of “Chinese religions” has taken shape within the framework of the village and of rural life. In contrast, China’s accelerated urbanization is radically changing the social context in which religious manifestations take hold. At the same time, major Chinese cities are some of the prominent loci where the religious sphere today is being reshaped, and this for several reasons. Religious buildings play a major role in urban memory and sociability, the latter defined by neighborhood solidarity or by spatial cross-­ linkages. Most of the time, large cities are the place where new religions or denominations are taking shape. Migrants bring to the cities beliefs and religious modes of sociability, where they take on new expressions. Conversely, they translate the beliefs and ways of practicing that they have learnt when coming back to their home places. In Beijing and Shanghai, but also in Guangzhou and some cities of the East Coast, expatriates also create their own communities, and interaction with nationals is a factor in religious transformation. Urban governments include the religious heritage of the city in their planning, cultural and tourism policies. Shanghai, as a world metropolis, shares a number of common features with other megalopolises. Rather than studying Shanghai on the basis of “Chinese exceptionalism,” analyzing the city’s religious setting in the spirit and method of similar research conducted in other contemporary cities provides a number of interesting vantage points. For instance, it leads one to study religious compounds as kinds of melting pot, where people from the neighborhood, others who have resettled from other parts of the city, migrants from other Chinese province and sometimes foreign congregations need to accommodate each other, creating specific parish or temple cultures. As an example, in downtown Shanghai’s Hengshan Community Church (Shanghai Guoji Libaitang), the first Sunday service takes place in Chinese, with loudspeakers from the parish already heard in the neighborhood shortly after 6am; at the same time, the 3  Consider the never-ending debate as to whether Confucianism qualifies or not as “religion.” See Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval, The Sage and the People: The Confucian Revival in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

170 

B. VERMANDER

Chinese congregation is proud of the international outlook of the parish which dates back to its origins; built in 1925, located in the French Concession, Hengshan Church celebrated services that were non-­ denominational and held exclusively in English.4 Till today, even if official separations are instated, the foreign and native communities of Hengshan Church interact in many ways: the community is reputed for its musical creativity, and spiritual musical events are open to both nationals and foreigners; the success of an Alpha course5 open to foreign worshippers has triggered a separate Alpha course for Chinese nationals, launched in March 2013. For taking another example, east of the Pudong River, the Catholic parish of Zhangjialou is considered one of the oldest parishes of the city, with the Zhang lineage playing a prominent role in its development. However, its outlook is remarkably diverse: the church building was demolished toward the end of the 1990s on the directives of the municipal urban plan, before being rebuilt in 2003 on its current site in the Jinqiao Free Trade Development Zone. The church’s relocation triggered a process that mixed tradition with innovation. The congregation of the old church had to adapt to a new setting, while acting as the guardians of tradition, memory and practice of the worshipping community. Fresh faces appeared in the church’s compound, bringing in new ideas and ways of proceeding. Among the newcomers, many were not indigenous Shanghainese, but migrants from diverse backgrounds, some working in high tech and finance, others of more modest background. The fact that it is located within a Free Trade Zone also accounts for the composition of the foreign community that celebrates a weekly Sunday mass here. The Zhangjialou parish has retained its local community, while also acting as a harbor for a variety of newcomers. Furthermore, living one’s faith in a global city means that the faithful, besides being part of a local community, are easily integrated into one (or several) trans-territorial network. Shanghai being historically located in the web of waterways crisscrossing the Jiangnan region, the water imagery aptly summarizes the mobility and ductility that inspire the community style developed by most believers. These networks are of various natures and intensities. A Taizé prayer network reaches most Catholic parishes of 4  John Craig William Keating, A Protestant Church in Communist China: Moore Memorial Church Shanghai, 1949–1989 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2012), 104. 5  The Alpha Course is an evangelistic course, which is run around the world by all major Christian denominations, which seeks to introduce the basics of the Christian faith.

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

171

Shanghai. On the Protestant side, house churches frequently change location, divide themselves into several smaller congregations and they easily share regional, national and international resources. Fellowships are prone to develop several interrelated initiatives; a migrant church, a center for psychological counseling, and  a Web-based radio program Overseas Chinese are often instrumental in the activation of such congregational networks, bringing to them their entrepreneurial zeal. Our fieldwork led us also to follow one ecumenical LGBT Christian network and one Catholic charitable enterprise based on the teaching of foot massage techniques.6 Such innovative endeavors are often instable. They contrast with more traditional forms of translocal solidarity, exemplified by the one still linking together communities of Catholic fisherman, forced to settle in “fishery villages” in the beginning of the 1970s but remaining in close contact with each other7 or yet by the regular gatherings of Catholic businessmen originating from Wenzhou. Another characteristic attached to the fact of living one’s faith in this global city lies in the relative fluidity between official and unofficial communities. According to city government statistics, there are 169 official places of worship for Protestants and 108 for Catholics.8 No other Chinese city even approaches such a total. The number of unofficial congregations is impossible to calculate, at least for Protestants. Clandestine Catholic communities in Shanghai are well structured and are rather conservative in outlook. Protestant congregations are mushrooming and should sometimes merely be labeled as “Christian,” as they gather new converts who have endeavored reading the Bible without knowing anything about denominational distinctions. We witnessed porosity between Catholic communities—the foot massage network for instance associates underground and official faithful, and we met with youth whose spiritual director was from the underground community but who were attending mass at one of the official parishes. On the Protestant side, though there seems to be a complete separation between the leadership of the “Three-­Self Church,” closely associated to the government, and “house church” pastors anxious to avoid any political interference, there have been pastors  Vermander, Hingley and Zhang, Shanghai Sacred, 140–145.  Vermander, Hingley and Zhang, Shanghai Sacred, 136–139. 8  Official statistics are found on the website of the Shanghai Commission for Ethnic and Religious Affairs, www.shmzw.gov.cn/gb/mzw/shzj/index.html, the last figures available dating from December 2013, accessed May 15, 2018. 6 7

172 

B. VERMANDER

shifting from the open to the underground. Furthermore, the popularity of the house churches compels official pastors to work toward a freer and more spontaneous style of worship and faith sharing, lest they lose part of their fellowship.

The Practice of Everyday (Religious) Life As can be seen from the above, the best way to appreciate the insertion of Christian communities into the city and the way they interact (or do not interact) with their global environment is to focus on the “practices” they foster.9 This focus emerged quite naturally from the consideration of Chinese urban space as a field in constant state of transformations: starting and maintaining social networks that partially compensate for the state’s deficiencies with regard to the care for the elderly or for one’s neighborhood makes faithful and religious leaders develop a set of personal and collective tactics.10 Such tactics generally try to find a point of equilibrium between cooperating with official authorities and ensuring the degree of independence necessary for the fulfillment of the Church’s mission; the localization of this point of equilibrium will vary in time. Religious vitality is far from being the sole motor of a burgeoning society, but no one should underestimate its contribution. Religious engagements are manifold. Christian initiatives need to be appreciated within the larger landscape provided by the other religions’ testimonies of inventiveness. For example, volunteers regularly gather in the compounds of Buddhist temples for organizing workshops and charity events sponsored by the temple. In Shantou (Guangdong province), a popular religion fellowship was revived to orchestrate funerals in a way more sensitive to the grieving than funerals provided by state-sanctioned rituals.11 In various cities, including Shanghai, mosques have become centers for professional training. Protestant and Catholic networks similarly open up a range of social experiences for devoted members. Still, “practices” are first and foremost of a devotional nature: they foster a sense of continuity and identity, which is progressively appropriated 9  With reference to Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 10  Larger parishes, both Protestant and Catholic, frequently organize volunteer groups visiting the elder members of the community, who often are unable to leave their home. 11  Based on field observation.

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

173

by the converts who enter the fellowship. When joining a community, Shanghai’s Christian converts enter faith communities that have long been shaped by common memories and practices. For Catholics at least, this was associated with a territorial model that associated parishes and lineages into socio-historical units. At the same time, traditional communities have been both fractured and renewed by political vicissitudes and—maybe even more so—by urban remodeling. Among the questions that emerge in these reshaped communities, those linked to prayer life and to physical and psychological healing loom large. Praying and healing constitute two core areas where the faithful wish to translate their faith into concrete practices and ways of life. In the process, they recurrently deal with a question we often heard throughout our fieldwork, a question that leads them to carry out perpetual readjustments: “Do I practice my faith according to what is expected from me?” Abstract ethical standards are often less questioned than are devotional habits, ways of dealing with recurring illness or relationships within the faith community. This nurtures the personal and collective inventiveness of the faithful. Partly based on the various churches’ local and global traditions; partly triggered by the specificity of a Chinese megacity’s environment. A new orthopraxy is on the making. Though the assessment and remodeling of these beliefs and practices may initially be focused on the individual and their community, the ethos of their larger urban environment inevitably plays a key role in the long run. The social and spiritual impact of the Chinese churches depends on the way Christians staying or entering into them understand and craft their presence and mission.

Is Shanghai “Sacred”? “Sacredness,” a word anchored into the Western/Latin vocabulary, has been slowly integrated into the Chinese lexicon—although you would not find it in the Shanghainese dialect for instance. Chinese Catholics, as I will show below, are prone to put the stress on the opposition between the “sacred” (shensheng) and the “profane” (shisu). This couple of terms comes less frequently in conversations with Protestant, though it is not foreign to them. The Protestant way of worshipping blurs easily these boundaries, especially as many celebrations and faith sharing take place in homes. Baptisms, for instance, are frequently celebrated in suburban villas rented for one day or a weekend, the bathtub playing in such instances the role of a sacramental vessel. However, music, vestments and ritualized

174 

B. VERMANDER

ways of conducting prayer help in creating sacred space-times of worship. And the sanctity of the Seventh Day is even more stressed in Protestant circles than in Catholic ones. For all religions present on the Chinese soil, the importance given to “rituals” (li) contributes to drawing boundaries between different space-­ times. This importance is anchored into the Confucian tradition: the external apparatus of rituals shapes the interior world of the participants as long as they follow the ritual process with attention and respect; it thus ensures the unity and harmony of the community, and (for Daoism notably) it similarly guarantees the harmony between the community and its natural and supernatural environment. While it borrows different garbs, this Confucian outlook remains alive in all religious expressions, including among Shanghai-based Christian communities. In Buddhist milieus, the words “sacred” and “profane” are identified as being loaded with Christian connotations. One prefers to speak of the “mysterious” (shenmi) aspect of a place or a phenomenon. Even more potent is the term of ling, which refers to the spiritual efficacy of an object of piety, a statue or a person of influence. In many ways, ling could be translated as mana: the strength of an object is linked to the person who has possessed, consecrated and/or transmitted it. The belief in the spiritual efficacy of some objects and places is not limited to the world of traditional religions. It can easily be found among Catholics in Shanghai, who chose carefully the objects of piety that they display at home and attach much importance to pilgrimage practices, notably to the Marian site of Sheshan. But it is not unknown in Protestant circles either. In this case, the “spiritual efficacy” is primarily the one of the Holy Book itself, well worn, marked with colors and supposed to open itself at the passage that will answer the needs that are yours at this moment. As already noted, the concept of “sacredness” is central in the self-­ understanding displayed by many Shanghai Catholics. Here is what a man aged 25 working in a big company has to say: Catholicism now has lost the characteristics of Catholicism, and it looks like Protestantism. Liturgy has no sacredness (shenshengxing), and it has introduced many modern elements—singing, dancing… There is no sense of the sacred (shenshenggan)… In the catechism classes one talks about “Love,” one does not speak about “Truth,” and one blindly tries to attract people, like if it were a commercial activity. Non-believers feel that people within the

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

175

Church lead a life that is not different from the one led by the Profanes (shisu shang de ren) and evangelization, of course, is not effective.12

A graduate student originating from Shandong and studying in Shanghai concurs: There are now catechism classes that look like elderly activity centre activities. I think we should be preparing targeted catechumens’ manuals with strong content, not losing the essence of the faith in order to make eyeballs roll. Personally, I think a more interesting, more formal, and even a bit academic writing style will attract people better than the kind of comics’ “Jesus Loves You” booklet.

It seems that male believers are more prone to ground the dominion of the Church on the management of “sacredness.” Women often feel more inclined toward understanding parishes as welcoming communities that need not only to draw boundaries but also to prepare thresholds and establish bridges. A Catholic woman, 29  years old, who comes from Shanxi and lives in Shanghai, describes in this way the situation of the local Church: The power of the laity groups needs to be reinforced. Young people lack spiritual formation, and the Church does not have the ability to meet their requests as to the faith. Inner evangelization and advanced formation are most important, and external evangelization should be driven by internal evangelization, so that external evangelization may be a result of self-­ improvement. For many believers, the Church lacks targeted guidance. For example, the Church does not attach importance to the nurturing of young couples; older believers’ families are unable to hand down the faith to the next generation. […] For parish priests, the situation is awkward, as there are many things they cannot decide by themselves. Church seminaries are closed, there are fewer vocations, and the seminaries’ faculty is not strong enough anyway. And the training of nuns is not being taken seriously; there are a lot of vocations, but clergy and parishes do not recognize nuns as being important. Therefore, their abilities are not used and expressed. […] There

12  The four following interviews have been conducted in 2011–2012 for a study on young Catholic urbanites. They have been partially used in: Xie Hua and Benoît Vermander, “Avec leurs voix propres, Portrait par eux-mêmes de jeunes catholiques des villes chinoises,” Nunc no. 31 (October 2013): 25–28; Vermander, Hingley, Zhang, Shanghai Sacred, 11.

176 

B. VERMANDER

is a real lack of charismatic saints in the Church, of spiritual role models who could give positive energy to the clergy and the laity.

And a 31 years old female translator observes: One has to encourage young people to play a role in the Church. The Church should be more nurturing, and also give more freedom, release the power of divine mercy. Old traditional Catholics have many scruples—this cannot be done, that cannot be done… they look at things through the perspective of law rather than from the one of hope. Many non-believers feel that the Catholic faith is a series of rules and prohibitions, because the Church does not show any creativity. I have participated in some group activities abroad; I felt that it was very good, very dynamic, as it was stressing the role of the laity, I hope our Church can learn from this.

This diversity of standpoints is characteristic of a multifaceted metropolis, the pluralism of which is also reflected in  local congregations. Still, beyond the variegated ways faith and Church are described and understood, Christian believers partake in a sacred geography of their city. They organize sacred and secular delineations around a few landmarks and the religious compound to which they belong. They mentally organize these places into polarities and hierarchies. They give religious settings more or less intensity according to sacred calendars. For instance, the pilgrimage place of Sheshan Basilica will shine with particular radiance during the Marian month of May. Or Protestant churches will forcefully underline the sanctity of their setting and calendar when liturgical feasts (notably Easter) coincide with traditional Chinese festivities such as Tomb Sweeping Day (April 5). In Shanghai as elsewhere, localizing one’s faith comes with the act of mapping the setting one lives in according to sacred and secular delineations. This also entails to conciliate or to oppose temporalities generated by traditional, civil and sacred calendars. The space-times that together compose the urban landscape are progressively loaded with meaning, becoming the very texture of lived sacredness.

Shifting Tactics We conducted our fieldwork between the years 2011 and 2016 approximately. Even if this period was marked by various political occurrences, and notably by the forced removal of Bishop Ma Daqin from the direction

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

177

of the Catholic diocese of Shanghai,13 it was a time during which ordinary believers could ignore the political challenges in society at large and concentrate on the growth of their own congregations. Has the situation radically changed? The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, in October 2017, has officialized political trends that had been long in the making. Xi Jinping’s report to the Congress stated notably that: “We will fully implement the Party’s basic policy on religious affairs, uphold the principle that religions in China must be Chinese in orientation and provide active guidance to religions so that they can adapt themselves to socialist society.”14 “Making religions more Chinese” does not mean merely to develop a localized ritual and doctrinal outlook. It first means to adhere to the definition of Chinese culture propounded by the same report of President Xi to the 19th Congress, a definition that is political in nature: We will draw on China’s fine traditional culture, keep alive and develop its vision, concepts, values, and moral norms, and do so in a way that responds to the call of our era. … We will undertake extensive public awareness activities to help the people develop firm ideals and convictions, build their awareness of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the Chinese Dream, foster a Chinese ethos and a readiness to respond to the call of our times, strengthen the guiding role of patriotism, collectivism, and socialism, and see that the people develop an accurate understanding of history, ethnicity, country, and culture.

The call to “sinicize” (zhongguohua)15 all religious expressions has been doubled down by the enactment of amended Regulations on Religious Affairs, published in September 2017 and operational since February  Ma Daqin announced his resignation from the Patriotic Catholic Association the day he was ordained a bishop, and has been under house arrest ever since, in Sheshan Seminary. The limits put on his freedom have been progressively relaxed, though he still cannot govern his diocese. He expressed public regrets about his resignation in June 2016 and was reinstalled into the local Patriotic Association, as a priest, in January 2017. 14  Xi Jinping, Report Delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, October 18, 2017, http://finance.sina.com.cn/china/gncj/2017-10-18/doc-­ ifymvuyt4098830.shtml. 15  This topic appears in Xi Jinping’s interventions from 2015 onwards, but its frequency began intensifying just before and after the 19th Congress of the CCP. 13

178 

B. VERMANDER

2018 onward. The new regulations impose heavy fines on organizers of unofficial religious events: Parishes and other structures must report directly to the police, tax and other authorities of their home district. The procedures for registering unofficial structures that wish to be recognized are very strict; at the same time, unregistered structures face controls and punishments that are much harsher than was previously the case.16 These regulations as well as the imperative to “sinicize” have been introduced and interpreted throughout a number of seminars and events specifically held for clerics and other religious leaders. Provinces such as Henan have quickly seen a surge in state supervision and coercion. The situation is—and is expected to remain—somewhat different in Shanghai. In informal conversations, representatives of state authorities recognize that too strict an enforcement of religious regulations would have a very negative impact on the image of a city that bets on its international outlook. Additionally, in Shanghai the management style for religious affairs differs from one religion to another: the Protestant Church is expected to police itself, as its leaders have close connection with the state apparatus and are supposed to apply by themselves state directives. And indeed, this makes the official Church rather proactive when it comes to implement the “sinicization” policy: in the East Normal (official) Protestant seminary, publications and workshops continuously spell out the details and consequences of the new mandate.17 When it comes to Catholicism, state authorities are more heavy-handed in their interventions, and Church leaders are seemingly more passive as to the implementation of the directives they receive. Still, beyond differences in style, official Churches will probably continue to privilege an “escapist” policy, paying lip service to the new orientations while trying to maintain as much autonomy as possible. If political pressure becomes even heavier, it will inevitably create tensions and even ruptures within the official communities. In all cases, the policies now followed are expected to trigger resentment among a number of faithful and religious leaders, and to 16  An unofficial translation of the regulations is available on the website China Law Translate, https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/宗教事务条例-2017/?lang=en, accessed May 18, 2018. 17  Nation-wide, see “Protestant Five-Year Plan for Chinese Christianity,” UCA News, April 20, 2018, https://www.ucanews.com/news/protestant-five-year-plan-for-chinese-christianity/82107, accessed May 18, 2018.

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

179

reinforce the appeal of groups that will operate under cover, maybe new ways of gathering, worshipping and forwarding information. In a city as diverse and internationalized as Shanghai, the resilience and inventiveness of civil society at large is not to be underestimated. One factor that explains for the accrued pressure put on religious organizations, even in a city like Shanghai, is the state’s attempt at progressively cementing a set of common beliefs and practices that could qualify as “civil religion.” “The faith of the people makes the strength of the nation (renmin you xinyang, guojia you liliang),” declared Xi Jinping in his speech of October 2017. The twofold conviction that inspires the leadership is (a) that China can overcome present and future challenges only if its citizens share a common creed as to the (sacred) origin and destiny of the nation, and (b) that the Party is somehow the Church of the Chinese nation-state.18 Religions are tolerated as long as they are potentially subservient of this civil religion in the making. In Shanghai, this has come with a new (and vigorous) stress on the hallowed places of the history of the Chinese Communist Party.19 As has been the case at various intervals, the “sacredness” of the city space is being reconfigured throughout state intervention.

The Tasks Ahead In previous publications, I have suggested that Chinese Christians presently need to avoid a double trap: on the one hand, no religion can become the mere tool of a political apparatus, however lofty the goals of this 18  Even if China is a nation made of 56 ethnic groups, the Han constitutes 91 percent of the total. In any case, when speaking of “nation-state” I do not imply any kind of ethnic uniformity. I rather draw attention to the idea of the state being legitimized through popular unanimity as to the nature, origin and mission of China. 19  “The city is promoting ‘red culture’ this year, celebrating the fact that Shanghai served as the birthplace of the Communist Party of China. Twenty-five heritage sites are open to the public where early CPC members and reformists carried out secret activities. They include an exhibition hall about revolutionary history in Changning on Yuyuan Road, which once served as the editorial department for an early, key CPC publication titled Bolshevik. Exhibitions, photos and videos are being displayed within the historic sites, while historians have also been invited to tell stories to visitors, an official with the subdistrict said. QR codes have been attached on each of the historical structures for visitors to scan and read the history of the buildings via their smartphones.” Yang Jian, “Changing highlights ‘red culture’ by opening sites free for a month”, SHINE, May 16, 2018, https://www.shine.cn/news/ metro/1805164694/, accessed May 18, 2018.

180 

B. VERMANDER

apparatus may be. On the other, Christian churches should not neglect the call to “sinicize” because it comes from the government. Rooting one’s faith into the context one lives is after all a task shared by all Christian local communities. Spiritual theology, social action and cultural inventiveness are three privileged domains where Chinese Christians may find a space for conversation and imagination, as religious communities need to adapt to a changing context.20 My point here is that Chinese Christians living in a global metropolis like Shanghai bear special responsibility on that respect. They can mobilize resources and carve spiritual spaces in a way no other local Church can even approach. Sure enough, they will continue to focus primarily on the growth of their own denomination. However, they still can do so while giving a new outlook to the way they collectively testify to their faith, a way that should go with a blurring of boundaries and a greater stress on what could be called “spiritual hospitality.” I can discern signs of this in the everyday religious life of the city: the Protestant seminary has now two young Catholic teachers in its staff, and some of its students have participated in Catholic liturgies. Reciprocally, the Catholic foot massage network of which I have already spoken has settled its office in a Protestant parish in the north of Pudong district. The ecumenical LGBT Christian network already mentioned has held annual retreats gathering Protestant and Catholics in Sheshan and other places. When it comes to social action, for some time already Shanghai Christians have been mobilizing resources for helping projects in poorer parts of the country. A number of pastors and priests are taking seriously the challenges raised by the invention of a sacred art akin to the spirit of the times, be it in architecture or painting. When it comes to music, the Shanghai religious scene is remarkably alive, to the point that almost each parish, be it Protestant or Catholic, has developed its own musical style, regularly enriched by very competent choirs. Metropolises have always been a privileged locus of religious inventiveness and encounter, and the global city of Shanghai brings a new dimension to the endeavors this entails. Even if they meet with challenges common to all Christian communities in China, the faith communities  See Benoît Vermander, “Rendere più cinese il cristianesimo?” La Civiltà Cattolica, no. 4205 (March 3, 2018): 432–441. 20

8  ISOLATION AND OUTREACH: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN SHANGHAI… 

181

living and acting in Shanghai have already contributed to transform the overall landscape of Chinese Christianity, and they will continue to do so, provided they live in synchrony with their environment and creatively make use of the astounding resources it offers. Today, the size of both the challenges and resources that together make for their specific context translates for them into a further incentive to listen to “what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelations 2:7).

CHAPTER 9

“Fraught” Chineseness: “Chinese Christians” in the Vancouver Sun Justin K. H. Tse

Introduction: Douglas Todd and the “Chineseness” of Chinese Christians in Vancouver Reviewing the literature on the subject of Chinese Christianity in the Greater Vancouver Regional District—or more colloquially, Metro Vancouver—I am struck by how much of it is historical, covering the presence of historic mainline denominational churches in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the struggle of Chinese Canadians to be recognized as citizens of Canada.1 Another strand of scholarship focuses on the trouble of  Historical studies that feature Chinese Christians as major political players in Vancouver include: Kay Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada: 1875–1980 (Montreal: McGill Queen’s Press, 1995); Patricia E. Roy, The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006); Jiwu Wang, “His Dominion” and the “Yellow Peril”: Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1859–1967 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University, 2006); Joyce Chan, 1

J. K. H. Tse (*) Singapore Management University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_9

183

184 

J. K. H. TSE

Chinese Protestant churches, like many immigrant religious institutions documented by sociologists of religion, when it comes to retaining a second and third generation of members.2 While both certainly comment on the diverse meanings of “Chineseness” in the history and sociology of Vancouver, there are some problems of scope for each thread. Despite celebrating the contribution of Chinese Christians to civil rights in Vancouver, the trouble with the historical view is that Chinese Christianity has expanded throughout Vancouver beyond Chinatown and even into the suburbs. Though the problems of contemporary Chinese Christianities with regard to young people grappling with the tension between integration and the retention of an authoritarian form of “Chinese culture” within their communities, the problem with such analyses is that the gaze usually stays within the communities themselves, with little sense of why community concerns are of interest to broader publics. Why, in other words, does Chinese Christianity matter in Vancouver? Or is it really condemned to the publicly irrelevant realms of history and the private sphere? In this chapter, my aim is to deal with these questions through the three-decade-strong (and still running) journalism of the Vancouver Sun columnist Douglas Todd, on the people he calls “Chinese Christians.” Over the course of his career, Cantonese Protestants have arguably served as his window into Chinese communities, though problematically, he also accepts the nomenclature of his interviewees in normalizing Cantonese Protestants as “Chinese Christians” while including Mandarin-speakers and Catholics in his count. A case in point is the article he wrote about my doctoral fieldwork among Vancouver’s Cantonese Protestants on June 29, 2013. “Chinese Christians wrestle with gay debate,” the Sun titled the article, displaying a large picture of me taken at the public market in the majority-Chinese suburb of Richmond attired as a graduate student would be—hair disheveled, blue button-down shirt unbuttoned and untucked, eyes looking into the camera lost in thought due to lack of sleep while surreptitiously browsing my iPad. The subtitle explains what the people I was Rediscover the Fading Memories: Early Chinese Canadian Christian History (Burnaby, BC: Chinese Christian Missions, 2013). 2  Matthew Todd, English Ministry Crisis in Chinese Canadian Churches: Towards the Retention of English-Speaking Adults from Chinese Canadian Churches through Associated Parallel Independent English Congregational Models (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015); Enoch Wong, “‘How Am I Going to Grow Up?’ An Exploration of Congregational Transition among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant-­ Leadership” (Ph.D. diss., Gonzaga University, 2015).

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

185

studying were wrestling with: “Community has been in the forefront of opposition to homosexual rights, but it’s not a unanimous stand.”3 Todd noted that “Chinese Christians” as a people were important even to those outside Chinese Christian communities because it concerned the reaction of a significant portion of the population of Metro Vancouver to the pressing issue of sexual equality in Canada. Certainly, there may be a numerical case for Chinese Christian statistical significance, one that takes note of the diversity of the category. If the 2001 census, the last accurate polling of Canadian people that asked about religion at the time, showed that about 24% of the approximately 400,000 ethnic Chinese people in the Vancouver area were Christians, that meant that the population being covered numbered about 100,000 people, close to 4% of Metro Vancouver’s populace.4 Of the Christians counted in the census, about 16% of the 400,000 were Protestants, with 8% explicitly listing themselves so and an additional 8% listing themselves as “Christians” without affiliation (the other 8% was listed as Catholic).5 By my count in the Vancouver Evangelical Ministerial Fellowship’s directory, there were 120 Chinese Protestant congregations throughout the region, as well as two Catholic parishes that were dedicated to serving Chinese-speakers in both Cantonese and Mandarin. With the help of a member of that fellowship, I had determined that 73% of those churches were primarily Cantonese speaking.6 It was more than half of the 100,000 in the more general 2001 census count. Perhaps more important than the statistics is how those Cantonese Protestants arrived in Vancouver. As the historian Henry Yu has pointed out, a longer view of what he calls “Pacific Canada”—the west coast of what became the Canadian nation-state in the late nineteenth 3  Douglas Todd, “Chinese Christians wrestle with gay debate: Community has been in the forefront of opposition to homosexual rights, but it’s not a unanimous stand,” Vancouver Sun, June 29, 2013, D5. 4  Though it has been almost twenty years since this count, the Canadian federal government’s reduction of the census in 2011 to a National Household Survey has made those numbers incomplete at best, though they do ask about religion too. 5  Statistics Canada, “Religion (95) and Visible Minority Groups (15) for Population, for Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2001 Census—20% Sample Data,” 2001 Census, Statistics Canada Catalogue Number 97F0022XCB2001005, released May 13, 2003. 6  Justin K.H. Tse, “Making a Chinese-Christian family: quotidian habits of language and background in a transnational Hongkonger church,” Population, Space, and Place: A Journal of Population Geography, vol. 17, no. 6 (2011): 756–768.

186 

J. K. H. TSE

century—shows that the current count of Metro Vancouver’s Chinese residents is roughly equivalent to what it used to be prior to the exclusion measures aimed at culling their numbers in the ideological effort to build a “white Canada” with an especially “white man’s province” in British Columbia.7 But particular to the contemporary context has been the specter of political instability surrounding the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty and the out-migration that has resulted in new Chinese settlement, including that of Cantonese Protestants, in Vancouver. The quantitative count may show Cantonese speakers to be a minority even among the Chinese population now, but as the sociologist Peter Li demonstrates, the number of immigrants arriving from Hong Kong to Canada each year increased from 20,000 to 30,000 people from 1989 to 1990 due to fears of what might happen in 1997 in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown of the protests on Tiananmen Square in early June 1989. The numbers spike over 40,000 in 1995, before petering off after 1997, at which point mainland Chinese migration began to increase.8 Li’s assessment is consonant with the literature on Hong Kong migrations to Canada—and to Vancouver and Toronto, in particular—that places the fears of political insecurity over the Hong Kong handover in the shadow of Tiananmen. In conversation with the anthropologist Aihwa Ong’s account of “flexible citizenship” among those engaged in the “Pacific shuttle” between Asia and the Americas to shore up personal and familial assets in uncertain times,9 geographers have taken the lead in 7  Henry Yu, “Global Migrants and the New Pacific Canada,” International Journal (2009): 147–162. Key pieces in the literature on the exclusion era in Canada include: W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia, 3rd ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002); Patricia E.  Roy, A White Man’s Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1989); Kay Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995); Lisa Rose Mar, Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada’s Exclusion Era, 1885–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 8  Peter Li, “The rise and fall of Chinese immigration to Canada: Newcomers from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China and Mainland China, 1980–2000,” International Migration, vol. 43, no. 3 (2005): 14. 9  Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999). See also Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini, eds., Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism (New York: Routledge, 1997).

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

187

mapping the trans-Pacific movements of Hongkongers in real estate ­development, financial investments, international education, and the formation of ethnic civil societies in the 1990s and 2000s, with Vancouver as a key site of ethnographic exploration.10 Chinese migrations to Vancouver have continued unabated: the geographer Sin Yih Teo speaks of the common parlance among migrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), those who came after 1997 following the Hongkongers, referring to Canada’s “immigration jail” in the sense of having to stay put in their new homes until they obtain citizenship.11 The result, as I discussed in a separate article with Sing Tao Daily concerning my initial research on the attempts to integrate mainlanders into Cantonese churches, was that Hongkongers spoke of the new migrations as a “tsunami” of Mandarinspeakers overlaying an existing migrant wave of Cantonese speakers.12 With escalating protest movements in Hong Kong since the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019–2020 demonstrations against a bill that would have permitted extraditions from Hong Kong to the PRC, some have projected that there will be yet another increase in Cantonesespeaking migrations to Vancouver—or to anywhere else that might provide some semblance of political stability for those who can afford the move from Hong Kong.13 With this diversity within the category of “Chinese Christian” in Vancouver, Todd’s stories have highlighted the importance of understanding “Chinese Christians,” often as a shorthand that lumps them into a single category, for their public engagements with Vancouver’s civil society. The religious angle is especially pressing for Todd, who since joining 10  Kris Olds, Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture, and Pacific Rim Mega-­ Projects (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Katharyne Mitchell, Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004); Johanna Waters, Education, Migration, and Cultural Capital in the Chinese Diaspora: Transnational Students Between Hong Kong (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2008); David Ley, Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines (Oxford: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2010). 11  Sin Yih Teo, “Vancouver’s newest Chinese diaspora: Settlers or ‘immigrant prisoners’?” GeoJournal, vol. 68, nos. 1–2 (2007): 211–222. 12  Chu Lam (Zhu Nan 朱楠), “Xin yimin gaibian zongjiao tuanti wenhua” 新移民改變宗 教團體文化 [New immigrants are changing the culture of religious communities], Sing Tao Daily 3 February 2012. The research I discussed is in Tse, “Making a Chinese-Christian family,” 2011. 13  Ian Young, “Canada’s Hong Kong-born population on rise again,” South China Morning Post, June 13, 2019.

188 

J. K. H. TSE

the paper in the late 1980s has been covering the religion and diversity beat, featuring stories that combine interests in spiritual practices and cultural traditions, and the hope appears to be that “Chinese Christians” will shed light on the Chinese community as a whole. The narrative that emerges from his journalism, however, is a solidly Cantonese Protestant story. In 1989, he covered their solidarity from Vancouver with the Beijing Spring on Tiananmen Square. Subsequently, he has written stories about their further activism, a topic that still interests him and on which he has also solicited my comments. Since the 2000s, his work has also raised the question of whether the “Chineseness” of “Chinese Christian” communities advances or prevents their integration into liberal multicultural Canada, given their conservative views on same-sex marriage and transgender rights. This last strand has resulted in challenges from the community about whether his journalism attempted to foist a particular strand of liberalism onto them. These two broad themes in Todd’s journalistic coverage of “Chinese Christians” in Vancouver—the transnational political awakening in Canada that led to Chinese Canadian Christian interventions into multicultural ideology and the challenge of Cantonese Protestant political conservatism to the narrative of liberal triumphalism—serve as the hooks on which I consider what is being considered “Chinese” among Cantonese Protestant communities in Vancouver. My approach is to read Todd as part of the qualitative research that I conducted in 2011 and 2012 among Cantonese Protestants in Vancouver, which was itself a third of a larger project on the engagements of Cantonese Protestants with secular civil societies on the Pacific Rim. The argument I advance is that Todd’s journalism highlights what is, as I put it in my interview with him, “fraught” among Chinese Christian communities in Vancouver: whether or not the “Chineseness” of normatively Cantonese Protestant “Chinese Christian” communities in Vancouver is Canadian. Moving through what I see as these two thematic phases of Todd’s interest in Cantonese Protestant communities, I show that this thread underscores why Chinese Christians—and Cantonese Protestants, in particular—are worth considering in Vancouver specifically. The problematic question of “Chineseness,” I hold, raises ideological, theological, and ecclesiological questions about multicultural integration, a problem especially in Vancouver as it is situated as a gateway to the Pacific Rim and thus as a hub for Chinese migrations that continue to form the city as Chinese Christians make of its metropolitan area, as well as Canada as a nation-state, a home for themselves.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

189

Chineseness in the Wake of Tiananmen: Chinese Christians and Canadian Social Action in the 1990s “I’ve been shy about stepping forward to take a leadership role because it takes so much of my time,” the Rev. Lo Sek Wai told Todd for an article published in the Sun on June 8, 1989, four days after the infamous crackdown of the Beijing Spring. Describing Lo as “bouncy and reed-thin in his ever-present cleric’s collar,” Todd noted that Lo was the leader of “two of Canada’s largest rallies in support of Beijing students,” one that generated 2000 marchers through Chinatown on May 28 when the protesters seemed to have made progress with their demands (featuring Lo “bullhorn in hand”) and another 5000-strong candlelight vigil after the violence “outside of the consulate of the People’s Republic of China.” When Todd went to interview him, there were “banners lying on the floor of his New Life Chinese Lutheran Church on Main Street.” Lo was very well-­ connected within Chinese Christianity too. Todd observes: “He’s agreed to speak at several more Chinese Christian churches about the fight for democracy in China,” as well as at a memorial service led by students at the University of British Columbia. Lo continued: “I’d rather be at home or stay in my office protected by my books. I have become a public figure. I am not comfortable with this.” Lo’s discomfort positioned him well within the community network of Chinese Christians. He told Todd “he’s never been so proud of B.C.’s Chinese Canadian community … particularly the thousands who worship at Greater Vancouver’s 50 Chinese Christian churches” at the time. He explained that the Tiananmen marches “will make a difference”: “For the Chinese, pietism has meant quietism. They have wanted to escape from the world—have nothing to do with it politically and socially. But as Christians, we should be bold enough to get out of our ghetto and go out into the world and witness by our Christian voice and Christian action.” There is a small slippage here between “the Chinese” and “Chinese Christians” in Lo’s quote here; he was almost certainly referring to “Chinese Christians,” though in the next quotation, Todd noted that the secular Chinese Benevolent Community Association’s vice-president, Tommy Tao, was very complimentary of Lo’s “fine work” in “organizing Vancouver’s marches,” with the events projected to be larger “as other Chinese groups link hands and singing voices with Chinese-Christians.” But the reference to “pietism” suggests that Lo had the broader Chinese Christian community in mind, including those in his church who, as Todd

190 

J. K. H. TSE

noted, mostly “converted to Christianity after immigrating to Canada because ‘of the support the church provides,’” and had been working “the phones in mobilizing support for Vancouver’s demonstrations.” Observing that his people “have relatives in China” while having “been here in Canada for a long, long time,” Lo told Todd, “They believe it is the responsibility of the Christian church to let the world know we care.”14 What Lo implied was that the activities around the Beijing Spring in 1989 forced a kind of political reckoning, if not awakening, among Chinese Christians who professed a more pietistic faith. On the one hand, Lo said that they were quiet; on the other hand, it was those who have been in Canada “for a long, long time” who argue for an ecclesially based social responsibility. This contradiction raises a historical problem regarding the claim that Chinese Christians—and Chinese people more generally—are by default apolitical. As the geographer Kay Anderson shows, Chinese Christians, particularly those associated in Vancouver with the independent Christ Church of China—a 1911 merger of Presbyterian and Methodist church members who sought autonomy from denominational home mission boards for church operations—were very active in the 1960s in opposing the construction of a freeway that would displace Chinatown’s residential populations.15 Likewise, the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 2007 aired a documentary in its Generations series titled “The Chan Legacy,” focusing on the Methodist Rev. Chan Yu Tan, one of the earliest Chinese Christian ministers in Canada as he arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1896.16 Celebrating Chan’s reception of the first Victoria Chinese Commerce Association’s Golden Mountain Achievement Award in 2008, his descendent, the community activist Todd Wong, declared on his blog, “Through the Chinese Methodist Church, he helped teach the congregations about Canadian ways, and to live a Christian life. The Church was also the first organization to provide English language classes to Chinese immigrants. Rev. Chan always emphasized learning to adapt to Canadian ways and culture, and was always wearing Western clothing.”17 14  Douglas Todd, “Protest leader proud: Cleric also shy about role,” Vancouver Sun, June 8, 1989, B11. 15  See Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown, Chap. 6, “‘Slum Clearance,’ 1950–1969,” pp. 178–210, for a detailed reading of the archives around the saga surrounding Chinatown’s resistance to residential displacement in the 1960s. 16  The Chan Legacy, dir. Halya Kuchmij (2007), Canadian Broadcasting Company. 17  Todd Wong, “Rev Chan Yu Tan is inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award winner as the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association celebrates the 150  year history of

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

191

Indeed, Chan had many descendants, including a son, Luke, who became a Hollywood actor, the World War II veteran Victor Wong, and a great-­ granddaughter Rhonda Lee, who became chief of the Qayqayt band in modern New Westminster. To say that Chinese Christians and their families in Canada are apolitical and pietistic is a bit overdetermined, in other words. The first problem that is revealed in Todd’s writing about Lo, then, is the equivalence made between Chinese Christianity and its supposedly default apolitical pietism, a characterization that is historically untenable. But Lo’s observation about Chinese Christian quietude also reflected the sensibilities of a new generation of Chinese Christians of which he was a part—shy about leadership, preferring their own privacy, avoiding the public spotlight—who had been awakened by the events on Tiananmen Square and transnational solidarity across the Pacific. Another such figure that Todd profiled was Bill Chu, Lo’s friend and the marshal for the Tiananmen rallies in Vancouver. In the wake of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s death in 1997 just before Hong Kong entered into its “one country, two systems” arrangement with the PRC, Todd offered up a profile of Chu, who, in his own words, “went from being a bland, status-quo, ‘churchy’ Christian to one of the strongest social activists within the 70 Chinese Christian churches operating in Greater Vancouver” (the number had increased by twenty since 1989, before exploding into 110 in 2008). After living in Canada for over twenty years, Chu’s main agenda, Todd reveals, was to challenge what he saw as the accrued distortions in the colonization of “Chinese culture.” Tiananmen stimulated Chu to action because the “whole sense of the government crushing its own people,” he says, “it simply had not been part of the culture I came from.” It was a cloak for authoritarian power—just like gambling: “One of the worst things that happened to Chinese culture, Chu believes, was the British government’s introduction of race-track betting to Hong Kong in the 19th century.” Like the action that he took with Tiananmen solidarity, Chu worked “with a coalition of Christians, Muslims, and Jews” to present “a 10,000-signature petition to Premier Glen Clark’s office recently, which pleaded with the government to avoid reducing its deficit by welcoming more casinos to the province.” Indeed, Todd noted that Chu had Chinese-Canadians,” Gung Haggis Fat Choy, http://www.gunghaggis.com/2008/07/10/ rev-chan-yu-tan-is-announced-as-winner-for-inaugural-golden-mountain-achievement-­ award/, accessed October 14, 2019.

192 

J. K. H. TSE

been involved in a number of activities. In more conservative activist veins, he also protested, for example, “the Vancouver public library’s decision to stock erotic books such as Madonna’s Sex,” while “organizing tutors to help students during the 1993 public-school teachers’ strikes.” At the heart of Chu’s activism, Todd observed, was a theological critique of what he observed that “Chinese culture” had become. “Chu claims too many Chinese are arriving for whom ‘money is a religion,’” he summarized. This quotation earned Chu the ire of “Mason Loh, chair of SUCCESS, a major Vancouver organization that assists Chinese immigrants,” who told Todd that there was “nothing wrong with trying to improve your living standards. It’s a natural thing to do.” Todd then contrasted Loh with praise lavished on him by Regent College’s Edwin Hui— the Chinese studies director at the evangelical graduate school since the 1990s—who called Chu “a very persistent and courageous fellow” in the face of a “lack of social consciousness and social participation” among Chinese Christians. From this three-way comparison among Chu, Loh, and Hui on the question of “Chinese culture,” Todd suggested that Chu provided a distinctively Christian take on Chinese culture, one that was not shared by his secular counterparts in the Chinese community. Indeed, there was a flashpoint where these views collided: an “alternative Chinese New Year’s celebration in 1993, which was introduced by then-lieutenant governor David Lam,”18 a prominent Chinese Christian businessman who used his wealth and representation of the Crown in British Columbia both for philanthropy and for shaping Vancouver’s multicultural landscape.19 Staffed by four hundred volunteers at the Vancouver mall Oakridge Centre, the event’s main purpose was to replace the conventional Chinese New Year greeting kung hei fat choi. “We wish you make lots of money” is Todd’s translation. “With a laugh,” Todd wrote, “Chu says of the greeting, ‘How sick can you get?’” clarifying that “the Chinese blessing of riches arose centuries ago when Chinese people were dirt poor” and should be replaced “now that many Chinese are well off.” The new greeting proposed at the sites was “peng on hay lok (‘We wish you peace and happiness’),” a proposal greeted with critique by SUCCESS’s Loh, who provided a rebuttal: “Nobody dislikes prosperity … I’m not shy about wanting prosperity. I’d like prosperity for myself and my family, and  Douglas Todd, “‘Churchy’ Christian becomes social activist: Bill Chu has been leading B.C. protests against repression ever since the uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989,” Vancouver Sun, February 24, 1997, B4. 19  Reginald Roy, David Lam: A Biography (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1997). 18

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

193

all Canadians.”20 It was Chu’s Chinese Christianity, Todd implied, that drove the critique of wealth in “Chinese culture,” differentiating him from Chinese communities more secularly. But what was perhaps the most radical of the activities from the group that coalesced around Chu in the early 1990s, Chinese Christians in Action (CCIA), was their solidarity with First Nations rights. The first story that Todd wrote on this topic appeared in 1991, about two years after the events of 1989. He opened: “The Chinese Christians who organized large Vancouver rallies for democracy in China are now working to raise support for native Indian rights.” Noting that CCIA represented “at least 15 Vancouver Chinese churches,” the story was about a trip that the group organized to meet leaders of the Lil’wat people “who are battling area logging companies.” The “weekend trip” included “Chinese community leaders and reporters from three Chinese-language newspapers and a Chinese TV station.” The core of Todd’s report centered on Chu’s rationale: “Many of us come from a country, Hong Kong, that was also colonized by the British. We know what the feeling is … It’s important for the Canadian public to know the multicultural community is involved in native issues. We’re also concerned that some people in Chinatown think that Indians are drunks and should just be pushed out. We need to patch this up.”21A fuller report on Chu’s activities with indigenous peoples came in the 1997 profile. Todd said more about Chu working with native groups on British Columbia’s Mount Currie as they opposed the incursions of logging groups on their territory, as well as a policy environment favorable to treating the earth as resources to be mined instead of the living cosmology of the indigenous peoples on that land. Working from the injustice felt in common between the Hong Kong experience of British colonization and “a sense of injustice that goes back a long way” for the Mount Currie groups, Chu sought to undo the “image of an unblemished Canada in terms of human rights.” Instead, he linked the Mount Currie struggle to “more famous showdowns that occurred during the Oka, Quebec, and Gustafsen Lake crises.” In both of those cases from the early 1990s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) participated in violent, armed skirmishes with the native groups as they struggled over whether corporate interests trumped indigenous rights to land. Speaking of Chu’s wide-ranging convictions, Todd wrote: “It’s no  Todd, “‘Churchy’ Christian becomes social activist,” B4.  Douglas Todd, “Chinese supporting Indian rights,” Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1991, B5.

20 21

194 

J. K. H. TSE

wonder Chu says some people in the Chinese-Christian community (which Statistics Canada suggests consists of about 30 per cent of B.C.’s Chinese population) consider him … ‘a bit too radical.’”22 What was “radical” was that, if Lo had been challenging what he saw as the apolitical tendencies among Vancouver’s “Chinese Christians,” Chu was rewriting the script to become a decolonial confrontation with the accretions of imperial and colonial ideologies into what “Chineseness” had become among Christians. In Todd’s writing about Lo and Chu, the portrait of Chinese Christians in Vancouver that emerged was that of a political awakening representing a Christian intervention into what they saw as the heretofore insular “Chinese culture” of Vancouver’s Chinese Christianity. While this formulation—told to Todd by Lo and Chu—is itself problematic, what I have suggested is that Lo and Chu belonged to a particularly pietistic segment of Chinese Christianity in Vancouver—a Cantonese Protestant one outside of the historic base of Chinatown—that had become dominant in the 1980s over against previous generations of politically involved Chinese Christians. It is this group that became galvanized by the events on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to pursue further activism through Chinese Christians in Action in Vancouver. In the 1990s, the goal was to change the cultural interpretation of what “Chineseness” meant via Christian theologizing, problematizing material prosperity, apolitical stances, and facile denigrations of indigenous peoples. These activities attracted Todd’s attention, in turn, for what they indicated about the involvement of a more conservative brand of Chinese Christianity in what amounted to be the liberal and even radical issues of the day: global democratic movements, multicultural policy, and First Nations sovereignty. But in staking their politics on the essentialized concept of “Chineseness,” they also set Todd up to question whether “Chinese culture” could in fact be integrated into a liberal Canadian mosaic.

 Todd, “‘Churchy’ Christian becomes social activist,” B4.

22

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

195

“The Question of Sexual Orientation Is a Very Fraught One”: Chinese Christian Conservatism and the Debate Over Parallel “Chineseness” In 2011, the Vancouver Chinese Evangelical Ministerial Fellowship (VCEMF)—the local society of pastors that met monthly for mutual prayer and pastoral support—had taken Todd to task for a different article he had written on Chinese Christians, which was itself also based on an interview with another scholar of Chinese Christianities in Vancouver. At the time, Todd had been curious about how Chinese Christian communities, especially Christian ones, celebrated the Lunar New Year, especially given its non-Christian trappings. As a key source, Todd interviewed the Langara College instructor Li Yu, who had written a piece in the 2010 edited volume Asian Religions in British Columbia provocatively titled “Christianity as a Chinese Belief.” There, he had argued that, in the context of studying how contemporary trans-Pacific migration from Asia had resulted in the trans-planting of non-Christian traditions and communities like Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Hinduism to British Columbia, perhaps Christianity could be taken as a form of “Chinese belief” in its own right. Yu pointed out that, with a number of Chinese migrants converting to Christianity in these communities, their lifestyles remained circumscribed by Chinese businesses, civil society institutions, and publics in which the lingua franca might either be Cantonese (for the Hongkongers) and Mandarin (for the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese). Combining this institutional outline with an observation that Chinese Christian intellectuals such as the Tiananmen survivor Yuan Zhiming and the Cultural China founder Thomas Insing Leung had made a cottage industry in interpreting Chinese history and language through Christian lenses, Yu drew an essentialist set of conclusions Chinese churches in British Columbia play an important role in strengthening their members’ Chinese identity, but they strengthen it in such a way that all the Chinese traditions they are going to keep have to be re-evaluated or reinterpreted so that they will not be incompatible with Christian doctrine. It is very easy for Chinese Christians to identify with such Protestant values as industry, frugality, patience, perseverance, emphasis on family, and aspiration for success, because these values are similar to traditional Confucian values. Chinese Christians say that they also admire some secular values in Canadian society such as individual independence, initiative,

196 

J. K. H. TSE

s­ elf-­confidence, and critical thinking, but they admit that these are harder to achieve. Chinese Christians strongly criticize some socially liberal views in Canadian society, especially on such matters as family or marriage, as most of the Chinese churches in British Columbia are conservative.23

It is unclear on what data the foregoing assertions are based, but what becomes clear through Yu’s chapter is that he sees the consistent thread holding “Chinese Christians” of previous generations together with the ones in the present is the Chinese inculturation of historic missionary activity in both China and Canada, an insight that applies to the Protestants who are also normatively “Chinese Christian” in his account as well as for the Roman Catholics who might attend one of the at least four parishes with high ethnic Chinese concentrations in Metro Vancouver (he has in mind St Francis Xavier and Corpus Christi in Vancouver, St Theresa’s in Burnaby, and Canadian Martyrs in Richmond, though curiously Richmond’s St Paul’s and St Monica’s and Vancouver’s St John the Apostle do not make the list). Citing the church historian Daniel Bays’s assertion that Protestant and Catholic Christianities have become a “non-­ western religion in terms of both numbers and adherents and local practice,” Yu concludes, “We have seen that this is also true in British Columbia.”24 For Chinese New Year in 2011, Todd took interest in Yu’s aggregated assertions about the Chineseness of Vancouver’s Chinese Christianity. Again, he and Yu maintained a Protestant norm when using the term “Chinese Christian” because “Yu said it’s easier to track the Chinese Protestants, since they usually create their own churches” while the Chinese Catholics “may not actively attend,” an assertion that might be contested by those who attend the foregoing parishes with active member lists usually ranging from two to five thousand families. What Todd wanted to understand was the relationship between the conservatism of this normatively Protestant “Chinese Christian” majority on moral issues and why they might celebrate the Lunar New Year, with its traditions drawn from popular Taoist and Buddhist cosmology. It was “really a secular festival,” Yu replied, and then continued with no evident knowledge of Bill Chu’s 23  Li Yu, “Christianity as a Chinese Belief,” in Asian Religions in British Columbia, eds. Larry DeVries, Don Baker, and Dan Overmyer (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), 242. 24  Yu, “Christianity as a Chinese Belief,” 246. Yu quotes Daniel H.  Bays, “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today,” in Religion in China Today, ed. Daniel L.  Overmyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 197.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

197

attempts twenty years before to alter the meaning of Chinese New Year through Christian theology: “They don’t really use the good luck symbols of Chinese New Year, like the baby with the big fish. Those don’t have any religious meaning to Chinese Christians. They just like these symbols because they make people happy.” In Yu’s account of the Chineseness of Chinese Christianity, to be Chinese is to espouse a way of life, one that is situated in a parallel society from Canada. Indeed, he told Todd: “Many Chinese churches in Vancouver are very much like living in a Chinese society. That might be a problem.” He ended with a firm differentiation between Chinese and Canadian cultures: “The Chinese churches strengthen people’s original identity, not their Canadian identity. Whether that is good or not depends on how you see it.”25 It was these problematic assertions amalgamating all Chinese Christians into the essentialized category of “Chineseness” that angered the VCEMF. In a written reply that Todd published on his blog The Search on February 15, the pastors argued that they had been misrepresented. “Chinese Christians,” they said, “participate actively in conferences and seminars together with their counterparts of mainstream churches” and “are dedicated volunteers serving in governments, NGO’s, army and many other institutions of the Canadian societies,” often with “excellent English language skill” that translates to their second generation. Additionally, “many ethnic-Chinese Christians watch and follow NHL hockey games on a regular basis,” cheered for the Canadian team during the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, and “treat Christmas time just as mainstream citizens celebrate that season, buying gifts, decorating their homes, donating to charity organizations and sharing with the less fortunate.” “To conclude,” they wrote, … the fact that they belong to a Chinese-speaking church does not reflect their lack of intent to integrate into the Canadian society. Speaking Chinese as their mother-tongue does not mean all of them are mono-cultural as Mr. Yu’s article suggests. Many of them do accept the fact that Canada is already a multicultural society and that they will do their part for the well-being of the society in their different capacities in it.26 25  Douglas Todd, “Chinese celebrate festival despite shift in religious beliefs; Metro Vancouver’s 100,000-strong Chinese Christian population continues to observe Lunar New Year despite its roots in Buddhism,” Vancouver Sun, February 5, 2011, A13. 26  Douglas Todd, “Evangelical Chinese Christians respond to Feb. 5th piece,” The Search, February 15, 2011, https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/evangelical-chinese-­ christians-respond-to-feb-5th-piece, accessed August 17, 2020.

198 

J. K. H. TSE

What infuriated the VCEMF, in short, was the insinuation that Chinese Christians in Vancouver lived in a parallel Chinese society, separate from the multicultural Canadian mainstream. As if channeling the sociologist Min Zhou’s longstanding argument about ethnic enclaves being a fundamental part of North American mainstream economies, the pastors demanded that their Chineseness be represented as an integral part of Canada’s social mosaic.27 The point of contention between the VCEMF and Todd, then, may have lain in the question of whether Chineseness could be compatible with multicultural Canadian values, but the larger problem was the framing of “Chineseness” as somehow essential to what it meant to be “Chinese Christian.” Here, Todd’s frequent references to the Anglican schism in Vancouver in both my profile and the article citing Yu are instructive. A much earlier article from 1999 reveals, as I have argued elsewhere, that despite the pervasiveness of the sexuality issues in propelling a number of conservative parishes to leave the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster in the early 2000s, the real quarrel lay in a dispute from the 1990s about the meaning of “Chineseness” between the diocese’s liberal bishop at the time, Michael Ingham, and parishes that had aligned themselves with the conservative politics of the Anglican Province of Southeast Asia’s Singapore-based then-primate, Archbishop Moses Tay.28 After an embarrassing visit about a decade prior when Tay organized an exorcism of the totem poles in Vancouver’s downtown Stanley Park,29 Ingham feared that a second visit would also, as Todd reported, “disrupt sensitive discussions within the Vancouver diocese over blessing same-sex unions and handling past abuse at church-run native residential schools,” an agenda based on his 1997 book, Mansions of the Spirit, Ingham had written that globalization necessitated a religious and ideological pluralism in Christian discourse, especially with non-Western cultures (including Chinese and Indian ones) becoming part of liberal Western social mosaics. Tay, the story then revealed, had been invited not by a Chinese Anglican church, but by an evangelical one dominated by Caucasians, St Matthew’s in 27  Min Zhou, Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Cultural Transformation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009). 28  Justin K.H. Tse, “A tale of three bishops: ideologies of Chineseness and global cities in Vancouver’s Anglican realignment,” Ching Feng: A Journal on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture, vol. 15, nos. 1–2 (2016): 103–130. 29  The incident is also recounted in Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 139–140.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

199

Abbotsford and its priest Trevor Walters, and the disinvitation had been accompanied by a gag order on Walters not to speak to the media. Todd found Walters’s comments on former Vancouver’s Province newspaper religion reporter David Virtue’s site, then called Virtuosity, though Walters did not speak to Todd. Instead, Todd looked to the Rev. Ed Hird, who had brought Tay to Vancouver the first time for a “conference on church growth.” Hird told Todd that he “was surprised that Ingham has banned the controversial Tay,” and then continued, “I have a very high opinion of Archbishop Tay … He’s very outspoken. You know Chinese Christians. They tend to say what they think.”30 If Anglicanism is a big tent, then this conception of Chineseness among Vancouver’s Chinese Christians— which even seemed to include Archbishop Tay—was broad indeed, encompassing any Christian who could be construed as Chinese who had set foot in Metro Vancouver and then deliberating over the essence of what it meant to be Chinese in an essential way. This debate over the essentialized category of “Chineseness” in Todd’s journalism about Chinese Christians sheds light in turn over about a decade of journalistic hand-wringing among Canadian authors about what they interpreted as a right-ward political shift among Canada’s visible minority populations, with “Chinese Christians” at the helm. Citing Chinese Christian conservatism over issues of sexuality, reporters such as John Ibbitson and Joe Friesen for the Globe and Mail, as well as Chad Skelton for the Vancouver Sun, the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Adrienne Arsenault, and Marci McDonald for her book The Armageddon Factor on the Christian Right in Canada, wondered aloud whether such ideological views amounted to a failure of immigrant integration into a normatively liberal Canadian society.31At heart, however, was the problematic category of culture as an essentialized term, one that supposedly 30  Douglas Todd, “Vancouver bishop blocks visit by Asian Anglican: Conservative church members are crying censorship over the ban on Singapore-based Archbishop Moses Tay,” Vancouver Sun, November 4, 1999, A8. 31  Chad Skelton, “The shifting immigrant vote,” Vancouver Sun, June 19, 2004, C1; Adrienne Arsenault, “Diversity among voters,” in Road Stories, ed. Peter Mansbridge, The National (CBC), April 4, 2011, http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/ story/2011/04/04/national-roadstoriesvancouver.html, accessed April 7, 2020; John Ibbitson and Joe Friesen, “The growing ties of immigrants and Conservatives,” Globe and Mail, October 4, 2011, A1; Marci McDonald, The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2011).

200 

J. K. H. TSE

informed structures of belonging (in Yu’s account of Christianity as a “Chinese belief”) as well as spiritual orientations (such as Hird’s comment on Archbishop Tay). Indeed, in one blog post in 2009, Todd takes statistics gathered by Chinese researchers showing that one in four Christians in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan believes in reincarnation and wondered “whether reincarnation beliefs are held by many of the tens of thousands of evangelical Chinese Christians who live and worship in Metro Vancouver, which has 400,000 people of Chinese origin.”32 When Todd interviewed me in 2013 about same-sex marriage and transgender rights, I replied “The question of sexual orientation is a very fraught one.”33 The larger point I was trying to make was that Chinese Christian communities in Vancouver are seldom formed by an abstract notion of culture. Instead, they were internally divided, including over sexuality questions that might be exacerbated by family members discovering that one among them is oriented in non-heteronormative ways. Rather than using “culture” as an explanatory tool, I opted to say that the vast majority who might see themselves within the category of “Chinese Christian” simply wanted “to defend their ‘rights,’” whether in opposing what they perceived as the local Anglican diocese “caving into a secularist agenda” and the former local Liberal Party member Raymond Chan having “sold out the Chinese Christian community by voting for same-sex marriage.” Yet they were not the only voices: there was also “the rare ‘progressive voice’” in “activist Bill Chu, among evangelical Protestants here.”34 To me, what was fraught was that “Chinese Christians,” for all of their diversities, were being lumped into the same category as a way of explanation, and what I wanted to do in speaking with Todd was to open that explanatory issue up as a problem. In so doing, I did not only gain a journalistic colleague whose professional relationship I value to this day. I too attended a meeting of the VCEMF shortly after my interview. One of the authors of the protest note on Todd’s blog shook my hand. I thought he would berate me, like he had with Yu. Instead, he smiled. “Thank you for representing Chinese Christians rightly in public,” he said. 32  Douglas Todd, “Who believes in reincarnation? Chinese Christians,” The Search, October 27, 2009, https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/who-believes-in-­ reincarnation-chinese-christians, accessed October 16, 2019. 33  Douglas Todd, “Metro Vancouver’s Chinese Christians wrestle with morality of homosexuality,” Vancouver Sun, June 28, 2013, D5. 34  Todd, “Chinese Christians wrestle with gay debate,” D5.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

201

Conclusion: The Ideological Freight of Essentialized Chineseness in Vancouver’s Ecclesiae Chinese Christian congregations in Vancouver are fraught indeed. But the baggage that they carry, I hope to have shown in this chapter, is not as simple as cultural freight, a history of apolitical attitudes, or an intrinsic conservatism. Instead, it is the very category of “Chineseness” as somehow providing consistency as the people known as “Chinese Christians” are explained to the public—in this chapter, through the journalism of Douglas Todd in the Vancouver Sun. At one level, the facile portrayal of “Chineseness” as an explanatory category leads to the problem of parallel lives. The VCEMF at least was not offended by the truth being told about them in terms of their opposition to policies of sexual liberalization, or a hegemonic shift toward conservative ideologies in their midst, or their political divisions along generational and ideological lines, or even the contradictions of incorporating non-Christian Chinese traditions into their practices. But they did mind when Todd portrayed them as insular communities somehow divided from Canadian society, as if there is a division between their Chinese and Canadian practices. It revealed an insecurity about a mainstream public that purports to tolerate and accept them while giving occasional evidence that their practices and views are socially unacceptable. But a much more serious case can be made that Todd is just the messenger, reporting on what Chinese Christians and their collaborators (such as Trevor Walters and Ed Hird) say about themselves. It is there within the communities that call themselves “Chinese Christian” that the problematic category of Chineseness is found, whether as a term to contest (as Lo Sek Wai and Bill Chu do), to reinforce (as Yu does), or to position as a part of the Canadian multicultural mosaic (as the VCEMF) does. As I continue to have the honor to be one of Todd’s Chinese Christian interlocutors— despite the fact that my own practice of Chinese Christianity has been from within the Greek-Catholic Church of Kyiv since 201635—I am well aware of this problematic freight. The case that I have made to the public in my interviews with Todd is that some of the people who call themselves 35  Justin K.H. Tse, “Attending to the movements of my heart: an Asian American conversion from ‘uniatism’ in the ‘model minority,’” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, vol. 59 (2019).

202 

J. K. H. TSE

“Chinese Christians,” aside from being the most vocal Cantonese Protestant majority in the linguistic, ideological, and cultural diversity of Chinese Christianities in Vancouver, have also been vanguards of suburban settlement outside of conventional Chinatowns,36 emotional beings in dealing with transnational family situations between North America and Asia,37 interlocutors in the national debate about illiberal populations in multicultural Canada,38 creative cultural consumers with the Christmas holidays,39 odd allies of Donald Trump’s campaign for the American presidency despite themselves being Canadian citizens unable to vote in the United States,40 and participants in solidarity for democratic movements and justice for the marginalized, especially in trans-Pacific linkages with the Hong Kong protests in 2014 and 2019–2020.41 The case against the temptation to essentialize must be made from among the midst of Chinese Christians, for essentialism is the ideological freight that weighs this diverse ethnic and religious set of communities down.

36  Douglas Todd, “Richmond’s Highway to Heaven; Proponents say the concentration of houses of worship are true oasis of interfaith co-operation,” Vancouver Sun, August 10, 2013, A12. 37  Douglas Todd, “The disenchantment of transnational youth; Affluent East Asian youth living in Canada offer ‘harsh critique’ of their distant parents and their intentions, study reveals,” Vancouver Sun, October 12, 2013, C5. 38  Douglas Todd, “We must stand on guard for Canada,” Vancouver Sun, July 12, 2014, http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Doug+Todd+must+stand+guar d+Can ada/10021976/story.html, accessed October 16, 2019. 39  Douglas Todd, “Douglas Todd: How has Christmas infused Chinese culture? Let’s count the ways,” Vancouver Sun, December 22, 2014, http://www.vancouversun.com/ life/Douglas+Todd+Christmas+infused+Chinese+culture+count+ways/10667397/story. html, accessed October 16, 2019. 40  Douglas Todd, “Chinese Christians for Trump,” Vancouver Sun, November 1, 2016, https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/chinese-christians-for-trump, accessed October 16, 2019. 41  Douglas Todd, “Hong Kong protests: Five Chinese-Canadians weigh in,” Vancouver Sun, October 6, 2014, https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/hong-kong-protests-­ five-vancouver-chinese-christians-weigh-in, accessed October 16, 2019; Douglas Todd, “Chinese Christians passionately back Hong Kong protesters,” Vancouver Sun, October 20, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20160602153911/http://vancouversun.com/ news/staff-blogs/chinese-christians-passionately-support-hong-kong-protesters, accessed October 16, 2019; Douglas Todd, “Hong Kong protesters turn 1970s hymn into anthem,” Vancouver Sun, September 5, 2019, https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/ douglas-todd-1970s-christian-hymn-now-an-anthem-for-hong-kong-protesters, accessed October 16, 2019.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

203

As Todd’s ongoing interest in the “Chineseness” of Chinese Christianities shows, this fraught discussion is not an insular one. If the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus praying that his followers would be one “so that the world may know” that the Father has sent the Son (John 17:21, NRSV), then the irony here is that the public conversation, I have suggested, might benefit from knowledge about Chinese Christian ideological disunity in Vancouver. Despite the numerical dominance of Cantonese Protestants of an ideologically conservative ilk among Vancouver’s “Chinese Christians,” historical discontinuities from Chinatown political activism, the increase of Mandarin-speakers in Cantonese congregations, the struggles of young people living transnational lives in Canada, the secret wrestling with queer experience in the closet of conservative family values, the presence of Chinese Catholics throughout parishes in the local Archdiocese, and the unexpected political alignments put on special display by Bill Chu suggest that the diversity within Vancouver’s Chinese Christianities could be its strongest bulwark against secular misrepresentation. The nature of the Chinese ecclesiae, in other words, is an ecclesiological investigation being undertaken by a multicultural public that runs the risk of reducing it to a cultural category it can manage. But multiculturalism, at least as the Canadian Catholic politicians Pierre Trudeau and Charles Taylor envisioned it, is not about management; it is fundamentally about catholicity, a social conviviality achieved by diverse persons encountering each other in the same society.42 The ecclesiological freight of essentialized Chineseness is thus a problem in this crypto-Catholic conception of Canada. Perhaps such mutual insecurities might be overcome by questioning what the term “Chinese” in “Chinese Christian” is taken to mean, especially when it is used as everyday parlance in the public sphere.

42  Charles Taylor points out that he and Trudeau, both ideologues of Canadian multiculturalism, were also founders of the Catholic philosophical journal L’Ésprit in Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007). Taylor also operationalized this conception as part of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on the question of “open secularism” when it came to Islamic veiling practices in Québec. See Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation: Report (Quebec City: Government of Québec, 2008).

204 

J. K. H. TSE

Bibliography Anderson, Kay. 1995. Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Arsenault, Adrienne. 2011. Diversity among Voters. In Road Stories, ed. Peter Mansbridge, The National (CBC), April 4, 2011, Accessed April 7, 2020. http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2011/04/04/ national-­roadstoriesvancouver.html. Bays, Daniel H. 2003. Chinese Protestant Christianity Today. In Religion in China Today, ed. Daniel L.  Overmyer, 182–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation: Report. Quebec City: Government of Québec. Chan, Joyce. 2013. Rediscover the Fading Memories: Early Chinese Canadian Christian History. Burnaby, BC: Chinese Christian Missions. Chu Lam (Zhu Nan 朱楠). 2012. ‘Xin yimin gaibian zongjiao tuanti wenhua’ 新 移民改變宗教團體文化 [New Immigrants are Changing the Culture of Religious Communities]. Sing Tao Daily 3 February 2012. Ibbitson, John, and Joe Friesen. 2011. The Growing Ties of Immigrants and Conservatives. Globe and Mail, October 4, 2011, A1. Jenkins, Philip. 2002. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Li, Peter. 2005. The Rise and Fall of Chinese Immigration to Canada: Newcomers from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China and Mainland China, 1980–2000. International Migration 43 (3): 14. Mar, Lisa Rose. 2010. Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada’s Exclusion Era, 1885–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. McDonald, Marci. 2011. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Mitchell, Katharyne. 2004. Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Olds, Kris. 2002. Globalization and Urban Change: Capital, Culture, and Pacific Rim Mega-Projects. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Ong, Aihwa, and Donald Nonini, eds. 1997. Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism. New York: Routledge. Roy, Patricia E. 1989. A White Man’s Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858–1914. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

205

Roy, Reginald. 1997. David Lam: A Biography. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Roy, Patricia E. 2006. The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Skelton, Chad. 2004. The Shifting Immigrant Vote. Vancouver Sun, June 19, 2004, C1. Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Teo, Sin Yih. 2007. Vancouver’s Newest Chinese Diaspora: Settlers or ‘Immigrant Prisoners’? GeoJournal 68 (1–2): 211–222. Todd, Douglas. 1989. Protest Leader Proud: Cleric also Shy about Role. Vancouver Sun, June 8, 1989, B11. ———. 1991. Chinese Supporting Indian Rights. Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1991, B5. ———. 1997. ‘Churchy’ Christian Becomes Social Activist: Bill Chu Has Been Leading B.C. Protests against Repression Ever Since the Uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Vancouver Sun, February 24, 1997, B4. ———. 1999. Vancouver Bishop Blocks Visit by Asian Anglican: Conservative Church Members Are Crying Censorship over the Ban on Singapore-based Archbishop Moses Tay. Vancouver Sun, November 4, 1999, A8. ———. 2009. Who Believes in Reincarnation? Chinese Christians. The Search, October 27, 2009. Accessed October 16, 2019. https://vancouversun.com/ news/staff-­blogs/who-­believes-­in-­reincarnation-­chinese-­christians. ———. 2011a. Chinese Celebrate Festival Despite Shift in Religious Beliefs; Metro Vancouver’s 100,000-Strong Chinese Christian Population Continues to Observe Lunar New Year Despite Its Roots in Buddhism. Vancouver Sun, February 5, 2011, A13. ———. 2011b. Evangelical Chinese Christians Respond to Feb. 5th Piece. The Search, February 15, 2011. Accessed August 17, 2020. https://vancouversun. com/news/staf f-­b logs/evangelical-­c hinese-­c hristians-­r espond-­t o-­ feb-­5th-­piece. ———. 2013a. Chinese Christians Wrestle with Gay Debate: Community Has Been in the Forefront of Opposition to Homosexual Rights, But it’s Not a Unanimous Stand. Vancouver Sun, June 29, 2013, D5. ———. 2013b. Metro Vancouver’s Chinese Christians Wrestle with Morality of Homosexuality. Vancouver Sun, June 28, 2013, D5. ———. 2013c. Richmond’s Highway to Heaven; Proponents Say the Concentration of Houses of Worship are True Oasis of Interfaith Co-operation. Vancouver Sun, August 10, 2013, A12. ———. 2013d. The Disenchantment of Transnational Youth; Affluent East Asian Youth Living in Canada Offer ‘Harsh Critique’ of Their Distant Parents and Their Intentions, Study Reveals. Vancouver Sun, October 12, 2013, C5.

206 

J. K. H. TSE

———. 2014a. Chinese Christians Passionately Back Hong Kong Protesters. Vancouver Sun, October 20, 2014. Accessed October 16, 2019. https://web. archive.org/web/20160602153911/http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-­ blogs/chinese-­christians-­passionately-­support-­hong-­kong-­protesters. ———. 2014b. Douglas Todd: How Has Christmas Infused Chinese Culture? Let’s Count the Ways. Vancouver Sun, December 22, 2014. Accessed October 16, 2019. http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Douglas+Todd+Christmas+in fused+Chinese+culture+count+ways/10667397/story.html. ———. 2014c. Hong Kong Protests: Five Chinese-Canadians Weigh in. Vancouver Sun, October 6, 2014. Accessed October 16, 2019. https://vancouversun. com/news/staf f-­b logs/hong-­k ong-­p rotests-­f ive-­v ancouver-­c hinese­christians-­weigh-­in. ———. 2014d. We Must Stand on Guard for Canada. Vancouver Sun, July 12, 2014. Accessed October 16, 2019. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/ Doug+Todd+must+stand+guard+Canada/10021976/story.html. Todd, Matthew. 2015. English Ministry Crisis in Chinese Canadian Churches: Towards the Retention of English-Speaking Adults from Chinese Canadian Churches through Associated Parallel Independent English Congregational Models. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Todd, Douglas. 2016. Chinese Christians for Trump. Vancouver Sun, November 1, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2019. https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-­ blogs/chinese-­christians-­for-­trump. ———. 2019. Hong Kong Protesters Turn 1970s Hymn into Anthem. Vancouver Sun, September 5, 2019. Accessed October 16, 2019. https://vancouversun. com/opinion/columnists/douglas-­t odd-­1 970s-­c hristian-­h ymn-­n ow-­a n­anthem-­for-­hong-­kong-­protesters. Tse, Justin K.H. 2011. Making a Chinese-Christian Family: Quotidian Habits of Language and Background in a Transnational Hongkonger Church. Population, Space, and Place: A Journal of Population Geography 17 (6): 756–768. ———. 2016. A Tale of Three Bishops: Ideologies of Chineseness and Global Cities in Vancouver’s Anglican Realignment. Ching Feng: A Journal on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture 15 (1–2): 103–130. ———. 2019. Attending to the Movements of My Heart: An Asian American Conversion from ‘Uniatism’ in the ‘Model Minority.’ Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 59, February 5, 2019. Wang, Jiwu. 2006. ‘His Dominion’ and the ‘Yellow Peril’: Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1859–1967. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University. Ward, W. Peter. 2002. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia. 3rd ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

9  “FRAUGHT” CHINESENESS: “CHINESE CHRISTIANS… 

207

Waters, Johanna. 2008. Education, Migration, and Cultural Capital in the Chinese Diaspora: Transnational Students Between Hong Kong. Amherst, NY: Cambria. Wong, Enoch. 2015. ‘How Am I Going to Grow Up?’ An Exploration of Congregational Transition among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant-Leadership. PhD diss., Gonzaga University. Wong, Todd. n.d. Rev Chan Yu Tan Is Inaugural Golden Mountain Achievement Award Winner as the Victoria Chinese Commerce Association Celebrates the 150 Year History of Chinese-Canadians. Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Accessed October 14, 2019. http://www.gunghaggis.com/2008/07/10/ rev-­c han-­y u-­t an-­i s-­a nnounced-­a s-­w inner-­f or-­i naugural-­g olden-­m ountain-­ achievement-­award/. Young, Ian. 2019. Canada’s Hong Kong-Born Population on Rise Again. South China Morning Post, June 13, 2019. Yu, Henry. 2009. Global Migrants and the New Pacific Canada. International Journal 64 (4): 147–162. Yu, Li. 2010. Christianity as a Chinese Belief. In Asian Religions in British Columbia, ed. Larry DeVries, Don Baker, and Dan Overmyer, 233–248. Vancouver: UBC Press. Zhou, Min. 2009. Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Cultural Transformation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

CHAPTER 10

Afterword: Christianity in China—Pathways, Problems, and Prospects Philip L. Wickeri

When I was doing graduate work in Chinese studies, one of my history professors liked to say, “Everything after the Ming is newspapers.” It was drilled into us that we should look backwards, at traditional culture and history, to understand today’s China, and although we never entirely accepted this view, something stuck.1 I have been following religious life in China, and especially Christianity, since 1979. For much of this time, I have lived in Hong Kong or Nanjing, and I have travelled extensively on the mainland. There are many journalists and scholars who know much more about what is happening in China right now than I. What I can offer (beyond an understanding of the Ming) is a perspective based on a long period of involvement, informed by deep 1  An earlier version of this informal paper was presented at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club. The paper has been updated and revised for the purposes of this publication, but was prepared before the promulgation of the new religious regulations in February 2018. These regulations do not substantially affect the interpretations I present here.

P. L. Wickeri (*) Ming Hua Theological College, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7_10

209

210 

P. L. WICKERI

and abiding relationships with Chinese Christians, scholars, and government officials. I am a priest and a theology professor, so my views are by no means neutral. But I have been trained as a critical-historical thinker, and I read everything with what we call a “hermeneutic of suspicion.” In 2014, a prominent Chinese scholar based in the United States, Yang Fenggang, predicted that China would soon become the largest Christian country in the world. “By 2030, China’s total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247 million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the US,” in terms of the number of believers.2 I am not sure how he arrives at that prediction, but then sociologists deal in mysteries that I do not fully understand. There have been conflicting estimates of the number of Christians in China. The China Daily recently claimed that there may be up to 40 million Protestant Christians,3 and other research surveys have put the estimate at 58 million4 (with another 12–15 million Roman Catholics) evenly divided between patriotic and “underground” churches. No matter what figures you settle for, it is clear that the Chinese Church is growing rapidly. Up until a few years ago, Protestant churches and informal meeting points in China, registered as well as unregistered, were opening at the rate of seven a day. The growth of Christianity has been largely a result of the efforts of Chinese Christians themselves. This is the most important single factor, and it is a distinguishing feature of Chinese Christianity. However, foreign missionaries (especially those from South Korea) who enter China in a variety of secular occupations—teachers, students, businessmen—have also contributed to church growth. In the 1980s, radio broadcasts and “Bible smuggling” played a role, but I would argue that their importance has decreased in recent years. 2  Tom Phillips, “China on course to become ‘world’s most Christian nation’ within 15 years,” Telegraph, 19 April 2014. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-­ within-15-years.html, accessed on 21 March 2018. 3  Wu Jiao, “Religious believers thrice the estimate,” China Daily, 7 February 2007. Available at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/07/content_802994.htm, accessed on 21 March 2018. 4  The most thorough survey is: Shijie zongjiao yanjiu suo, Jidujiao diaoyan keti zu世界宗 教研究所基督教調研課題組 (Institute of World Religions, Christian Investigative Project Team), Zhongguo Jidujiao diaoyan baogao ji 中國基督教調研報告集 [Reports on Investigations Concerning Protestant Christianity in China] (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Publishers, 2011).

10  AFTERWORD: CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA—PATHWAYS, PROBLEMS… 

211

The growth and development of Christianity is of not just a matter of an increase in the numbers of adherents. There is also a growing interest in the church in all sectors of society, and public appreciation and respect for “lived” Christianity. One reason I have for being optimistic about a growing acceptance of the church is that many young people are drawn to the Christians they know who lead humble lives, show care for their neighbors, and do not think more money is the highest value. They may not become believers, but they have respect for the Christians around them, and may even volunteer to work with Christian organizations. In urban areas especially, people know more about what Christianity is and their views are positive. This has also led to more young people with higher levels of education going for seminary training. More Bibles and other religious literature are being published than ever before. I have been associated with the Amity Foundation, since its founding in 1985. Our Amity Printing Company in Nanjing has now become the largest printer of Bibles in the world. Since the establishment of the press in 1987, we have produced more than 75 million Bibles (not including portions and New Testaments) for distribution in China, including print runs in nine Chinese national minority languages. Today, the Bible may be the most widely read book in China.5 I have been speaking about Christianity in general terms, but a new phenomenon is the increasing pluralism of Christianity, especially over the last decade. The American academic Robert Weller has recently written about “the pluralization of all religious activity” in China over the last thirty years, and this has resulted in a growing diversity of religious forms and practices.6 In the case of Protestant Christianity, it is no longer accurate to speak of a binary opposition between the so-called official church and underground or unregistered churches. Instead, we can identify at least three different social forms of Christianity in mainland China, all overlapping, and all of which are themselves diverse, but at the same time distinct in their own ways:

5  Total Bible production as of the end of December 2017 was 150 million, distributed to 70 countries and regions in over 100 different languages. The Amity Printing Company in Nanjing is now the largest printer of Bibles in the world. See http://amityprinting.com, accessed 15 March 2018. 6  Robert P.  Weller, “The Politics of Increasing Religious Diversity in China,” Daedalus 143, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 135–144.

212 

P. L. WICKERI

1. Institutional Christianity: This is a better term than the “official” church, for it is more descriptive and much broader. Institutional Christianity would include the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC), and on the Catholic side, the Catholic Patriotic Association and related organizations.7 It also includes theological seminaries and related institutions such as the Amity Foundation and the Jinde Charities, and other Christian social welfare organizations, Protestant and Catholic. The institutional forms of the church help to maintain Christianity’s public presence and social position. Institutional Christianity is part of the political and social system in China. There is diversity in the theologies of institutional Christianity, but overall it tends to be conservative and, for Protestants, evangelical. Institutional Christianity operates according to certain rules and regulations (its own and those of the relevant political structures), has its own leaders, is related to government and party bodies, co-operates with other institutions in China’s civil society, and maintains formal relationships with churches all over the world. 2. Community-Based Christianity: This would include the various Christian meeting points, sometimes called “house churches” or “underground churches,” and popular Christianity, in both urban and rural areas.8 Community-based Christianity may or may not be related to institutional Christianity, its meeting points may or may not be registered. It is by its very nature quite diverse, and includes orthodox and heterodox versions of Christian faith. It may have charismatic leaders, be associated with broader networks, and have unsanctioned relationships with overseas groups. The educational level of folk Christians in rural areas (and migrants in urban areas)9 tends to be lower than those of institutional Christianity. Community-based theologies are difficult to categorize, if there are theologies at all. But in urban areas, many community-based Christian groups include professional people with very high levels of education and sophisticated theologies. 7  For some of the early history, see Philip L.  Wickeri, Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988). 8  This would also include the “underground” Catholics. 9  See Huang Jianbo 黃劍波, Dushi li de xiangcun jiaohui: Zhongguo chengshi hua yu mingong Jidujiao 都市裏的鄉村教會:中國城市化與民工基督教 [Country Churches in Cities: Urbanisation and Christianity of Migrant Workers in China] (Hong Kong: Logos and Pneuma Press, 2012).

10  AFTERWORD: CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA—PATHWAYS, PROBLEMS… 

213

3. Intellectual Christianity: Intellectual Christianity includes those once termed “Cultural Christians,”10 scholars and academics in various university departments and social science institutes, those who became Christians in Western countries and returned to China, Chinese Christians who live overseas voluntarily or in exile, popular entertainers, lawyers, and other professional people. In academic writings, poetry, art, music, and literature, one can see the development of intellectual Christianity. A good number of academics pursuing post-­ graduate education are in this category. This is a social category in the sense that Christian intellectuals gather together, sometimes in their own fellowships, and are well represented in social media. I am also including the various Christian activists and human rights lawyers in this group, although placing them alongside academics in universities and supportive of state structures does not seem to fit. Many human rights lawyers and activists are Christians. They may advocate different forms of “public theology,” in opposition to the political authorities.11 And, they are increasingly outspoken, both at home and abroad. These three social forms of Christianity are related to one another, positively and negatively. Positively, in the sense that there is mutual interaction for mutual benefit, and to some extent there is a convergence of ideas and interests. For example, all groups use Bibles available through the TSPM/CCC. Many new theological books and translations are used by institutional churches. Some of the community-based groups attend seminaries or training classes sponsored by the institutional church. Negatively, there is also tension and conflict among what I am calling the three social forms of Christianity. Different forms of community-based Christianity compete with and criticize one another, as well as the institutional church; intellectual Christians have different social and political stands, and may stand aloof from the churches; leaders of institutions sometimes function as if they were bureaucrats who have grown detached 10  “Cultural Christians” tended to not identify with any local church, Protestant or Catholic. For further details on this movement, see Fredrik Fällman, Salvation and Modernity: Intellectuals and Faith in Contemporary China, rev. ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008). 11  See Alexander Chow, “Calvinist Public Theology in China Today,” International Journal of Public Theology 8, no. 2 (May 2014): 158–175.

214 

P. L. WICKERI

from the churches or complacent, like some government officials. This judgment is unfair, in my opinion, but the perception is there all the same. Here I have been speaking about Christianity among the Han majority. I should add that some national minorities have large Christian populations, especially the Miao, the Yi, and the Jingpo in southwest China. Theirs is a Christianity of the poor. Their faith has helped them through difficult times, and although their situation has improved, most minority Christians do not have much of a public voice. Africans sometimes say that Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa is 100 miles wide, but only an inch deep. This may also be true of Christianity in China, intellectual Christianity notwithstanding. Some Chinese academics say that Christianity in China has a big body but a small head. Most Christians have been believers for only a few years, and they often lack a basic understanding of biblical teaching and church practices. They tend to ignore most Western Christian traditions—not necessarily a bad thing. Alongside the growth of Christianity in rural China has come the growth of sectarian heretical movements, such as the Church of Almighty God (formerly known as Eastern Lightening), which believes that Jesus Christ has already come again as a woman, who will save true believers from the apocalypse.12 This is but one of many heretical sects that have developed in China as offshoots of Christianity. Although the educational level of Protestant and Catholic clergy and lay leaders has greatly improved, there are still not enough to go around. This situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon. The institutional church estimates that there is less than one trained clergyperson for every 10,000 Christians. Even the institutional church is under-­institutionalized. Church structures, such as they are, do not have adequate means of communication with the grassroots, an effective system of church organization or a well-developed church order. And yet, the growth and pluralism of Protestant Christianity are unprecedented in Chinese history. This has been the best environment there has been for religion in China since the founding of the People’s Republic. Christianity is now more visible in China than at any time in its long history: in cities and rural areas; among the old and the young, intellectuals and workers; in popular culture, in development and social service work, in education and in international affairs. 12  For a recent study on this group, see Emily Dunn, Lightning from the East: Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China (Leiden: Brill, 2015).

10  AFTERWORD: CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA—PATHWAYS, PROBLEMS… 

215

The very visibility of Christianity has also generated a hostile reaction in some localities, most recently in Zhejiang Province, near Shanghai. In May 2014, government officials bulldozed the Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou, the city that Christians call “China’s Jerusalem.” Wenzhou is only slightly larger than Hong Kong, but it has a much larger Christian population. The Sanjiang Church ran into trouble even though the church had been formally registered and was part of the TSPM. The government claimed Sanjiang went over and above board in what had been approved. Crosses on top of other churches have also been taken down. In August 2014, the rebuilt Gu Lou Church in Hangzhou had its cross removed despite strong protests by local Christians. A friend of mine, a local pastor in Zhejiang, told me that 150 crosses have been removed from churches close to major thoroughfares and in city centers. That number is undoubtedly much higher by now. The Zhejiang government clearly fears the spreading influence of the church. The Sanjiang Church was torn down on orders of the provincial Party Secretary. Still, the actions in Zhejiang went against the spirit of openness, and they exemplify how local officials override the law. By late 2016, the removal of crosses had come to an end, and shortly thereafter, the Party Secretary was transferred to Beijing. But what this means for the future is still unclear. Chinese Christians and human rights groups continually complain about human rights violations. There have been many cases over the past decades of the abuse of religious freedom by local government officials. These include the arbitrary arrests of Christians, the beating of Christians in jails, the detaining of priests and bishops who outwardly express loyalty to the Vatican, the confiscation of religious literature, the breaking up of Christian gatherings, and the refusal to register churches. Local officials worry about the churches’ growing visibility. Some see a Christian potential for fomenting rebellion or political unrest. The disturbing thing about the demolition of crosses in Wenzhou is that Zhejiang has been one of the most tolerant provinces, and the one with the largest percentage of Christians. Many abuses of human rights and law have been in provinces and regions in inland China—more remote places. There are tensions between Christianity and the government in some areas, but also tensions between Christianity and traditional Chinese folk religions. These have a long history in China, and they are in a sense inevitable, because of the growth of the church and its extremely conservative belief system that looks down on other religions. It is exacerbated by the fact that some fundamentalist and sectarian Chinese Christians will have

216 

P. L. WICKERI

nothing to do with the government, or even with Christians in institutional Christianity whom they see as “liberal” or “impure.” The narrowness of belief in many Chinese churches concerns me. It affects inter-religious relationships. In Wenzhou, Christians compete with other religions over the use of land for burial sites. Christians are accused of destroying the area’s fengshui, and they have taken down small temples and shrines they see as idolatrous. Although the government has taken down other religious sites as well, and although Chinese “folk religion” is not even recognized as a religion, there is a feeling among many scholars and analysts that the government prefers traditional Chinese religions such as Buddhism or even a Confucianism that can function as a belief system. Some still see Christianity as a “foreign religion” subject to manipulation by “hostile foreign forces.” All of this notwithstanding, I would not want to generalize about government repression of religion. In fact, I think the government, especially the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), has more often been helpful rather than harmful to Christianity. When Wang Zuo’an, the head of SARA, recently said that Chinese Christians should have “their own belief system,” he was emphasizing the need for the contextualization of theology so that it be “less foreign.” He was not saying that the government would construct one itself.13 Churches could not have developed as quickly as they have in a totally hostile political environment. The policy of religious freedom is real enough. There is, however, a wide range of policy implementation that varies a great deal from place to place. Scholars have written that local governments often function with “one eye open and one eye closed,” with an inconsistency built into the system. Officials pretend not to notice when religious groups violate regulations as long as they pretend to follow the rules, as Robert Weller has written.14 This provides space for religious experimentation, adherence to rules of “normal” religious behavior, but also the possibility of a “crackdown” when deemed necessary or politically expedient. The other eye can open at any time. Not all Chinese Christians will pretend to follow the rules, nor are they willing to accept any limitation on their profession of faith. Some are quite courageous and speak publicly about human rights abuses and limitations 13  Wang Zuo’an, “Remarks to the Seminar on the Chinization of Christianity in China,” Chinese Theological Review 26 (2014): 64–72. 14  Weller, “The Politics of Increasing Religious Diversity in China,” 139–143.

10  AFTERWORD: CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA—PATHWAYS, PROBLEMS… 

217

on religious freedom. They have chosen a path that inevitably leads to confrontation and conflict with the authorities. In one sense, I respect their choice. It is a Christian option that we have seen again and again in the history of the Church worldwide. But it is by no means the only option that Chinese Christians have, and it is not a majority opinion. To be sure, the government has tried to keep religion within certain bounds, but the boundaries have been expanding over the last three decades, at least in most parts of China. The growth of the Church and the persistence of Christians have helped to expand the boundaries. And there is now a national effort to co-opt religion to contribute to the construction of a “harmonious society,” stressing the need for people to get along with one another and follow some version of the Golden Rule. As the government withdraws from social services, some religious groups including the Christian-initiated Amity Foundation, which may be the largest real NGO in China, have been asked to play a greater role in medical care, social welfare, and relief. Please understand. I believe that the government and the Party should open up religious policy and correct their own abuses. This would strengthen China, contribute to a “harmonious society,” and help stabilize the system. However, even with continuing government supervision in China’s authoritarian system, there is space for Christians to preach the gospel and develop their churches. Christianity can often thrive in a harsh political environment. We must recognize the difficulties that Christians face, but we should not exaggerate them. I tend to favor those who work for pragmatic responses to difficulties as they seek to live out their faith. The limitations on the full exercise of religious freedom have not prevented the growth and development of the Chinese Church in a variety of forms. I stated at the beginning of this afterword that I have been following the situation in China for more than thirty years. In the early 1980s, I was living in Nanjing, and I wrote then about what it was like. It was vastly different than today. There were few churches, few Bibles, and few pastors. Religious policy was quite restrictive. Only one Protestant seminary was open in the country. Many people had “lingering fears” that a Cultural Revolution might return. Christianity had no visibility, and the church continued to be criticized as a tool of imperialist cultural aggression. No one then could have imagined what it would be like now. As a theologian, I am optimistic about the Christian future. Christians do not easily give up. We are patient. I believe Christianity will continue

218 

P. L. WICKERI

to develop in China in both old and new ways. It will become more pluralistic, less unified, more sophisticated, less “foreign,” and all the while more interesting. Chinese Christians will have to negotiate the obstacles they face, but this is normal. It has been the situation of the Church for two thousand years, and in China it will be no different.

Bibliography Chow, Alexander. 2014. Calvinist Public Theology in China Today. International Journal of Public Theology 8 (2): 158–175. Dunn, Emily. 2015. Lightning from the East: Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China. Leiden: Brill. Fällman, Fredrik. 2008. Salvation and Modernity: Intellectuals and Faith in Contemporary China, rev. ed. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Huang Jianbo 黃劍波. 2012. Dushi li de xiangcun jiaohui: Zhongguo chengshi hua yu mingong Jidujiao 都市裏的鄉村教會:中國城市化與民工基督教 [Country Churches in Cities: Urbanisation and Christianity of Migrant Workers in China]. Hong Kong: Logos and Pneuma Press. Phillips, Tom. 2014. China on Course to become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation’ within 15 Years. Telegraph, 19 April 2014. Accessed 21 March 2018 http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-­on-­ course-­to-­become-­worlds-­most-­Christian-­nation-­within-­15-­years.html. Shijie zongjiao yanjiu suo, Jidujiao diaoyan keti zu世界宗教研究所基督教調研課 題組 (Institute of World Religions, Christian Investigative Project Team). 2011. Zhongguo Jidujiao diaoyan baogao ji 中國基督教調研報告集 [Reports on Investigations Concerning Protestant Christianity in China]. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Publishers. Wang, Zuo’an. 2014. Remarks to the Seminar on the Chinization of Christianity in China. Chinese Theological Review 26: 64–72. Weller, Robert P. 2014. The Politics of Increasing Religious Diversity in China. Daedalus 143 (2) (Spring): 135–144. Wickeri, Philip L. 1988. Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Wu Jiao. 2007. Religious Believers Thrice the Estimate. China Daily, 7 February 2007. Accessed 21 March 2018. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007­02/07/content_802994.htm.

Index1

A Ad Sinarum Gentes, 11 Affective spatial logic, 150–161 Affect theory, 148–150, 161 Alpha course, 170 Amity Foundation, 211, 212, 217 Anderson, Rufus, 63, 112n49 Anglican, 18, 27–49, 122, 198, 200 Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, 46, 47n74 Episcopal Church (American), 30, 40, 46 Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, vii, viii Lambeth, 39 Nippon Sei Ko Kai, 35 Anti-Christian movement, 5, 62, 62n40 Armstrong, Alex, 57 Assembly Hall, 6 Aurora University, 60

Australia, 85, 101 Aylward, Gladys, 113 B Baptism, 5, 15, 59, 65 Baptist, 150–160 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, 151 Basset, Jean, 2 Batumalai, Sadayandy, 92 Beesan, Martha A., 58 Benedict XV (pope), 8 Bethel Worldwide Evangelistic Band, 6 Bible, 2, 3, 5n16, 34, 62, 65–66, 89, 174, 210, 211 Chinese Union Version, 5n16, 72 Gospels, 121–136 Latin Vulgate, 2 Studium Biblicum Version, 72 Blue Funnel Shipping Line, 103

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Chow, E. Law (eds.), Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73069-7

219

220 

INDEX

Bolshevik Revolution, 7, 7n20 Boxer Rebellion, 2, 5, 10, 39 British National (Overseas), 115 C Calvin, John, 58, 144, 145 Canada, 183–203 Cao Shengjie, 47 Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), 12, 14, 71, 177n13, 212 Chang Fu (Sergij Chang Fu), 7 Chao, T. C., see Zhao Zichen (T. C. Chao) Cheng Jingyi, 5 Cheung, Frank, 113 China Christian Council, 47 China Independent Protestant Church, 6 China Inland Mission (CIM), 32, 34, 44n58, 64, 107, 113, 114 Chinese Basel Christian Church of Malaysia, 89 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 100, 103 Chinese Orthodox Church, 12 Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM), 111–114, 116 Chinese restaurant, 104, 109, 110, 113 Chinese rites controversy, 1–2 Chinese Students’ Christian Association of North America, 107n30 Chinese Students’ Christian Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 107, 108, 116 Chongqing Manifesto, 11 Christ Church of China, 190 Christianity fever, 14, 116 Christian Literature Society, 41 Christian Manifesto, 9, 10

Chu, Bill, 191–194, 196, 200, 201, 203 Church discipline, 142 Church membership, 150–160 Church Mission Society (CMS), 34, 35, 41, 43, 44n58, 46 Church of Christ in China, 6, 46, 112, 112n49 Church of the East, 1, 1n1, 55, 55n5, 56 Civilization, 27–49 Civil religion, 179 Civil rights movement, 115 Cold War, 127 Constantini, Celso, 8 Cosmic Christ, 19, 124, 147 Cotta, Antoine, 8 Council of Churches in Malaysia and Singapore, 88 Cultural Christian, 15, 16, 213, 213n10 Cultural Revolution, 13, 14, 47, 122, 123, 125, 130, 147, 217 Cupimus Imprimis, 11 D Davidson, Randall, 38 Denunciation Movement, 9 Diaspora, see Overseas Chinese Ding Guangxun (K. H. Ting), 10, 19, 47, 121–136, 147 Document 19, 13 Dominican, 2 E Eastern Lightening, 214 East India Company, 4, 103 Ecumenism, 3 Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, 106

 INDEX 

Education, 27–49, 84, 85 Edward I (king), 55 Eucharist, 59, 65, 68, 73 F Farmer, Francis X., 53, 58–63 First Nations, 193, 194, 198 Foreign religion, 216 Franciscan, 56, 72 Fundamentalism, 10, 111, 112, 133, 215 G Genghis (khan), 55n5 Gong Pinmei, 12 Gospels, 72 Guangyuan Manifesto, 11 H Hall, R. O., 47n74, 110n42 Hanson, Anthony Tyrrell, 27 Harmonious society, 217 Henry VIII (king), 58 Home Office, 102, 115 Homogenous unit principle, 116 Hong Kong, vii–ix, 13, 37, 49, 71–73, 99–116, 183–203 anti-extradition bill protests (2019–2020), viii, 115, 187, 202 handover (1997), 17, 115, 186 Umbrella movement (2014), 115, 187, 202 Honorius IV (pope), 56 House church, 13, 14, 16, 17, 150–160, 171, 210, 212 See also Underground church Huachung University, 47

221

I Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), 100, 102 Incarnation, 126–128, 134, 135 J James, Francis Huberty, 63–71 Jernigan, T. R., 57 Jesuit, 1, 2, 58, 60 Jesus Family, 6 Jinde Charities, 212 K Kikuyu, 34 Korean War, 9, 10, 127 L Language, Chinese, 16, 45, 81 Cantonese, 80, 81, 108, 113, 114, 116, 184, 201–203 Hakka, 81, 86, 89, 92, 108, 114 Hokkien, 80, 81, 108 Mandarin, 78, 80, 85, 87, 88, 94, 113, 114, 116, 184, 185, 187, 195, 203 Teochew, 81 Language, English, 32, 105, 107, 115 Language, Japanese, 32 Language, Malay, 78, 84, 85, 88, 89, 93 Language, Taiwanese, 72 Laoxikai Incident, 8 Lebbe, Vincent, 8 Legge, James, 2 Leo X (pope), 61 LGBT, 180, 184, 185, 188–200 See also Same-sex union Li Zhizao, 2

222 

INDEX

Liberation theology, 128, 128n22, 135 Little Flock, see Assembly Hall Liu Xiaofeng, 15, 16 Lo, Sek Wai, 189–194, 201 London Missionary Society, 4, 106 Luo Wenzao, 8 Luther, Martin, 58, 61–62, 65, 70 Lutheran Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia, 86, 89 Lutheran Church in Malaysia, 86, 89 Lutheran Church of China, 46 M Ma Daqin, 176 Malaysia, 13, 19, 77–95, 103, 106, 108, 113 Malaysian Chinese Association, 83 Maximum illud, 8 May Fourth movement, 5, 8, 45 McGavran, Donald, 116 Medhurst, Walter, 4 Methodist, 47n74, 58, 59, 61, 86, 110–112, 110n42, 190 Migration, see Overseas Chinese Milne, William, 4 Model minority, 100, 100–101n5 Montecorvino, Giovanni da, 56 Montgomery, Henry, 33–39, 49 Morrison, Robert, 2, 4, 57, 142, 146 Mortalium Animos, 54, 54n1 Mosher, G. F., 40 Moule, A. E., 39, 43 Muhibbah, 90–95 Mukden Incident (1931), 129 Multiculturalism, 82, 88, 108, 114, 188, 192–194, 198, 201–203

N Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, 124 Napoleonic Wars, 103 National Christian Council, 6 Nee, Watchman, see Ni Tuosheng (Watchman Nee) Nevius, John Livingston, 53, 63–71 Newman, John Henry, 59 Ni Tuosheng (Watchman Nee), 9, 10 Nicholas IV (pope), 56 Norris, Frank L., 37–39 North America, 85, 99, 101, 115 O Opium Wars, 2, 4n11, 17, 103 Overseas Chinese, viii, 13, 17, 19, 77–95, 99–116, 147, 183–203 P Paris Foreign Missions, 2 Penance, 69 Pentecostalism, 143 Pius XI (pope), 8, 54, 60 Pius XII (pope), 11, 12 Post-denominational era, 14, 16, 143 Pott, F.L. Hawks, 42 Prayer, 136, 170, 173, 174 Presbyterian, 57, 63, 190 Purgatory, 69 R Race, 27–49 Race riot, 84, 92, 102 Reformation, 53, 54, 61 Reformed theology, 16, 19, 69, 141–162 predestination, 69 Westminster Confession of Faith, 57, 144

 INDEX 

Religious cases, 5 Ricci, Matteo, 1 Ross, John, 44 S St John’s College, Shanghai, 42, 45 St Stephen’s College, Hong Kong, 41 Same-sex union, 198 See also LGBT Sanjiang Church, 215 Shangdi 上帝, 2, 5, 5–6n16, 54 Shen 神, 5, 5–6n16, 54 Shen Yifan, 47 Sheshan Seminary, 177n13 Sin, 128–132, 153, 158 Singapore, 13, 108 Sinicization, 177–180, 216 Sino-Japanese War, 128–130, 134, 135 Sino-Vatican relations, viii, 8, 12, 13, 17n52, 215 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), 31, 33, 33n19, 37, 44n58 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 148 State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), 15, 216 Stuart, John Leighton, 112 Student Christian Movement, 106, 107n30 Suez Canal, 103 T Taiwan, 13, 71–73 Taizé, 170 Tan, Cheng Lock, 83 Tay, Moses, 198, 199 Taylor, Charles, 203

223

Term question, 2, 5n16, 54n3 Three-self formula, 6, 6n17, 9, 11, 12, 46, 63, 112n49 Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), 9–11, 14, 46, 47, 71, 121, 133, 147, 212 Thu, En Yu, 92 Tiananmen Square protests (1989), 16, 17, 147, 188–194 Tianzhu 天主, 54 Timur (khan), 56 Ting, K. H., see Ding Guangxun (K. H. Ting) Todd, Douglas, 183–203 Tomb Sweeping Day, 176 Treaty of Nanking, 4, 63n41 Treaty of Tientsin, 4 Treaty of Whampoa, 4 Trinity College, Ningpo, 43 Trudeau, Pierre, 203 True Jesus Church, 6, 110 Tucker, H. W., 30–34 U Underground church, 13, 14, 16, 171, 210, 212 See also House church Union Theological Seminary (New York), 111n43, 124 Union Theological Seminary (Philippines), 124 United Kingdom, 19, 85, 99–116 V Vancouver, 183–203 Vancouver Sun, 183–203 Vatican II, 53–73 Venn, Henry, 46, 63, 112n49 Vietnam, 109

224 

INDEX

W Walls, Andrew, 3 Wang, Stephen, 110–113 Wang Gungwu, 79, 99n1 Wang Mingdao, 10, 111 Wang Yi, 145–146 Weber, Max, 142 Wei Zhuomin (Francis C. M. Wei), 47 Wenzhou Christianity, 171, 215 Westminster Theological Seminary, 148 Wong Fun (Huang Kuan), 106 Woo, Andrew Wai-tak (Hu Huide), 107 World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh (1910), 5, 43, 45 World Student Christian Federation, 107n30 World War I, 45, 102, 103 World War II, 4, 9, 82, 83, 86, 102, 103 Wu Jingxiong (John C. H. Wu), 9 Wu Leichuan (L. C. Wu), 47

Wu Yaozong (Y. T. Wu), 9, 10, 126, 126n16, 128, 128n21, 135 X Xinhai Revolution, 45 Y Yenching University, 47, 110, 111n43, 112 YMCA, 9, 47, 107n30 Yu, Li, 195–198, 200, 201 Yu Guozhen, 6 Yu Rizhang (David Z. T. Yui), 6, 47 Z Zhang Boda, 12 Zhang Shiquan, 53, 58–63 Zhao Fusan, 47 Zhao Zichen (T. C. Chao), 6, 9, 10, 47n74 Zhou Enlai, 9–12