Patterns of Church-State Relations in Maoist China (1949-1976)
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HAOL, Núm. 17 (Otoño, 2008), 129-138 ISSN 1696-2060 POLITICS OF FAITH: PATTERNS OF CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS IN MAOIST CHINA (1949-1976) Joseph Tse-Hei Lee Pace University, United States. E-mail: [email protected] Recibido: 30 Mayo 2008 / Revisado: 2 Julio 2008 / Aceptado: 10 Julio 2008 / Publicación Online: 15 Octubre 2008 Abstract: This article examines the role of province along the South China coast (see “Map Protestant Christianity in relation to the rise of 1. Chaozhou”). the Maoist state. It focuses on the interactions Map 1. Chaozhou between Christianity and state power, and the state’s influence on the religious and political identities of Chinese Christians. In particular, it discusses how the state exploited Christianity to claim legitimacy and establish ideological control over the Christian population, and how ordinary Christians, in turn, drew on their religious resources to strengthen themselves in the competitive arena of politics. Keywords: Chaozhou, Maoism, Little Flock, Three-Self Patriotic Movement. ______________________ INTRODUCTION he twentieth century was a period of While the urban church leaders succeeded in growth, suppression, and revival for the mediating conflicts with the local government, TProtestant churches in China. Arising the rural congregations drew on longstanding from the growing interest in the history of kinship and lineage networks to create Chinese Christianity, this article presents two autonomous worshipping communities across cases of church-state conflicts during the Maoist the countryside. In both cases, the Protestant era (1949-1976). These cases are chosen to communities refused to be subjected to the illustrate how ordinary Protestants responded to control of the Maoist state. Neither did they the political encounter between Maoism and subscribe to the anti-imperialist ideology of the Christianity, and what survival strategies they state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement employed to protect themselves against the (sanzi aiguo yundong): self-rule autonomous socialist regime. The first case concerns the from foreign missionary and imperialist control, Christian Assembly (jidutu juhuichu), known in financial self-support without any foreign the West as the Little Flock (xiaoqun), a fast- donations, and self-preaching independent of growing indigenous Protestant movement any missionary influences. As the overarching founded by Watchman Nee in the early organization of the one-party state, the Three- twentieth-century. After 1949, the Christian Self Patriotic Movement sought to ensure that Assembly transformed itself into a diffused all Chinese Protestants would submit to the network of religious groups for mutual support socialist order. and expanded into many remote areas not yet reached by the missionaries. The second case By rejecting the Maoist vision of church-state concerns the Chaozhou-speaking Baptist and relations, these Protestants adhered to the belief Presbyterian congregations in Guangdong in the autonomy of the church, proclaiming that each church should become an autonomous body, governing its affairs and remaining © Historia Actual Online 2008 129 Politics of Faith Joseph Tse-Hei Lee independent from state control. However, the Foreign Mission and Henry Venn of the Church Communist state perceived ideological Missionary Society in the nineteenth century. identification as synonymous with absolute “Three-Self” describes a mission policy that loyalty to the new socialist nation. Therefore organized native Christians in Africa and Asia religious conversion was viewed as a challenge into self-supporting, self-governing and self- to the state. This pattern of Christian activism propagating churches. After the Communist highlights the role of popular resistance against Revolution, the Chinese government replaced state-imposed modernity and throws light on the the “Three-Self” slogan with “Three-Self complexities of church-state relations in Maoist Patriotic Movement” in order to legitimatize the China. state’s takeover of the Protestant church. Politically, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement was a mass organization along the lines of the 1. MAOISM AND THE THREE-SELF Communist Party’s united front policy. It was PATRIOTIC MOVEMENT launched by the one-party state to politicize the religious sphere and control the Protestant What was Communist religious policy in the communities. On June 28, 1949, Wu Yuzong, Maoist era? As with the imperial states of the general secretary for Publications of the past, the Communist state continuously pursued National Committee of the Young Men’s a “united front” policy of engaging China’s Christian Association (YMCA) in China, acted Protestant communities. The purpose was to as a middleman between the Communist Party sever their ties with foreign missionary and the National Christian Council. He urged enterprises, to place the diverse Protestant church leaders to support the Communists. denominations under the control of a Leninist Many leaders of the YMCA and Young mass organization, and to purge reactionary Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) forces and class enemies from the church. assisted Wu Yuzong in pursuing a pro- Underlying the Communist religious policy was Communist agenda in the Protestant circle. The the ideological conflict between state and collaboration between the Communist Party, religion. C. K. Yang argues that Maoist ideology YMCA, and YWCA dates back to the was a non-theistic “faith” that manifested revolutionary movement between the 1920s and distinctly religious characteristics. Two 1940s, when the Communist Party had successfully co-opted some of the YMCA and aspirations of the Chinese nation express the 3 essences of its idealistic nation: nationalism and YWCA leaders . materialistic progress. All reforms, revolutions, and radical movements in the nineteenth and In July 1950, Wu Yuzong led a delegation of early twentieth centuries sought to promote nineteen Protestant church leaders to meet with materialistic progress and establish a strong Premier Zhou Enlai and draft a statement known nation. The Maoist state made the same claim, as “The Christian Manifesto,” which expressed but demanded from its people the unconditional Chinese Christians’ loyalty to the Communist subordination of all personal concerns. This state. At that time, the Korean War broke out appeal by the state was based on the premise and anti-American sentiment ran high. The that Maoist ideology offered the only guide to Manifesto called on Christians to fight China’s ultimate destiny, the only means to imperialism, to make known the political stand national independence and modernization1. of Christians in China, and to build a Church Determined to emancipate the common people under the management of Chinese themselves. It from religion and “superstition,” the Communist marked the beginning of the Three-Self Patriotic state propagated a secular, scientific, and Movement. On the surface, the Movement rationalistic worldview. It denounced religion as called for the indigenization and ecclesiastical “the opiate of the people” and an obstacle autonomy of Chinese churches. But its towards the socialist revolution2. Its effort to fundamental goal was to force the Chinese control Catholics and Protestants led to a Christians to sever their institutional ties with coercive assimilation of all Christian institutions foreign missionary enterprises in particular and into the Maoist state. foreigners in general. Against this backdrop, the Three-Self Patriotic Change in global politics affected Christians in Movement is to be discussed. The term “Three- China. After the outbreak of the Korean War, Self” was originally coined by Rufus Anderson the government expelled all foreign Catholic of the American Board of Commissioners for and Protestant missionaries. The expulsion was 130 © Historia Actual Online 2008 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee Politics of Faith a nationalistic act and symbolized the end of on Western missionary enterprises for doctrinal foreign imperialism in modern China4. In the instruction and administrative support. He saw a midst of the Korean War, the “Preparatory church or an assembly as “a spiritual body” Committee of the Oppose American and Aid composed of a group of Christians who were Korea Three-Self Reform Movement of the called out of this world -a concept derived from Christian Church” was founded to denounce his interpretation of the Book of Acts in the New Western missionaries. After a series of Testament. Strongly in favor of autonomous and denunciation campaigns, the Preparatory independent churches, he maintained that there Committee sponsored the first National should be “one church in one locality”8. He Christian Conference, held in the summer of emphasized the necessity to maintain 1954, in which Wu Yuzong was elected independent local churches because on a Chairman and was assigned to organize the doctrinal level, a local church could serve as a Three-Self Patriotic Movement. The officials of guardian of Christian teaching. He saw no the Bureau of Religious Affairs served as religious and practical reason for a group of “advisors” to the Movement. According to Christians to divide themselves into different Beatrice Leung, the Bureau of Religious Affairs denominations. What he sought to promote was was initially established to handle religious a locally autonomous and nondenominational affairs under the Bureau of National Minorities, church independent of any external control. and in 1951 it was transferred to the Educational Throughout