Doshiyo?

Ok…so while I am getting ready to discuss post-modern Japanese societal trends in the Otaku world next week, I have another project that has also captured my imagination. I’ve been helping prepare the He Qi exhibit coming to Saint Louis at Concordia Seminary in mid-October. Since it’s to be housed in the Concordia Historical Institute, we wanted to see what kind of artifacts were on had that might enhance the He Qi exhibit and give some more background on China and its encounter with Christianity. Take a look:

The posters included in this video are examples of how the Christian message was portrayed in China in 1926-1928. The Christian message of the new self and the new man is shown on the first poster, where one man, on the right, is wearing tattered clothes with all sorts of evil things and sinful behaviors written on them. On the left is a man wearing new clothes that are radiant and covered in clean characters that denote Christian virtues and outcomes of the Christian life, such as love, (It is interesting that 愛 [ai], love, and 仁 [ren], the Confucian value that equates to lovingkindness or “human-hearted compassion” are combined in one of the circles–right over the heart of the man) joy, patience, peace, etc. Between the two men is a cross, and at the foot of the cross is the discarded clothing representing the old self of the joyful man wearing the new clothes.

In the second poster, a man is hard at work in the fields. Except, instead of farming the soil, he is raking earthly possessions and all sorts of junk. A heavenly hand is proffering a crown, and the text on the poster says, “A raised (crowned) head is a blessing/wealth” accompanied by the text “Set your mind on heavenly things, do not set your mind on earthly things.” It is striking to see familiar Christian messages wearing indigenous Chinese clothes in such a folk-art style.

Historically, this was a period of transition from the republican government under Sun Yat-Sen’s leadership (he died in 1925) to the new government of the Guomindang, lead by Chiang Kai-Shek. Communists were soon to be on the run as GMD forces attacked them and pushed them out in 1927. By 1928, China was “unified” nominally under Chiang’s regime. This was still a period of uncertainty and turmoil…yet the Christian presence was there, sharing the peaceful message…the same message that He Qi wants to share with the world today.

Tweet This Post

I encountered this recently in an unpublished PhD dissertation I’ve been engrossed in:

“In the turbulent 1920′s the Christian ranks among the missions and churches were tragically split. Consequently the two opposing factions to a large degree canceled out each other’s effectiveness.

The Missouri Synod mission staff espoused neither liberalism nor fundamentalism. Although Lutherans may have at that time feared liberalism more than fundamentalism, they realized that fundamentalists had, like a badly defeated general, abandoned the battlefield outside the city walls, and had thus taken refuge in the innermost citadel in a desperate attempt to hold this little sanctuary. Thus had the fundamentalists abandoned much of Biblical teaching in an attempt to save a few of the fundamentals. Lutherans also were suspicious of the fundamentalist intrigue with the Utopian visions of chiliasm [millenialism].

Theologically Lutheranism had a sounder and broader base than most other traditional churches working in China, a theological base on which it could have rallied the beleagured missionaries and saved the day for the whole enterprise. Why this could not be achieved certainly poses a challenge for the historian. A part of the answer lies in the fact that psychologically Lutheranism responded to the desperate situation in a manner akin to that of the fundamentalist (emph. added) when it tried almost frantically to deveop institutional perfection to the point where it would insulate the enterprise from every danger (emph. added). However, an institutionalized defensive stance was a most difficult base from which to work effectively in China in the 1920′s.”

Suelflow, Roy A. (1971). The Mission Enterprise of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod in Mainland China 1913-1952. (Doctoral dissertation, U of Wisconsin, 29 January 1971). UMI Dissertation Services, 151-152.

My how we cling to our institutions! The author goes on to say that the Lutherans in China “gave some hurried thought to enabling the Chinese Christians in the various stations to continue on their own. This suddenly posed the problem of the indigenization of the mission enterprise, to which too little thought had been devoted before.” (152)

Sadly, though, apparently the mission board in the USA did not like this idea and did not allow the missionaries to go through with the plan. Yet, the missionaries went to work on this plan and “suddenly attempted to change the mission enterprise into an indigenous church. The schools were all closed by the force of circumstances.” (152) So, what they did was create a Chinese board of directors for the Lutheran schools in the Hankou/Wuhan area, and this board was supposed to work on registering the schools with the government. According to Suelflow, nothing more was heard from this board, but the local mission chapels were quickly turned into Lutheran congregations. But, these churches could not operate on their own without monies from the parent mission. The mission did manage to last through 1927, however, (obviously, since the work went on until 1952.)

Many of the problems that the fundamentalists and liberals were responding to stemmed from the inability to separate themselves from the leftist elements in the Guomindang and the Communists on the one side, and the rightists in the Guomindang, not to mention Chiang Kai-Shek who had gone hog-wild in an attempt to kill the Communists. Lutherans tried to remain neutral but suffered from anti-Christian sentiment on the left, and a left-favorable GMD government in Wuhan and Hankou. Add into the mix the events of the attack on Nanjing by the Japanese forces, as well as British attack on Wansien, and hanging onto the comfort of the Western concessions, and you have a recipe for Western Christan missions. Suelflow’s point is that it is perplexing to figure out why the Lutheran mission didn’t stay above the fray and didn’t go intelligently indigenous, allowing the seeds of faith to grow.

It is hard for us to let go of our institutions.

Why this is poignant is that these events show how lack of foresight and institutionalization can harm Christian movements that are either ailing or have been doing well up to a point. Moreover, the Lutheran missions at the time were too Western centric, following Western models and having thought out a plan for indiginization.

Too bad they hadn’t heard of Uchimura Kanzo, who had been advocating an indigenous, Japanese church through the early decades of the 20th Century (and was vociferously anti-war and imperialism) or Nevius, whose 5 point mission strategy called for indigenization as well as living among the people as one of the people, much like Frillmann of my previous post, intrinsically understood.

Tweet This Post