'Many points of contact': The story of Christianity in Rugao, 1921--1966 (China)

Since the 1970s, a significant amount of scholarly work has been done on the Christian movement in China. Much of this work, however, has tended to focus exclusively on either mainline Protestant missions or Chinese Christians in larger urban settings. Likewise, little has been done to examine the process of translating denominationally distinctive theological concepts into a Chinese setting. By close analysis of missionary correspondence and writings, county records and church records kept by Chinese Christians, this dissertation investigates a conservative American mission's partnership with Chinese Christians to establish a church in a rural county of Republican China. This dissertation argues that missionaries of the Christian Reformed Church went to China because they believed they had "many points of contact" with the Chinese; but their cultural and theological predispositions, combined with their inexperience and unrealistic expectations, initially caused the CRC missionaries to clash with Chinese culture. Through a process of conflict and negotiation, however, the missionaries and Chinese discovered one fundamental point of contact: the Reformed tradition's concept of covenant theology, with its emphasis on community, created a bridge to the Confucian culture and worldview of the Chinese as well as to the social needs of some of Rugao's citizens in the exigencies of that time. In focusing on the mission's daily activities, the dissertation provides insight into the crucial partnership formed between missionaries and their Chinese partners needed for establishing a church, and it looks at how both sides were changed by working together. By exploring the evangelistic activities and the process of becoming a church member in Rugao, it increases our understanding of the process of translating the Christian faith across cultures. For example, though the missionaries maintained their theological commitments, they developed sympathies for Chinese culture and the Christians with whom they worked; and while the Christians in Rugao developed loyalty to the missionaries and the church, they adapted the faith the missionaries brought.