Christian missionaries and The Social Gospel in Nationalist China, 1929-1937: Evidence

from the Chinese Recorder.

Jordan McCluskey

HISTORY 489
Supervisor: Pauline Keating
Honours Coordinators: Cyble Locke and Adrian Muckle
October 10, 2014

Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................1
Rural Education.4
Rural Health.12
Disaster Prevention and Relief.18
Views of Communism in The Chinese Recorder.23
Conclusion....31
Notes on Authors..36
Bibliography.38

List of Abbreviations
ABCFM

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

CCC

Church of Christ in China

CCP

Chinese Communist Party

CIFRC
CR
KMT/GMD

China International Famine Relief Commission

The Chinese Recorder
Kuomintang/Guomindang

MEM

Mass Education Movement

N.C.C

National Christian Council

SFPE

Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment

Y.M.C.A

Young Men's Christian Association

Y.W.C.A

Young Women's Christian Association

A note on spellings.
There are two main kinds of Romanisation of the Chinese language into English. The older
Wade-Giles system, and the current Pinyin system. The Pinyin system is now the official
Romanisation system of the Peoples Republic of China, and the United Nations. However
during the time period studied for this dissertation, Wade Giles was the Romanisation system
in place, and was used for names, places and spellings throughout The Chinese Recorder. For
this reason, Wade Giles Romanisation is used throughout this dissertation.

Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to the loving memory of my grandmother who passed away
during the first week of honours. Jean Price 1924-2014.

Introduction
This dissertation examines The Chinese Recorder, an English
language Christian newspaper in China during 1929 to 1937, for
evidence of the social gospel. Mostly Protestants wrote for the
newspaper, however Christians of all denominations were also
involved in its writing. Authors were both foreign and Chinese. They
wrote on a wide range of issues from spiritual issues, like theological
arguments, to more worldly issues like natural disasters and political
troubles. The Chinese Recorder was published from 1867 to 1941,
and monthly in Shanghai in the time period assessed.1 This
dissertation tries to find evidence of the social gospel within the
pages of The Chinese Recorder. The purpose of this study is to assess
the ways Christian missionaries viewed and assessed the social
gospel efforts.
In 1927 the Northern Expedition, led by the General Chiang
Kai-Shek, sought to reunify China under one central political
authority, the Kuomintang (The Chinese Nationalist Party). What
followed from 1927 was an attempt to reform rural China by both
Christian missionaries and the Kuomintang government. Christian
missionaries during the 1920s and 1930s debated whether the best
way to solve Chinas problems was through the social gospel
helping with material problems in order to save Chinese souls. This
study begins in 1929, after the United States stock market crash
caused the worldwide Great Depression, and ends in 1937, with the
beginning of the Sino-Japanese war.
Before the time period this study examines, the previous
consensus between conservative and progressive Christian
denominations, in what Daniel Bays calls the Sino-Foreign Protestant
Establishment (SFPE), fell apart. The Modernists had been
advocates for the social gospel since the beginning of the twentieth
century. Differences in the theological basis of missions, whereby
1

Daniel H. Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), p.70.

missionaries on the ground in China took a Modernist approach to

theology, and the missionary societies that sent them back in the West
took a Fundamentalist approach to theology, caused conflict and
division throughout the 1920s.2 The best definition of social
gospel is that of Lawrence Kessler, which is worth quoting at length:
Schools also fit in with the social gospel approach to promoting
Christianity that was then taking hold in the church. Instead of
concentrating on saving individual souls, the modernists as
adherents of the social gospel were called sought a total
transformation of society through good works such as schools,
hospitals, and various relief agencies. Such a transformation would
create an environment supportive of missionary work as well as of
individuals who converted to Christianity.3
and
Integral to the social gospel approach was the notion that the
problems of the age must be solved in a social way4
Jun Xing in his book on the Y.M.C.A in China argues that all
Protestant missionary societies in China had some Liberal Christian
ideology. Native Chinese and their American Y.M.C.A secretaries
were more resolute and responsive to the Christian liberalism as
embodied in the social gospel.5 Many of the social gospel initiatives
in this dissertation were undertaken by the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A.
During the time period examined, scholars argued that China
was in the grips of an agrarian crisis, causing peasant immiseration.
Jonathan Spence draws on the arguments of Chinese sociologist Fei
Xiaotong, who was sympathetic to the view that the exploitation of
peasants and foreign imperialism had impoverished the Chinese

Bays, A New History of Christianity in China, pp.106-107.

Lawrence D. Kessler, The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community In China, 1895-1952,
(North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, North Carolina, 1996) p.38.
4
Kessler, p.157.
5
Jun Xing, Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China 1919-1937
(London, Associated University Press, 1996) p.42.
3

peasantry. Spence also draws on the arguments of R.H Tawney and

John Lossing Buck, who stated that Chinese land was
environmentally exhausted, the peasants were exploited,
overpopulation was a drain on resources and that technology was
primitive.6 During the 1930s, most of the Chinese peasant Christian
missionaries that tried to help suffered from serious economic and
social problems.
The Chinese Recorder (hereafter CR) was the major publication of
the informal Christian hierarchy of the SFPE. Ecumenical, it
incorporated all denominations of Protestantism that wished to
contribute to it. Foreign missionaries and Chinese Christians wrote
for the CR after 1910.7 Frank Rawlinson was editor of the CR
between 1929 and 1937. Rawlinson was born in Langham, England in
1871, before journeying to America in 1889 and becoming a Baptist.
Later, Rawlinson became a Southern Baptist missionary to China in
1902.8 The personal tragedy of his first wifes death led Rawlinson to
reconsider his beliefs, and he became more interested in Chinese
ideas of Christianity and the social gospel.9 As Rawlinson became
more Liberal, it caused a break between him and the Southern Baptist
Foreign Mission Board that sponsored him in 1921. Rawlinson left
and joined the more Liberal, interdenominational American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1922.10 The CR
was where debates about the social gospel were chronicled between
modernist and fundamentalist missionaries, as well as foreign and
Chinese Christians. It provides evidence of accounts of the social
gospel in action, and whether the social gospel initiatives were
successful.

Johnathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 1990) pp.429-430.
Bays, p.100.
8
Lian Xi, The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in China, 1907-1932
(Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). Pp.59-61.
9
Xi, pp.68-71.
10
Xi, pp.73-74.
7

This dissertation examines the social gospel in three areas of

reform activism by Christian missionaries in China during the Great
Depression. The first area to be examined is that of rural education.
The next area is that of rural health. The final area of reform activism
is disaster relief and prevention. Missionaries originally only wanted
to relieve victims of natural disasters of their suffering, however they
quickly began engaging in the process to prevent future disasters. In
addition to these three areas of reform activism, the way in which
missionaries viewed the communist movement is also examined. This
dissertation seeks answers on the ways that missionaries assessed
their social gospel endeavours, and whether they became more
positive or negative about them over time.
Rural Education
Frank Diktter argues that modern schooling had appeared in China
after 1900, aided by government organisations, private societies and
religious associations, funded by local elites, merchant guilds or
foreign benefactors and that religious expression was allowed to
thrive in a climate of relative tolerance.11 Diktter also argues that
the 1920s was a decade in which Catholic and Protestant made the
most use of religious freedom to open institutions like schools, and to
make conversions of Chinese elites. Chiang Kai Shek converted to
Methodism in 1931 and had promised in 1926, even before his
conversion, to protect clergymen, pastors and mission property.12
There was, however, strong anti-Christian sentiment among the
populace in late 1920s China.13 This section shows that the social
gospel was present in missionary-provided education, despite the
difficulties faced as a result of government hostility.
The anti-Christian sentiment found its way into schools, with
Nationalists opposing religious instruction in schools. The

11

Frank Diktter, The Age Of Openess, China Before Mao (Berkley and Los Angeles, University of California
Press, 2008) p.5.
12
Diktter, The Age Of Openess, p.67.
13
Dikotter, The Age Of Openess, p.68.

Nationalists viewed education as the prerogative of the state and

insisted that all private and foreign schools register with the state and
abide by certain regulations, the regulations included the teaching of
the Christian faith.14 The ban would not be lifted until April 1938 at a
conference by Madame Chiang, Chiang Kai-Sheks wife, in an effort
to secure American help in the war against Japan.15 Lloyd Eastman
argued that Chiang Kai-Shek was himself a complicated figure.
Chinese people viewed him alternatively as a national leader or a
militarist. Foreigners thought Chiang to be an outmoded Confucian
and ruthless dictator or as a Christian and defender of democracy.16
Eastman also argued that Chiang was ideologically flexible and
absolutely ruthless in acquiring power. Chiang tolerated no opposition
to his leadership.17 Chiangs sincerity about Christianity has been
challenged but his most recent biographer, Jay Taylor believes Chiang
to have been a faithful Christian. After marrying Soong Mei-Ling
(Madame Chiang) in 1927 Chiang read the bible regularly until he
decided to be baptised. For Chiang his Confucian sense of shame and
morality complemented the Christian emphasis on sin and
atonement.18
Now that China had the beginnings of a central authority
under the Kuomintang from 1927, the greatest needs were for
economic development and education, with Christian principles as
part of these policies.19 Writers of the CR were aware that eighty
percent of the population was rural, and believed that the best way to
Christianise rural people was to improve their material situation.
Agricultural education was provided at Yenching, Peiping and

14

Lawrence D.Kessler, The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community In China, 1895-1952,
(North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, North Carolina, 1996) p.82.
15
Kessler, The Jiangyin Mission Station, p.90.
16
Lloyd Eastman Nationalist China during the Nanking Decade In Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert
(eds.) The Cambridge History of China Volume 13: Republican China 19121949, Part 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1986), p.130.
17
Eastman, Nationalist China during the Nanking Decade pp.133-134.
18
Jay Taylor,The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and The Struggle For Modern China (Cambridge,
Massachussets and London, England, The Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press, 2009) pp.91-92.
19
Ting Shu-Ching, Needs that Western Christians Can Help Meet The Chinese Recorder,June 1929, p.379.

Nanking universities to try and better rural life.20 Women in Fu Shan

Hsien, near Cheefoo had been contacted through the One Thousand
Character programme. It was believed that by improving the
education of women in the village, it would improve economic
conditions. A rural Y.W.C.A had been requested for the village by the
women.21
The Y.W.C.A studied villages in Kwangtung province,
surveying the economic conditions. In most of the villages the
opportunities for the education of women were totally inadequate.
The market town of Toi Shan was different. In Toi Shan, church
schools provided education to women. The literacy rate greatly varied
based on church membership, for example only 25% of the men and
3% of the women are literate; within the church membership these
figures were 37% of men and 25% women.22 In a lengthy article in
1930 Fu Liang Chang an associate and brother in law of James Yen,
wrote about how rural illiteracy held back the development of rural
and spiritual life for Chinese Christians. According to statistics cited
by Chang, ninety five percent of rural men were illiterate and ninety
nine percent of women. Chang wanted literate and bible reading
Christians to improve the position of rural Christians.23 Chang was
also the National Secretary of the N.C.C (National Christian Council).
The N.C.C was convened in 1922 when the National Christian
Conference met to discuss how the Protestant churches could cooperate with each other during a period of national upheaval in China.
The N.C.C committed itself to social service in rural areas, where it
believed three quarters of the Chinese population lived. It considered
the problems of agriculture and economic livelihood.24 It decided its
rural platform would include a social program and it set up a study
20

Y.Y Tsu, Needs that Western Christians Can Help Meet, The Chinese Recorder, June 1929, p.384.
No Author, Work and Workers: Y.W.C.A in rural The Chinese Recorder, July 1929, p.469.
22
No Author, Work and Workers: Life of Women in South China The Chinese Recorder, July 1929, pp.470-471.
23
Fu Liang Chang, Religious Education and the Rural Church The Chinese Recorder, January 1930, pp.18-22.
24
William A. Brown, The Protestant Rural Movement In China (1927-1937) in Liu Kwang-Ching (ed.) American
Missionaries in China, Papers from Harvard Seminars (Cambridge, Massachusetts, East Asian Research Centre
Harvard University, Harvard University Press, 1966) p.222.
21

committee to investigate rural economic conditions, rural

evangelism, the village primary school in relation to the church, rural
churches as possible community centresagricultural education and
extension, agricultural institutions and the possibilities of a rural
medical service.25 The N.C.C was an organisation clearly influenced
by the social gospel.
Hugh Hubbard, an ABCFM missionary linked what was
beginning to be called the Literacy Movement, with an evangelistic
drive in rural areas, and rural reconstruction. Hubbard identified the
James Yens Mass Education Movement (MEM) from Ting Hsien in
Hopei, as a successful way to increase literacy through the Thousand
Character classes. Hubbard argued that increased literacy opens a
new door for the Masses into abundant life, through which all poor
Christians may become intelligent and the intelligent poor may
become Christian.26 In an article in June 1931, Dr Kenyon
Butterfield gave a list of what the priorities of the church in Rural
China should be. The first was unsurprisingly Evangelism and
Religious Education, followed by Education. Under education, the
article argued for a completely literate churchfor every child a
primary education sufficient for a permanent literacycontinuing
education for all, both young and old, literate and illiterate. Health,
livelihood, recreation, and the needs of women and girls followed in
that order.27
The Christian churches had gained respect through leadership
by their initiative in matters of public welfare. In an article in
February 1932, the author argued for moving on from education and
directly into literacy efforts. The relationship over education between
the churches and the Kuomintang government was troubled
throughout the Nanjing Decade. By moving on to literacy as their
main focus, missions will still contribute toward the raising of

25

Brown, p.223.
Hugh Hubbard, The Literacy Movement Gathers Momentum The Chinese Recorder, January 1931, pp.37-40.
27
Kenyon Butterfield, The Christian Church in Rural China The Chinese Recorder, June 1931, p.342.
26

educational standards among rural people and will open a door of

opportunity for evangelism.28 O. J Goulter argued on June 1933 that
educational opportunities were of great service to villages. A free
night school in the area he is working in (not identified) was very
popular with men and women. Goulter also argues that schools are
door openers par excellence and prepare the way for some other step
in the rural program.29
Debates over the morality of providing material help occurred
in the CR. Social services were powerful tools of evangelism. The
power of social help was to evangelism so apparent that missionaries
had been tempted to use education and medicine simply as bait.30
An article by with no author described the Huping Private Middle
School near Yochow in Hunan province. The school, run by the
Reformed Church of the United States (Part of the Church of Christ in
China, the CCC) had as its statement of purpose to promote interest
in rural life and to extend the benefits of agricultural research and
social uplift (emphasis mine) to rural communities. Reading, writing,
hygiene and agriculture were all taught to farmer boys eighteen to
twenty five years of age.31 In a The Present Situation column, it was
argued that Rural China needed to have the focus of Christian leaders
on education, to improve the rural condition. The article in the CR
mentions that there are two ways to improve rural conditions:
education through the MEM or the alternative of communism.32
James A. Hunter, writing in May 1933 argued strongly for
education to help improve rural life, particularly that of children.
Hunter also argued that agricultural education alone will not improve
the rural social environment. Evangelists must not rely on the gospel
alone and through the church must endeavour to establish

28

B.M Flory, New Foundations of Chinese Church The Chinese Recorder February 1932, p.85.
O.J Goulter, The Crucial Problem of Rural Missions The Chinese Recorder, June 1933, p.367
30
J.S Kunkle, Religion in Rural Community The Chinese Recorder, July 1933 p.426.
31
No Author, Work and Workers: Preparing Students For Village Leadership The Chinese Recorder,
September 1933,p.616
32
No Author. The Present Situation: Kuliang Religious Education Conference, October 1933, p.685.
29

communities through the country which will be self-perpetuating

because they contain the true leaven of altruistic and mutual service
for the good of all Hunter wrote.33 Fu Liang Chang, a Chinese
Christian intensely involved in rural reconstruction efforts, argued in
a long article in 1934 for a joined up, broad approach to dealing with
rural problems. Rather than agriculture, education and health efforts
all being made by separate departments of Government in rural areas,
Chang wanted an approach that considered both spiritual, social, and
material needs.34
The next opinion is from an unsigned article which describes
bible schools for men and women in Fenchow, Shansi, which were
then combined into one middle school. The school provided a variety
of schools that improved rural life, combining practical subjects
(economics, health, agriculture, and sociology) with the religious
education that Christians wanted to provide. Literacy courses, a
library, and mass education had become part of village.35 An article in
1935 records progress of the Rural Service Center of the North China
American Board Mission, and a survey of that work by a Reverend S.
H. Leger from the viewpoint of religious education. The Rural
Service Center was located in Tunghsien, Hopei and the Rev. Leger
looked positively on their activities: agricultural fairs, a winter short
term farmers course, and schools for church workers. There was a
focus on agricultural work, horticulture and animal husbandry. The
article notes these efforts were a success because they had focussed
on both of the word or relationship, by both preaching the gospel
and providing active help. The active help took the form of literacy,
family, agricultural and economic help. The kind of rural
reconstruction going on, to quote the CR quoting Rev. Leger may be
thought of with reference to the many sided development of the

33

James A. Hunter, The Church As Rural Rebuilder, The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.288.
Fu Liang Chang, What Must Christian Leaders Know? The Chinese Recorder, September 1934, pp.558-560.
35
No Author The Present Situation: A Ruralised Bible Training School The Chinese Recorder, May 1935,
pp.315-316.
34

10

individual and social life towards the Christian ideal, and was a form
of the social gospel in action.36
A part of the November 1935 editorial opens with the forceful
line the mind of China is set on liquidating the illiteracy. It credits
James Yens MEM with leading the drive to reduce illiteracy, in
which there had been long Christian engagement. Mass education had
begun to receive strong government support; forty eight percent of the
1935 government education budget was to go into free popular
education like the MEM program. Education programs are mentioned
as opening up in Szechwan, Shanghai and Hunan. As important as the
MEM was, the plan of the government was to provide free education
for school age children, and the beginnings of a state education
system was planned. By attempting to make more children literate
with free schooling, and more adults literate with free popular
education, illiteracy could be eliminated.37
In another editorial article on illiteracy, it clarifies that the
forty eight percent of the education budget is to go into free education
for school age children. The schemes now included free schools
opening in Shantung and Kwangtung. It again reiterates the
governments goals of creating a free State school system, and trying
to get to grips with the problems of illiteracy.38 Frank Wilson Price, a
Presbyterian Church of the United States Missionary, wrote in the
recorder on the connections between evangelism, education and rural
reconstruction. Price emphasises service in the community as the
beginnings of evangelism, but is worried that if some Christians
provided help to people without explaining that it is their Christian
faith that inspired them to help others, the efforts are pointless. Only a
better evangelism, Price argues, of providing social assistance and
being open about the Christian faith, was the kind acceptable to him.

36

No Author The Present Situation: Putting Religion Into Life, The Chinese Recorder, June 1935,p.376-377
The Editor Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1935, pp.645-646.
38
The Editor, Editorial: Chinas Drive Against Illiteracy, The Chinese Recorder, January 1936, p.3.
37

11

Price was especially concerned with Christian ideas being used to

form groups that were theologically unsound to him.39
The December 1936 editorial describes a meeting of the
Y.M.C.A that has been scheduled after its World Conference in India,
to focus on rural issues. It notes the good programs the Y.W.C.A and
the Y.M.C.A had implemented at Fu Shan, Shantung and Toi Shan (in
Kwangtung) but laments the attention the two Ys (among other
Christian groups) had placed on education, medicine and helping
youth rather than strengthening Christian churches. The CR editorial
instead favours more village-oriented rural reconstruction measures
that work more directly with the Church. The editorial approving
highlights the provincial government of Kiangsi province which
focussed on village self-government, village self-protection,
education and economic improvement. A rural church with a rural
focus stood the best chance of evangelising Chinese souls.40
F. E Baguley, a scientist and London Missionary Society
missionary based in Hankow, Hupeh, offered his assessment of what
had been done by Christian education in China. Baguley has a
positive view of illiteracy initiatives and credits the Christian
churches for driving the effort, he also warns that there will be no
more Y.M.C.A government Christian education has already
ceased to count as an important influence in the direction of public
affairs. Baguely then makes the point that the amount of people
made literate by such schemes was small compared to the large
population, but Christians should continue to try and improve the
education of the Chinese people because it is the correct Christian
thing to do. The major reason why mission schools seemed to still be
favoured by some Chinese according to Baguley was the valuable
teaching of English to students in Christian schools.41

39

F.W Price, Evangelism and Religious Education The Chinese Recorder, April 1936, pp.232-233.
The Editor Editorial: Meeting the New Challenge in China The Chinese Recorder, December 1936, p.736.
41
F.E Baguley A Newcomer Views Christian Education The Chinese Recorder, February 1937, p.79-81.
40

12

The final article on education is an article that has been

translated from Chinese and is not undersigned by any author. It is a
fascinating and long article on educational work done at Yutang, a
rural district twenty kilometres south of Shanghai. Run and funded by
a Mrs New Yong-kee (formerly Wang Mei-sai) a devoted Chinese
Christian, and married to a Kuomintang politician Mr New Yong-kee.
The Yutang project ran five initiatives devoted to improving rural
conditions, with a special emphasis on women. The first is a womens
self-help institute which focused on general knowledge and technical
education. The next is a nursery school where unemployed young
men learned a mixture of practical agriculture and classroom learning.
The nursery school had not been effective due to a high drop-out rate.
The third measure is the standard MEM classes. The next is the
Womens Household Discussion Association, where women were
divided into groups to discuss the problems of their households and
learn from each other. The final initiative in Yutang is The Directory
Committee of the Educational Work of Yutang functioning as an
agency of co-ordination. Though the article is positive about Yutang,
it seems to have been managed very bureaucratically.42
Despite the hostility from the Kuomintang government and
other Chinese Nationalists, social gospel initiatives in education did
take place, though it was difficult. Initiatives in rural education,
primary schooling, womens education and literacy were successful
when they were used. However, missionary efforts suffered due to a
lack of resources and government hostility to teaching religion
alongside other more practical subjects. Education efforts seem to
have been carried out right up until the beginnings of War with Japan,
and missionaries viewed their education efforts with wary optimism.
Rural Health
In Charles Hayfords book on James Yen, the major rural
reconstruction expert, there is a description of a rural health program
42

No Author (Translated) Chinese Christian Women Rebuilder The Chinese Recorder June 1937, pp.366-369.

13

in Yens Homebase of Ting Hsien. It would be a model for health

initiatives that sought to propagate the social gospel which would
follow. The program included posters and a week of lectures, clinical
demonstrations, vaccinations, and observation.43 In James
Thomsons When China Faced West, Thomson records that when
George Shepherd, a rural reconstruction expert had been brought into
Lichuan, Jiangxi after the Communists had fled to rebuild it, experts
assessed the health of the peasants. Two Methodist women found the
peasantry suffered from malnutrition, diseases, and poor sanitation.44
This section attempts to locate the social gospel within medical and
health initiatives.
The Chinese Medical Association opened its nineteenth
biennial conference in February 1929. In the first part of the meeting
a State Health Service modelled on that of India was called for, for
China which would provide services to personal health, advice on
how to avoid disease, and sanitation. Government health officials
were present to observe the proceedings. The conference at its end
moved six motions, the second of which was about rural health. The
motion asked that the Missionary Division of the Chinese Medical
Association move to employ at each hospital a health educator to go
out to rural areas and spread the work of health education. It passed.45
Emma Horning, a Brethren Church missionary based in
Sanyuan, Shensi wrote about Hygiene and Evangelism at length in
January 1930. In the community where Horning lived the majority of
the babies die of tetanus before they are ten days old. Why? Because
of unsanitary, superstitious care of the child.46 Tuberculosis was also
present. Dwellings were poorly ventilated. Bathing was rare, except
for very warm days when the risk of catching a chill was lower. The
43

Charles Hayford, To The People: James Yen and Village China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1990)
p.132-133.
44
James C. Thomson Jr, While China Faced West: American Reformers in Nationalist China, 1928-1937
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,1969) p.106
45
No Author The Present Situation: China Medical Association Conference The Chinese Recorder, March
1929, pp.195-196.
46
Emma Horning, Hygenie and Evangelism The Chinese Recorder, January 1930, pp.39-40.

14

gospel was taught alongside modern sanitation and hygiene. Horning

links the good physical hygiene with the mental hygiene of Jesus, a
clean body and a clean soul.47 Later in the year in March 1930,
Horning extolls the virtues of field work. Disease treatment, hygiene
and health education are forms of medical evangelism and Horning
looked forward to providing help to the untouched millions in the
villages.48
The next few articles analysed are about health education. The
first article of interest is in May 1932. An office of the West China
Council on Health Education is described with charts on all the all the
walls for people to read, and exhibits on health. The centre combines
medical education with rural evangelism.49 In May 1933 Fu Liang
Chang wrote about the need for simple posters and booklets for
distribution. Small boxes of home remedies should be purchased and
distributed by church laypeople. Cleanliness should be taught in the
church and then extended out to public areas.50 Reverend F.H
Crumpacker, a Brethren missionary based in Ting Ping, urges much
the same things as Fu Liang Chang: vaccinations, lectures on health,
literature distribution, clinics and to teach the people about
ventilation. Crumpacker was particularly concerned that people could
have been breathing in chimney smoke.51
A project of the Presbyterian Union Medical College in rural
health involved a nurse being dispatched to villages to dispense
remedies for minor ailments. The nurses and a doctor would go out to
the village of Ching Ho to provide the medical help. An attempt to
train midwives was also underway.52 Dorothy M. Doidge, a United
Methodist church member writing in July 1933 argued for
preventative medicine in the form of ante natal clinics, clinics for

47

Ibid.
Emma Horning. Research Spirit in Christian Work The Chinese Recorder, March 1930, p.170.
49
No Author, The Present Situation The Chinese Recorder, May 1932, p.322.
50
Fu Liang Chang, Christian Leaven, The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.279-281.
51
F.H Crumpacker, Urgent Needs In Rural Improvement The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.289.
52
No Author, The Present Situation The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.324.
48

15

infant welfare, course[s] in first aid and nursing. Once these

preventative medical measures were established in the big towns, they
could have been expanded out to rural areas once funds were found to
support expansion.53
Meanwhile in Chengtu in Szechwan, the United Church of
Canada reported that National Health week was celebrated with great
interest in Chengtu. The churches sponsored special services where
the sermon was given by a doctor or a dentist. The Red Cross, the
Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A all spoke at additional services, talking about
health. Public lectures were given and children under three were
weighed to ensure they were at a healthy weight.54 One of the most
pressing needs for rural women was health, according to Josephine
Brown, a staff member of the National Committee of the Y.W.C.A.
Women in rural areas suffered from a lack of sanitation, little
knowledge about personal hygiene and the difficulty of childbirth.
Women found it hard to leave the home, which added the extra
complexity of medical help needing to visit them in their homes.55
Edward H. Hume, was a distinguished medical missionary
from the Yale in China centre in Changsa, Hunan Province. Hume in
June 1935 gave an appraisal on Christian Medicine in China as he
saw it. Hume believed that the government valued mission hospitals
because it could not afford to replace them. Plans for provincial health
schemes, the first of which would be in Hunan, had been approved by
the government. Plans were being made to allocate resources more
effectively in each region. Local hospital boards were being set up
with local missions leading the way. Public health campaigns for
vaccinations were taking place. The Christian Churches and Christian
Hospitals were working together to try work together in a common
purpose. Hume argues that the Christian Church and the Christian

53

Dorothy M.Doidge, Use of Western Christian Money, The Chinese Recorder, July 1933, p.442.
No Author, The Present Situation: News From West China The Chinese Recorder, September 1933, pp.610611.
55
Josephine Brown, Needs of Rural Women, The Chinese Recorder, February 1934, p.95.
54

16

Hospital should link themselves together in their single religious

service, and to become so rooted in the community as to belong there,
endearing themselves to all the men, women and children that make
up the local citizenship.56
Hume is mentioned again nearly a year later in April 1936. Dr
Hume was still attempting to create a national health program, and to
get the churches to focus on the Christian component of their medical
objectives. Hume argued that the vast need of the rural regions calls
for health promotion through rural reconstruction units, seeming to
agree with healthcare as a form of social reconstruction and social
gospel for rural areas.57 Ralph A. Felton, a rural expert visiting the
Nanking theological seminary, wrote about what was needed to
improve health for rural Chinese Christians. Felton advocated for the
setting of a council with representatives from all the groups within a
village, including the health centre. Felton then elaborates on what
rural pastors can do to improve the health of their congregation: hang
health charts in the church, deliver vaccinations in the church and the
pastor may occasionally preach on health. Improving public health
and hygiene can be improved through community action and
education. Felton also argued that as well as improving the physical
health, a good rural pastor needs to confront the poverty caused by
poor agricultural practices and illiteracy.58
In June 1937, Margaret Shih (Shih Hung-Yueh),who was head
of the Department of Health at the University of Cheeloo Village
Service Centre, at Langshun in Shantung, wrote a long article about
the Church and Rural Health.59 Public health had risen to become a
greatest ally of the medical profession in alleviating the health
problems of society. Personal hygiene and preventative medicine had
made great advances in public health, which was part of the rural
56

Edward H. Hume, Christian Medicine In The New Day in China June 1935, pp.346-350
No Author, The Present Situation, The Chinese Recorder, April 1936, p.251.
58
Ralph A. Felton, Whats Right With the Chinese Rural Church, The Chinese Recorder, December 1936, pp.737739.
59
Margaret Shih, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937, p.359.
57

17

reconstruction program.60 China had a very large population of 400

million people, and the death rate was believed to be 12.6 million
people a year, twice the rate of Western Countries. A third of deaths
were mothers and children. Most of the other deaths occurred due to
diseases that were easily preventable with vaccination or proper
sanitation. Shih believed that as Christians, members of the church
should support rural reconstruction to save lives.61
Margaret Shih then elaborated what her plans for health-oriented
reform would have been, which werea combined church and church
hospital, with short training for those engaging in health work,
especially mothers. A national health program, like that wanted by
Edward H. Hume was also wanted. In schools, centres should be set
up to assess the health of children, provide health education and
improve sanitation at school, and in homes. Maternity care should
also be implemented. Communicable diseases in the event of an
outbreak should be managed to lower the risk of other people falling
ill. Finally, Shih wanted regular public health campaigns with help
from the church.62 Shih was held back by the lack of doctors and
nurses to provide health personnel to run these proposed initiatives.63
Experiments in rural medicine and public health were
successful social gospel initiatives. However their scope and funding
issues limited their effectiveness. Efforts were undertaken in
vaccination, sanitation, dentistry, nursing, nutrition and midwifery.
The attempts to improve the health of rural peasants in the
countryside was hampered by the superstitions of the peasants, lack of
resources, inadequate medical personnel, and Chinas large
population. Doctors and nurses were also unwilling to go out to the
countryside in large numbers, due to other dangers like bandits.

60

Shih, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937, p.359.
Shih, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937 p.360.
62
Shih, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937 p.361.
63
Shih, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937pp.361-362.
61

18

Nevertheless, missionaries again seemed cautiously optimistic that

social gospel initiatives in health would be successful in time.
Disaster Relief and Prevention
The major non-governmental organisation that involved itself with
relieving and preventing famine in 1920s and 1930s China was the
China International Famine Relief Commission (CIFRC). On 21
February 1921 the Peking United International Famine Relief
Committee, which was at the time dealing with the 1920-1921
famine, moved a motion to create the CIFRC which would pool the
resources of eight famine relief funds to make them more effective. 64
In setting out its policies, it is clear that the CIFRC envisioned itself
as working more toward the prevention of famine than relief of
famines. It explicitly set out to improve the economic conditions
under which most Chinese people lived. The CIFRC operated under
five active principles: that it would intervene in the cases of naturally
caused hardship not just death, that relief would be provided for work
on famine relief projects, that labour projects should have provided an
economic benefit for the community, that communities economically
benefiting from labour projects should pay the CIFRC back, and that
active flood prevention work should be done.65 What I am looking for
is whether evidence of the social gospel can be found in disaster relief
and prevention initiatives.
The February 1930 editorial of the CR opened with two
sentences on the 1928-1930 North China Famine that would set the
tone for the remainder of the decade Free relief for famine victims is
indispensable. But it is not enough. Famines recur.66 Drought was
the major cause of famine in Northwest China and the editorial argues
that imagination should be applied to the problem of droughts. Tests
had begun at the American Board Mission at Kenchow, Shansi to find

64

Andrew Nathan,A History of The China International Famine Relief Commission (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, East Asian Research Centre Harvard University, Harvard University Press, 1965) p.11.
65
Nathan, A History of the China International Famine Relief Commission, pp.14-16.
66
The Editor Editorial: Famine Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, February 1930, pp.70-72.

19

seeds and crops that could resist drought and import them into China.
In an experiment where 100 farms in Shansi used the seed, the crop
yield doubled or even quadrupled.The editorial commented that here
is something that means permanent prevention of famine! It took time
and grit to discover it. The church had become involved in famine
prevention to save lives.67
The second part of the February 1930 editorial on famine
prevention encouraged Christian co-operation to prevent future
famines. Agricultural conditions needed to be studied in depth. Seeds
that could potentially saves the lives of many people were a better
investment of funds into schemes that improved the lives of the
average farmer only marginally. The editorial believes that the money
given directly to farmers is usually wasted and the various agencies
set up to administer famine help were inefficient and did not cooperate effectively. It was hoped that famine prevention agencies
would begin to co-operate to concentrate their experience and fund,
and that the newly set up North China Agricultural Institute would
hopefully serve the purpose.68 In an article in August 1930, Robert F.
Fitch, Emeritus President of Hangchow College (and acting editor of
the CR while Frank Rawlinson was on leave) wrote about the need to
move from famine relief to famine prevention. Fitch believed that
education in forestry, soil and crops could greatly improve rural life.69
An editorial in March 1931 notes the generosity of American
donors for relieving the 1920-1921 famine had exceeded the
donations that were received for the (then) current 1931 China
Floods. Although donations were not as forthcoming as in the past,
the CIFRC noted that eight percent of donations had been received
from American sources.70 Reflecting on the floods and what had
caused them in November 1932, George G. Stroebe, a hydraulic

67

Ibid.
Ibid.
69
Robert F.Fitch, The Slaughter Of The Innocents The Chinese Recorder, August 1930,p.498.
70
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, March 1931, pp.139-141.
68

20

engineer, stated that heavy rainfall in June, July and August of 1931
when the Yangtze and Hwai rivers were already high had caused the
flood, which covered an area the size of England.71 When it came to
drought it was also reported that in the search for the potential loan to
fund famine relief, American interest was commercial, not
humanitarian. The drought resistant seeds in Shansi previously
mentioned were again written about. The famine prevention project
had ended in mixed results when farmers, distrustful of the seeds had
planted them with millet, or not planted them in the right soil. The
seeds had not germinated due to poor communication, not due to poor
seeds. A positive had been that new varieties of drought resistant
Kaoliang had proven to be a success in the dry Northwest.72
The government was believed to be supportive of famine
relief and prevention. Irrigation schemes were planned for north of
the Wei river. The Satachu Canal was built by the CIFRC with the
help of uniformed soldiers. The provincial governments of Chekiang
and Kiangsu had agreed to work on plant breeding work another
form of famine prevention to be patterned after that of Nanking
University and have secured Dr H. H Love of the Department of Plant
Breeding, Cornell University, to assist them for three years.73 The
Editor of the CR made it known in the November 1932 editorial that
famine relief was a special focus for the issue. Many of the authors
who had written for the Chinese Recorder in the past had long
experience in helping with famine relief. It then moved on to the say
that the best thing the CIFRC had done has was to be devoting its
main efforts toward famine prevention rather than almsgiving, and its
greatest work by far had been along the lines of constructive service.
Christians did need to respond to suffering of course, like they had to
foot binding and opium addiction, but prevention was need to prevent

71

George G. Stroebe, The Great Central China Flood of 1931 The Chinese Recorder, November 1932, pp.667668.
72
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, March 1931, pp.139-141.
73
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1931, p.676.

21

further needless human suffering. Practical prevention work was

favoured by the writers of the CR as the best response to famine.74
O. J (Oliver Julian) Todd was the Chief Engineer of the
CIFRC, who offered an experienced, detailed view of Famine
Prevention in November 1932. Todd wrote about reducing the
poverty hazard, the notion that famine sufferers would become
dependent on famine relief. Agricultural improvement was one of the
suggestions. Todd also mentions small industries, rural credit
societies, education, and hospital work and roading projects as being
good initiatives to help prevent famine. Famine prevention served
many purposes. It helped to prevent further disasters, it provided jobs
and training, as well as wages into local economies. The most critical
work was in flood prevention. Dyke building provided employment
and helped to stop future floods.75 H.D Lamson, a Baptist missionary,
wrote in May 1933 of the advancement in medicine that would have
prevented contagious diseases that killed famine victims even if they
survived the initial disaster. Famine prevention had made progress in
the form of irrigation, dykes and transport networks.76
Fu Liang Chang also had thoughts on disaster prevention and
rehabilitation, stating that so long as China is run over recurrently by
famine and so long as the rural giant is dwarfed by degenerating
poverty, the abundant life, which Jesus came to the world to give to
all men, is hopelessly beyond the reach of her teeming millions.
Relief work only gave famine victims temporary assistance. Chang
argued for rehabilitation and famine prevention, to be carried out
through the rural programs of the Church.77
Two long articles by the same author appeared in September
1936, and then in July 1937 in the CR. Dr J. E (John Earl) Baker was

74

The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1932, pp.661-662.

O.J Todd, Some Altruistic Aspects of Famine Prevention Work, The Chinese Recorder, November 1932,
pp.680-684.
76
H.D Lamson, Social Problems and The Christian Movement, The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.299.
77
Fu Liang Chang, Uplift Chinas Dwarfed Giant, The Chinese Recorder, January 1934, p.13.
75

22

the Director of the American Red Cross China Famine Relief

Commission. The first longer article was an in-depth and detailed
review of famine relief and prevention since 1920. Beginning in the
early 1920s, the American Red Cross and the CIFRC adopted a policy
of paying for famine relief and expecting work from those receiving
relief, which then changed to pursuing active policies of preventing
famines.78 Highways were built by famine prevention schemes in
1930 in Shensi and then in 1934 in Kansu. These highways were
popular with central and provincial governments. The roads allowed
for easier confrontation of the Communists and bandits. It also aided
commerce by providing a transport network for goods.79
The other methods of famine prevention concerned mainly the
control of water, and the providing of credit. The primary method of
river control was the construction of dykes and dyke maintenance. By
doing so, crops were protected for local harvests. Due to the
decentralised nature of the control of the dyke system, it was difficult
to improve one dyke without creating pressure on another dyke
elsewhere. The responsibility for repairing the dyke system after the
1931 Yangtze flood and the 1935 Yellow river flood eventually
reverted to the government.80 Credit was lent out to farmers in Hopei
in 1931, just before the Yangtze flood of 1931. The credit was then
used to help rehabilitate farms and rebuild businesses. The scheme
was so successful that the CIFRC expanded credit into rural areas and
almost all of it was paid back. The government eventually took over
the scheme and added the production of cotton, animal husbandry
projects and improved seeds.81
The second article by J. E Baker is from July 1937. Baker
again gives an overview of the methods and success of famine relief
and prevention. Public improvements, highways, dykes, irrigation and

78

J.E Baker, Growth of Famine Relief and Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, September 1936, pp.562-563.
Baker, Growth of Famine Relief and Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, September 1936, p.563.
80
Baker, Growth of Famine Relief and Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, September 1936, p.564.
81
Baker, Growth of Famine Relief and Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, September 1936, p.567.
79

23

rural credit/aid had helped lift rural areas up. The policies of CIFRC
had been adopted by the government and Baker argued A National
Famine Relief Bureau and National Relief Reserve witness that the
government accepts, within broad limits, responsibility for preserving
lives of the people when threatened by natural disasters.82 What
Baker calls for is a national organisation along the lines of the
American Red Cross to co-ordinate in every area volunteer groups of
citizens who would prepare for, and immediately get to work in, the
event of an emergency. During the time that there is no emergency,
these volunteers would focus on rural improvement, in other words
famine prevention.83 Disaster relief had come full circle in China,
from passive relief in the face of famine, to actively working to
prevent it with famine prevention measures.
Efforts in disaster relief and prevention do show evidence of
the social gospel in action. The CIFRC was formed in the early 1920s
with the explicit aim of preventing further natural disasters through
preventative action. During the 1928-1930 North China Famine, and
the 1931 Yangtze and Hwai river floods, these efforts were at the
forefront of famine relief. Preventative action was then carried out to
try and lift the economic livelihood of the peasantry. Eventually,
famine and disaster prevention efforts became part of larger rural
reconstruction efforts and became subsumed into government
bureaucracy. The way Missionaries writing in the CR viewed disaster
relief and prevention changed as time went on, from passive relief, to
aggressive preventative action.
Views of Communism in The Chinese Recorder
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was one of the largest threats to
Christian missionaries from 1929 to 1937. However views of the CCP
were not the same among all missionaries, and those views sometimes
changed. In 1927 the CCP left the United Front they had formed with

82
83

J.E Baker, New Areas of Relief, The Chinese Recorder, July 1937, p.417.
Baker, New Areas of Relief, The Chinese Recorder, July 1937, p.420.

24

the Kuomintang, and moved away from urban revolution to a

philosophy of peasant-led rural revolution, favoured by Mao
Tsetung.84 In 1931 the Chinese Soviet Republic was formed by the
CCP in Kiangsi, a rural soviet which would last until 1934. It was in
1934 that Chiang Kai-Sheks fifth encirclement and annihilation
campaign took place, forcing the CCP to abandon the Kiangsi Soviet,
and begin their Long March to Yanan.85 Even as early as 1934, Chou
En-Lai within the CCP was discussing a new United Front with the
Kuomintang, but it would not be realised until after the Sian incident,
when Chiang was kidnapped by the warlord Chang Hsueh-Liang and
forced to forge a truce with the CCP which began to break down
previous Kuomintang hostility towards the CCP (though it was not
formally solidified until April 1937).86 James Thomson put it best
when he argued that the view of Communism among missionaries
was that the reaction was complex: outrage at its godlessness,
revulsion from its brutality, but sympathy for its note of social protest,
and respect for its desire to change the world.87 In this section I am
looking for evidence of the diversity of views on the Communists in
the CR.
An article by Archie T. L Tsen, a Nanking businessman
argued that most anti-Christian hostility in Shensi is because of
Communist agitation. In the city of Sian, the Communists attempted
to take hold of the missions property in the city, even writing a letter
asking for it to be lent to them. The missionaries held out hope that by
improving the situation, Communists could be led to Christ.88 In the
editorial beginning 1930, the author argues that both Christianity and
Communism are largely failing to win Chinas best youth;
84

Jean Chesneaux, Francoise Le Barbier, Marie-Claire Bergere, China from The 1911 Revolution to Liberation
trans. Paul Auster, Lydia Davis, and Anne Destenay (New York, Pantheon Books, 1977) p.212
85
Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from 1800s to 2000 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002)
pp.261,266-267.
86
Jerome Chen, The Communist movement 1927-1937 Decade In Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert
(eds.) The Cambridge History of China Volume 13: Republican China 19121949, Part 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1986) pp.221, 226-229.
87
Thomson, While China Faced West, p40.
88
Archie T.L Tsen, Chinese Mission in Shensi The Chinese Recorder, January 1929, pp.45-46.

25

Communism because it threatens the foundations of society and

Christianity because it is assumed quite wrongly! that is
indifferent to social weal, putting both causes on equal basis in the
contest to attract young people.89 Dr Timothy Tingfang Lew,
Assistant Chancellor of Yenching University, criticized the efforts to
engage with Communism, believing they had led to chaos. Dr Lew
was especially worried that young people and working people had
begun to think along Communist lines, even if Communist
organisations had been chased away.90
W. E Wilkinson. Secretary of the Peiping Y.M.C.A in 1930,
argued that intelligent Chinese students are attracted to Communism
because it provides a simple view of the world by dividing it into two
classes, and promises utopia when the proletariat overthrow the
bourgeoisie. In dividing the world in two, Wilkinson argued that
Communism copied Christianity which divides the world into
believers and non-believers. Wilkinson also believed that
Communism was winning the allegiance of Chinese students. The
solution proposed by Wilkinson is that students need to learn what
both Communism and Christianity are in-depth, so they know what
the weaknesses of Communism are, and what the strengths of
Christianity are, in argument. Wilkinson wants Christians to have an
intelligent and sympathetic knowledge of Communism, and a new
Apologetic for Christianity in face of these new claims.91
Dr Rowland M. Cross, at the end of 1930, articulated what
Christianity disagreed with about Communism in three points. Firstly,
that Communism was violent in contradiction to Christianity, which
in theory was for peace. Secondly, that Communism destroys
individualism, and Christians believed in saving individual souls. The
final point Dr Cross raised is that Communism prohibits freedom of

89

The Editor Editorial The Chinese Recorder, January 1930, p.5.

Timothy Tingfang Lew, Changing Intellectual and Social Conditions The Chinese Recorder, August 1930,
p.485.
91
W.E Wilkinson, Christian Students The Chinese Recorder, August 1930, pp.490-493.
90

26

speech. The only way to fight Communism was to pursue a program

of social reconstruction, and to adopt an aggressive use of the printed
word like the Communists.92
At the beginning of 1932, Communism was on the mind of the
editors of the CR. The author of the article made the argument that
both Communism and Christianity aimed for a more human and
fairer social order than now obtains and that Communism aims at
economic minus spiritual freedom; Christianitys social aim includes
both.93 The author continues to argue that only Christianity can
socially reconstruct China, but that Communism, with its relentless
energy and clear aims, was a powerful enemy. Only by offering a
better program of social reconstruction could Christianity hope to
win.94 Nettie Mabelle Singer, a Brethren missionary in Liaochow,
Shansi, wrote in June 1932 that the reason the Communists were
winning the fight for Chinese souls was because Communists are
ready to suffer and die for their cause.95 The Communists thought
about the welfare of ordinary people, and had created a program
designed to appeal to people whose needs were not being meet.96
An editorial by the CR in 1932 seeks to educate its reader
about what they should know about Communism and where
Christians disagree with it. The first is that Communism itself is not
necessarily Atheistic, but the Marxian Communism adopted by
Chinese Communists is. The others are common themes previously
discussed in this dissertation: the Communists use of violence, the
loss of individuality, and the loss of liberty. Yet again, the solution
called for the creation of a better society, and to fight the Communists
is a society reorganised on the principles of Jesus, scientifically

92

Rowland M.Cross, The Present Situation: Communism Vs Christianity, The Chinese Recorder, December
1930, p.796-797.
93
The Editor Editorial, The Chinese Recorder, January 1932, p.4.
94
Ibid.
95
Nettie Mabelle Singer, The Gospel of Abundant Life, The Chinese Recorder, June 1932, p.363.
96
Ibid.

27

applied. It could be argued that the CR is calling for the social

gospel to be vigorously applied.97
The CR argued that in order to improve, rural China needed
the attention of Christian leaders concerned with the education of the
people of this country98 The education issue could be resolved in two
ways: through Christian involved efforts like the MEM, or by
Communism. The Rev. George Shepherd, a New Zealand-American
missionary in Fukien, believed that the Communists had some
success in the province because of the high taxes put on everything by
officials and tax collectors.99
Y.T. Wu, a Y.M.CA secretary, wanted to make Christianity
socially dynamic, but he did not, he argued, like to call it the Social
Gospel, as if there were some other gospel that was not social.
Religion goes through all the phases of mans life like warp through
the woof; and it is necessarily social.100 The argument about the
social function of the church continued, with the threat of
Communism in the background.101 The editorial of April 1934 stated
that those who did not wish to deal with the problems of the world
could retreat into religious life, but in doing so would not confront the
social problems that needed to be confronted. The statement is also
made that Capitalism is suspect; Communism is violent and
suppressive. But Christianity has many Capitalists within its fold and
the Communists strive for an application of the Golden Rule that
Christians cannot ignore (emphasis mine)102
In the June 1934 issue of the CR, two lengthy articles
appeared. The first of these was a long editorial asking the Christians
readership to move Beyond Communism. Christians were seeking
to increase economic equality like the Communists, but wanted to
97

The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, September 1932, p.536.

No Author, The Present Situation, The Chinese Recorder, October 1933, p.685.
99
Ibid.
100
Y.T Wu, Make Christianity Socially Dynamic The Chinese January 1934, p.10.
101
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, April 1934, p.215.
102
Ibid.
98

28

work beyond that goal. Christianity was willing to question the

inequalities of Capitalism, without destroying it. The editorial also
reports that Fu Liang Chang of the N.C.C had been requested to help
Kiangsi by the government, using rural reconstruction techniques now
that the Communists had been forced out. Christians admired and
shared the Communist drive to create a better economic life, but
deplored their political methods. The editorial ultimately argues that
although the Communists could improve economic life, they would
destroy the social life that Christians seek to improve through their
good works.103
The second long article from the June 1934 issue of the CR is
by Lewis S.C Smythe, who taught Sociology at Nanking University.
Smythe argued that Communism presented Christianity with its
greatest challenge. Communism and Christianity shared a sympathy
for improving the position of the common people and changing the
social order. Smythe also believed that if the Communists were
successful in China, the Communist Party would form an oligarchy
resembling that of the Churches of Western Europe during Medieval
times. Smythe argued that an opportunity to show it can do better than
the Communists had presented itself in the form of the reclaim
Kiangsi province. Reconstruction work in rural areas on the economy,
education, health and communities of rural Kiangsi would win these
areas to Christianity after years of Communist rule. Ultimately,
Smythe argued that Communism challenges Christianity everywhere
in the world to make more effective in social, economic and political
life the brother hood that it proclaims so that all men who desire to
live the better and more abundant life will be helped in doing so.104
An article the next year in 1935 by T.L Lin, a Professor of
Political Science and History at Fukien University, was far less
conciliatory towards Communism. The areas of Anhwei, Kiangsi and
Fukien had been under Communist control until the fifth encirclement
103
104

The Editor Editorial: Beyond Communism, The Chinese Recorder, June 1934, pp.343-348.
Lewis S.C Smythe, Communism Challenges Christianity!, The Chinese Recorder, June 1934, pp.354-359.

29

and annihilation campaign drove them out. Most of Fukien province

had for a long time been governed by the Communists. Lin argued
that the main cause of communism in China is not merely political
or economic; it is social.105 The provincial government, in
attempting to reconstruct the province, had begun administering farm
loans, and to sort out confusing land tenure problems. Education
initiatives in citizenship duties and teacher training had also been
undertaken by the provincial government. Smythe cautioned that it
must be remembered that all such measures must be undertaken with
social reconstruction as their final goal in order to prove that
Christianity could rebuild the social order than the Communists.106
Jonathan Spence argues that the Long March became a
powerful propaganda tool for the CCP, with Mao using it as a weapon
against Chiang Kai-Shek. Spence also argues that millions of the
Chinese people had no ideological commitment and were waiting to
see who won the conflict.107 It was at this time the Guomindang, who
had yet to find an appealing ideology that could combat the
Communists, in convincing the Guomindang realised that the
students, the intellectuals, and especially the urban workers were to be
convincedsome means more effective than intellectual repression,
repeated attacks on the communists, and appeasement of the Japanese
would have to be found108 Later on in 1936, argued Lloyd Eastman,
China had a new mood, beginning in the autumn of 1936, a new
sense of optimism and national unity suffused the nation.109 The
new mood came about for several reasons. Civil strife had ceased
with the suppression of a revolt in Kwangtung and Kwangsi
provinces. Chiang Kai-Shek moved his stance from appeasement
towards Japan to being prepared to wage total war. The economy had

105

T.L Lin Communists in Fukien, The Chinese Recorder, May 1935, p.272-273..
Lewis S.C Smythe, Communism Challenges Christianity!, The Chinese Recorder, June 1934, pp.354-359.
107
Spence, The Search for Modern China, p.410.
108
Spence, The Search for Modern China, p.414
109
Eastman, Nationalist China during the Nanking Decade, 1927-1932, p.160.
106

30

also rebounded due to the Nanking government abandoning silver as

its reserve currency, restoring confidence in prices and credit.
Towards the end of the time period studied, The CR became
quiet about Communism and comparative articles became less
common, which may have been due to the change in the national
mood. In an editorial in December 1936, the CR urged more focus
and money should be directed to the on rural church. To not do so
would be to make the program implemented in Soviet Russia
attractive to the young people and the students, because they believed
that Communism could fix rural issues. The CR argued that the
Christian Community must be earnest in its programme of outdying
the Communists, and that rural livelihood needed to be paramount in
the decisions made by the Church if China is to be saved from
Communism.110
Dr T. C Chao, the Dean of Religion at Yenching University in
1937 defended Christianity against the extremes of Fascism and
Communism. Christianity had been attacked for not being having a
plan for social and economic reconstruction, for being revolutionary,
and for not having a political party or organ.111 Dr Chao argues
against compromise and surrender to extreme political doctrines, as to
do so would make the message of Christianity pointless. Christianity
is opposed to Communism and Dr Chao stated that in real
Christianity love is intolerant towards hatred which communism
utilizes its own ends.112
Views of the Communists varied from missionary to
missionary, and changed over time. Some missionaries hated the
Communists for their violence and atheism, others found common
ground with them, because the Communists wanted greater social
equality as well. During the time period studied, missionaries were

110

The Editor Editorial, The Chinese Recorder, December 1936, p.734.

T.C Chao, Christianity and National Crisis, The Chinese Recorder, January 1937, p.10.
112
Ibid.
111

31

hostile from 1929 to 1934, and then less so from 1935 to 1937,
though there were exceptions in both time periods.
Conclusion
This dissertation has argued that there was evidence of the social
gospel, the act of evangelism through good social works, within the
pages of The Chinese Recorder. How Christian missionaries viewed
social gospel efforts and their effectiveness was also assessed. I
would argue that through the pages of the Chinese Recorder, a
cautious and wary optimism toward social gospel measures can be
seen. After the reassertion of the beginnings of a central political
authority after the Kuomintang following the Northern Expedition in
1927-1928, missionaries debated amongst themselves the best way to
solve Chinas problems. The SFPE was divided. The modernists
favoured the social gospel, the fundamentalists favoured traditional
theology and preaching. It was throughout the time period studied,
1929 to 1937, that the social gospel may have been most needed. The
Chinese peasantry suffered from peasant immiseration, with
different explanations as to why it occurred. The Chinese Recorder
was the paper of record for the SFPE. It recorded the debates about
the social gospel. It showed the social gospel in action. This
dissertation examined four subjects. The first was that of rural
education, where the social gospel could easily be viewed in action.
The next was that of rural health, also an area where the social gospel
could be viewed clearly in action. The final area of social gospel
activism was that of disaster relief and prevention. Lastly, I looked at
the way missionaries viewed the Chinese Communists, and whether
that view changed over time.
Modern education and schooling appeared in the early
twentieth century in China, funded by both government and nongovernment sources, including the Christian churches. The 1920s
were a period of comparative religious freedom. It helped that Chiang
Kai-Shek eventually converted to Christianity, though there was an

32

anti-Christian sentiment among the wider populace. Other Chinese

Nationalists viewed education as the sole domain of the Chinese state,
and during the time period examined there was a ban on teaching the
Christian religion to schools registered with the government.
Nevertheless, the government and the Christian community shared a
common goal in wanting to lift the educational achievement of the
Chinese people. The best example of this were literacy efforts.
Literacy was low amongst rural Chinese, though better among
members of the churches. Efforts to lift literacy took many forms, like
the MEM and its thousand character classes. Literacy and education
were viewed by missionaries as not only helping the Chinese people,
but as an effective means of social evangelism. Despite the problems
over school registration, churches set up primary, middle and high
schools, night schools for farmers, education for women, and libraries
were also set up as social gospel initiatives. Missionaries were
enthusiastic and optimistic about social gospel initiatives in education
being able to make a difference.
Social gospel projects in health and medicine often resembled
those in education, and there was some overlap. Where education
projects focussed on literacy or knowledge, health projects focussed
purely on health in the broadest possible terms. The Chinese
peasantry suffered from a wide variety of diseases and conditions
caused by poverty. The most common afflictions were diseases easily
treatable in the West with the proper medicine or diet. However, in
impoverished circumstances, missionaries had to make do with the
resources they had available to them. Sanitation and hygiene
measures were taught to rural villagers in an attempt to make their
living environments cleaner. Some missionaries linked the physical
hygiene of the body to the mental hygiene of the Christian religion,
cleaning up bodies and souls. The missionaries provided a wide
variety of services in their attempts to medically evangelise the
populace, an example of the social gospel in action. From providing
remedies that were cheap for Westerners but expensive for the

33

average Chinese, to midwifery, dental care, nursing, vaccinations and

rural doctors. All of these measures sought to improve the situation of
the Chinese peasant, and hopefully win their soul to Christianity.
More large scale, yet impersonal, disaster relief and
prevention measures were also examples of the social gospel in
action. Beginning in the early 1920s, in the face of the 1920-1921
famine, the CIFRC was formed to not only relieve the suffering of
famine, but to try and prevent new occurrences of natural disaster.
The policies the CIFRC were set up under advocated for intervention
in cases of hardship not just widespread death, and an economic
model of famine relief whereby those relieved by the CIFRC had to
help construct prevention projects, and economic benefits were paid
back to the CIFRC. Although towards the end of the time period
examined, the CIFRC become redundant, largely due to the
emergency of a government disaster management bureaucracy, the
work it carried out was a clear example of a the social gospel on a
bigger level than person to person. Scientific research was funded in
attempts to try and find more drought resistant breeds of crops.
Famine prevention measures also took the form of the construction of
irrigation, dyke maintenance and repair, and the building of new
roads. Disaster relief and prevention went from being a passive
response to aggressive action to stop new disasters, save lives and put
money into local economies. It was the social gospel writ large.
Missionaries viewed the Communists in a few different ways.
It could be expected to find outright hostility in the pages of The
Chinese Recorder to the CCP, but instead different opinions are
found. The Communists, with their commitment to Atheism and
violent upheaval in order to bring about a Communist revolution,
were anathema to most Christians writing in the Chinese Recorder.
However, there was a minority view which sometimes came through
of sympathy for Communists aims. The Communists, like most
Protestant Christians, wanted a more socially equal society where
Chinese people were free of economic suffering. Some authors

34

sympathised with them solely for that reason. They also admired the
Communists patriotism in opposing Japan. The Communists were
not always viewed as enemies, but as competitors for the hearts,
minds and souls of young Chinese. Some even compared the early
Communism of Jesus and his apostles to Communist efforts in China.
Nevertheless, the majority view in most articles in the Chinese
Recorder was a negative one. Most missionaries could simply not
forgive the Communists for their violence and atheism, even if they
shared similar goals for a more equal society.
There was evidence of the social gospel in The Chinese
Recorder. The social gospel, the idea that to apply Christian ethics to
the social problems which caused so much suffering in China, was
clearly present in the time period discussed. Applying the social
gospel was both humanitarian and strategic. Evangelical Christians
wished to alleviate suffering, they also wanted to make converts. In
education in rural China, they taught literacy and opened schools. In
health in rural China, they led public health campaigns. The social
gospel was applied on a large scale through disaster relief and
prevention. In the form of the Chinese Communists the evangelical
Christian found both a foe, and someone they could admire for having
a similar goal of greater social equality. All four of these subjects, and
how the related to the social gospel could be found within the pages
of The Chinese Recorder between 1929 and 1937.

35

36

Notes on Authors mentioned in The Chinese Recorder

Baguley, F.E A scientist and London Missionary Society missionary based in Hankow,
Hupeh.
Baker, Dr J.E (John Earl) Advisor to the Ministry of Communications and Director of
American Red Cross China Famine Relief Commission.
Brown, Ms Josephine A staff member of the national committee of the Y.W.C.A.
Butterfield, Dr Kenyon An American agricultural scientist.
Chang, Fu Liang National rural secretary of the National Christian Council, worked with
Brother in Law of James Yen and worked with Yen on the Mass Education Movement.
Chao, Dr T.C Dean of the School of Religion, Yenching University.
Cross, Dr Rowland M. - Far Eastern Missions secretary of the National Council of Churches.
Crumpacker, Reverend F.H A Brethren missionary based at Ting Ping, Shansi.
Doidge, Dorothy M A member of the United Methodist Church Mission, based in
Wenchow, Chekiang.
Felton, Ralph A. A visiting professor at Nanking theological seminary and an expert on
rural work.
Goulter, O.J An Australian Agricultural Missionary.
Fitch, Robert F. President Emeritus of Hangchow College.
Flory, B M Member of the Brethren Mission located at Showyang, Shansi.
Horning, Emma A member of the Church of Brethren Mission, based in Sanyuan, Shensi.
Hubbard, Hugh - An American missionary serving in North China under the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Hume, Dr Edward H. A medical missionary connected to the Yale mission to China in
Changsa, Hunan.
Hunter, James A. A Missionary serving under the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, in Tunghsien, Peiping.
Lamson, Professor H.D A missionary of the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society.
He was also on the faculty of the University of Shanghai.
Lew, Dr Timothy Tingfang Assistant Chancellor and Professor of Psychology at Yenching
University.
Lin, T.L A Professor of History and Political Science at Fukien University
Price, Frank Wilson (F.W) A Presbyterian Church of the United States Missionary.
Shih, Margaret (Shih Hung-Yueh) Was the head of the Department of Health of the
University of Cheeloo Village Service Centre, Langshun, Shantung.

37

Shu-Ching, Miss Ting General Secretary of the Y.W.C.A

Smythe, Dr Lewis S.C Missionary of the United Christian Missionary Society, and taught
Sociology at Nanking University.
Singer, Nettie Mabelle A missionary of the Church of Brethren Mission, based in
Liaochow, Shansi.
Stroebe, George G. Survey Engineer with the Yangtze River Commission in Nanking.
Todd, O.J (Oliver Julian) Chief Engineer of the CIFRC.
Tsen, Archie T.L A Nanking Businessman.
Tsu, Y.Y., (Yuyue Zu) A Chinese Christian Sociologist.
Wilkinson, W.E Secretary to the Chinese Y.M.C.A in Peiping
Wu, Y.T A Y.M.C.A secretary, member of the Congregational Church and advocate for the
Social Gospel.

38

Bibliography
Primary Sources
The Chinese Recorder, 192941, Shanghai, Presbyterian Mission Press, 18771941; monthly
from 1886. Accessed through the China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 17931980 database.
Baguley, F.E, A Newcomer Views Christian Education The Chinese Recorder, February
1937, p.79-81.
Baker, J.E Growth of Famine Relief and Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, September
1936, pp.562-564.
Brown, Josephine, Needs of Rural Women, The Chinese Recorder, February 1934, p.95.
Butterfield, Kenyon The Christian Church in Rural China The Chinese Recorder, June
1931, p.342.
Chang, Fu Liang Religious Education and the Rural Church The Chinese Recorder, January
1930, pp.18-22.
Chang, Fu Liang Christian Leaven, The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.279-281.
Chang, Fu Liang Uplift Chinas Dwarfed Giant, The Chinese Recorder, January 1934, p.13.
Chang, Fu Liang, What Must Christian Leaders Know? The Chinese Recorder, September
1934, pp.558-560.
Chao, T.C., Christianity and National Crisis, The Chinese Recorder, January 1937, p.10.
Cross, Rowland M. The Present Situation: Communism Vs Christianity, The Chinese
Recorder, December 1930, p.796-797.
Crumpacker,F.H Urgent Needs In Rural Improvement The Chinese Recorder, May 1933,
p.289.
Doidge, Dorothy M., Use of Western Christian Money, The Chinese Recorder, July 1933,
p.442.
Felton, Ralph A., Whats Right With the Chinese Rural Church, The Chinese Recorder,
December 1936, pp.737-739.
Fitch, Robert F., The Slaughter Of The Innocents The Chinese Recorder, August
1930,p.498.
Flory, B.M, New Foundations of Chinese Church The Chinese Recorder February 1932,
p.85.
Goulter, O.J The Crucial Problem of Rural Missions The Chinese Recorder, June 1933,
p.367
Horning, Emma, Hygenie and Evangelism The Chinese Recorder, January 1930, pp.39-40.

39

Horning, Emma, Research Spirit in Christian Work The Chinese Recorder, March 1930,
p.170.
Hubbard, Hugh, The Literacy Movement Gathers Momentum The Chinese Recorder,
January 1931, pp.37-40.
Hume, Edward H.,Christian Medicine In The New Day in China, June 1935, pp.346-350.
Hunter, James A. The Church As Rural Rebuilder, The Chinese Recorder, May 1933,
p.288.
Kunkle, J.S Religion in Rural Community The Chinese Recorder, July 1933 p.426.
Lamson, H.D Social Problems and The Christian Movement, The Chinese Recorder, May
1933, p.299.
Lew, Timothy Tingfang Changing Intellectual and Social Conditions The Chinese
Recorder, August 1930, p.485.
Lin, T.L, Communists in Fukien, The Chinese Recorder, May 1935, p.272-273..
No Author The Present Situation: China Medical Association Conference The Chinese
Recorder, March 1929, pp.195-196.
No Author, Work and Workers: Y.W.C.A in rural The Chinese Recorder, July 1929, p.469.
No Author, Work and Workers: Life of Women in South China The Chinese Recorder, July
1929, pp.470-471.
No Author, The Present Situation The Chinese Recorder, May 1932, p.322.
No Author, The Present Situation The Chinese Recorder, May 1933, p.324.
No Author, The Present Situation: News From West China The Chinese Recorder,
September 1933, pp.610-611.
No Author, Work and Workers: Preparing Students For Village Leadership The Chinese
Recorder, September 1933,p.616
No Author. The Present Situation: Kuliang Religious Education Conference, October 1933,
p.685.
No Author The Present Situation: A Ruralised Bible Training School The Chinese
Recorder, May 1935, pp.315-316.
No Author The Present Situation: Putting Religion Into Life, The Chinese Recorder, June
1935,p.376-377
No Author, The Present Situation, The Chinese Recorder, April 1936, p.251.
No Author (Translated) Chinese Christian Women Rebuilder The Chinese Recorder June
1937, pp.366-369.
Price, F.W Evangelism and Religious Education The Chinese Recorder, April 1936,
pp.232-233.

40

Shu-Ching, Ting, Needs that Western Christians Can Help Meet The Chinese
Recorder,June 1929, p.379.
Shih, Margaret, Church and Rural Health The Chinese Recorder, June 1937, pp.359-362.
Singer, Nettie Mabelle, The Gospel of Abundant Life, The Chinese Recorder, June 1932,
p.363.
Smythe, Lewis S.C Communism Challenges Christianity!, The Chinese Recorder, June
1934, pp.354-359.
Stroebe, George G., The Great Central China Flood of 1931 The Chinese Recorder,
November 1932, pp.667-668.
Tsu, Y.Y Needs that Western Christians Can Help Meet, The Chinese Recorder, June 1929,
p.384.
The Editor Editorial The Chinese Recorder, January 1930, p.5.
The Editor Editorial: Famine Prevention, The Chinese Recorder, February 1930, pp.70-72.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, March 1931, pp.139-141.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, March 1931, pp.139-141.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1931, p.676.
The Editor Editorial, The Chinese Recorder, January 1932, p.4.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, September 1932, p.536.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1932, pp.661-662.
The Editor, Editorial The Chinese Recorder, April 1934, p.215.
The Editor Editorial: Beyond Communism, The Chinese Recorder, June 1934, pp.343-348.
The Editor Editorial The Chinese Recorder, November 1935, pp.645-646.
The Editor, Editorial: Chinas Drive Against Illiteracy, The Chinese Recorder, January
1936, p.3.
The Editor Editorial, The Chinese Recorder, December 1936, p.734.
The Editor Editorial: Meeting the New Challenge in China The Chinese Recorder,
December 1936, p.736.
Todd, O.J., Some Altruistic Aspects of Famine Prevention Work, The Chinese Recorder,
November 1932, pp.680-684.
Tsen, Archie T.L Chinese Mission in Shensi The Chinese Recorder, January 1929, pp.4546.
Wilkinson, W.E Christian Students The Chinese Recorder, August 1930, pp.490-493.
Wu, Y.T Make Christianity Socially Dynamic The Chinese Recorder January 1934, p.10.

41

Secondary Sources
Books
Bays, Daniel H., A New History of Christianity in China (West Sussex, Wiley-Blackwell,
2012).
Chesneaux, Jean, Le Barbier, Francoise, Bergere, Marie-Claire, China from The 1911
Revolution to Liberation trans. Auster, Paul, Davis, Lydia, and Destenay, Anne (New York,
Pantheon Books, 1977).
Diktter, Frank, The Age Of Openess, China Before Mao (Berkley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press, 2008).
Gray, Jack, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from 1800s to 2000 (Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2002).
Hayford, Charles W. To The People: James Yen and Village China (New York, Columbia
University Press, 1990).
Kessler, Lawrence D. The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community In
China, 1895-1952, (North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, North Carolina,
1996).
Spence, Jonathan D., The Search for Modern China (New York, W. W. Norton and
Company, 1990).
Taylor, Jay, The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and The Struggle For Modern China
(Cambridge, Massachussets and London, England, The Belknap Press Of Harvard University
Press, 2009).
Thomson Jr, James C., While China Faced West: American Reformers in Nationalist China,
1928-1937 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,1969).
Xi, Lian, The Conversion of Missionaries: Liberalism in American Protestant Missions in
China, 1907-1932 (Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
Xing, Jun, Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in
China 1919-1937 (London, Associated University Press, 1996).
Chapters in edited collections
Chen Jerome, The Communist movement 1927-1937 Decade In Fairbank, John K. and
Feuerwerker, Albert (eds.) The Cambridge History of China Volume 13: Republican China
19121949, Part 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp.168-229.
Eastman, Lloyd. Nationalist China during the Nanking Decade In Fairbank, John K. and
Feuerwerker, Albert (eds.) The Cambridge History of China Volume 13: Republican China
19121949, Part 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 11667.
Papers

42

Brown, William A. The Protestant Rural Movement In China (1927-1937) in Liu KwangChing (ed.) American Missionaries in China, Papers from Harvard Seminars (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, East Asian Research Centre Harvard University, Harvard University Press,
1966) pp.217-247.
Nathan, Andrew A History of The China International Famine Relief Commission
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, East Asian Research Centre Harvard University, Harvard
University Press, 1965).