News and Notes, October 1985, p. 6). World: Council on Evangelism Official Papers and Reports (Springfield, 23. Corum, Like as of Fire, P: 6. Readers are also encouraged to review Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1968). articles by Cheryl Johns (Summer 1985) and Carolyn Dirksen (Winter 32. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil, pp. 219-21. 1984) in the Pentecostal Minister. Historical material on pentecostal 33. Donald A. McGavran, "Impressions of the Christian Cause in women in mission is also available from Clyde Root (Pentecostal Re­ India: 1978," Church Growth Bulletin, third consolidated volume, p. search Center, P.O. Box 3448, Cleveland, Tenn. 37311); Wayne War­ 247. See also B. E. Underwood, comp., "Self-Study Report: World ner, ed. Assemblies ofGodHeritage (1445Boonville Avenue, Springfield, Missions Department of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church Mo. 65802-1894); Karen Robinson (Holy Spirit Research Center, Oral (Oklahoma City, Okla., 1984). Underwood, executive director of Pen­ Roberts University, Tulsa, Okla. 74171);Edith Blumhofer (Assemblies tecostal Holiness World Missions, also writes of the urban challenge of God Theological Seminary, 1445 Boonville Avenue, Springfield, in a special issue of the Pentecostal Minister given completely to the Mo. 65802). subject of world evangelization (Winter 1987--88). 24. See Paul Yonggi Cho, Successful Home Cell Groups (South Plainfield, 34. Nichol, Pentecostalism, pp. 60-61. N.J.: Bridge Publishing, 1981), and More Than Numbers (Waco, Tex.: 35. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil, pp. 167~8. Word Books, 1984). 36. Wagner, Foreword, in McClung, Azusa Streetand Beyond. 25. See a more complete exposition in L. Grant McClung, [r., "Spon­ 37. See the following for incidents on the power of the movement's dis­ taneous Strategy of the Spirit: Pentecostal Missionary Practices," World semination through the printed page: Corum, Likeas of Fire, pp. 1­ Pentecost (March 1985): 19. 2; Ingram, Around theWorldwith theGospel Light, pp. 11-12; Frodsham, 26. See J. Philip Hogan's response to Ralph Winter at Lausanne 1974, in With Signs Following, p. 171. J. D. Douglas, ed., Let the Earth Hear His Voice (Minneapolis, Minn.: 38. In addition to denominational papers, the reader may want to inquire World-Wide Publications, 1975), p. 244. into Pneuma (the journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies), ed. 27. Hodges, "A Pentecostal's View of Mission Strategy," in Donald Cecil M. Robeck, 135 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, Calif. 91182. A. McGavran, ed., TheConciliar-Evangelical Debate (South Pasadena, EPTA Bulletin (the journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Cal.: William Carey Library, 1977), p. 143. Association), ed. Donald Smeeton, Chausse de Waterloo, 45, Rhode­ 28. See Arno Enns, Man, Milieu and Mission in Argentina (Grand Rapids, Saint-Genese, Brussels, Belgium; and World Pentecost (journal of the Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 236; and, Paul Pomerville, World Conference of Pentecostal Churches), ed. Jakob Zopfi, P.O. TheThird Force inMissions, on African independent pentecostal churches. Box 44, CH~376 Emmetten, Switzerland. 39. Those interested in publishing on the theme of pentecostal missiology 29. See also Gary B. McGee's discussion of Hodges's contribution, may wish to write to Dr. L. Grant McClung, Jr., P.O. Box 3330, "Assemblies of God Mission Theology," p. 168. Cleveland, Tenn. 37320-3330. 30. Read, New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil, p. 12. 40. McCracken, Historyof Church ofGodMissions (Cleveland, Tenn.: Path­ 31. Mitchell, Heritage and Horizons: The History of the Open Bible Standard way Press, 1943), p. 8. Churches (Des Moines, Iowa: Open Bible Publishers, 1982), p. 371. 41. Mountain Movers magazine (from the Assemblies of God Division of See also Pomerville, The Third Force in Missions; F. J. May, "Planting Foreign Missions), January 1984. New Churches," Pentecostal Minister (Fall 1983); Richard Champion, Edward S. Caldwell, and Gary Leggett, eds., Our Mission in Today's

Protestant and Catholic Missions in South China: 1911-1986

Donald MacInnis Why South China?

he geographical focus of this paper is a corner of south in 1860. Over the next hundred years these three mission societies T China-the northern two-thirds of Guangdong Province, shared the field in comity arrangements, establishing churches and particularly the northeast region centering on the Shantou and opening schools, hospitals, and other projects in the region. and Meixian sectors. But the larger focus is China itself. This brief When China entered the Korean War in 1950, the work of the study of Protestant and Catholic missions in one small part of missionaries was restricted, and by 1952 all but a handful had China may offer insights on the relationships among missionaries, left. No missionaries, Catholic or Protestant, are serving the Chinese their home churches, and the churches they helped to found churches today. throughout China. By comparing Catholic and Protestant mission The first Catholic missionaries in China, Matteo Ricci and methods, goals and assumptions in the earlier years of this cen­ Michael Ruggerius, began their work in 1583'fn Chao-ch'ing, near tury, we may better understand the nature of these two churches Canton, moving on to Ch'aochou, near Shantou, in 1589. Two as they develop on their own today after three and a half decades years later Ricci moved to Nanking and then to Peking, but the without missionaries. mission in Gtiangdong carried on until the expulsion of all mis­ Shantou is a major port city near the Fujian border, one of sionaries by the Yung-cheng emperor in 1732 following the Rites the first treaty ports opened by the treaties following the first Controversy. By then Catholic missions had spread to fifteen Opium War. Protestant missionaries, members of the German provinces; of a total of 131 churches, 26 were in Guangdong. In Basel Mission, first entered the Shantou region in 1848.They were the following century, deprived of missionary priests, the number followed by English Presbyterians in 1856 and American Baptists of Christians in the province fell from about 30,000 in 1732 to 7,000 in 1844. There were no missionaries and only five Chinese priests ministering to these Catholics when the Treaty of Nanking (1842) opened China once again to foreign missionaries. Donald MacInnis is Coordinator of theChina Research and Liaison Group, Mary­ In 1848 the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the knoll Fathers and Brothers, Maryknoll, New York.

6 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Faith placed the Guangdong mission territory under the Societe China began to reopen. According to official statistics there are des Missions Etrangeres de Paris (MEP). In contrast to the Prot­ now more than 4,000 Protestant churches and 30,000 meeting estants, who stayed close to the cities and county (xian) seats, points open in China, with at least 4 million members-more than the MEP Fathers expanded their work into every part of the prov­ four times as many members as in 1950. The Catholic church has ince. The Catholics had the advantage of working with remnant 900 churches with resident priests, 200 more being renovated, Catholic communities who had survived the "century of cat­ and over a thousand meeting points, with a total membership of acombs." When Rome assigned portions of Guangdong to the 3.4 million, a fraction more than the 3.2 million on record in 1950. Maryknoll Fathers in 1918, there were vital, well-establishedCath­ But what lies behind the statistics? Why have the churches olic churches in many towns and villages. not only survived official and unofficial repression, but emerged stronger than before? Chinese Christians themselves will have to The Historical Context provide the answer, but judging by their own frequent testimony, it has much to do with their buoyant sense of selfhood. Chris­ This paper covers the period from 1911 to the present. Why 1911? tianity is no longer seen as a "foreign religion" (yang jiao). In that year the revolution led by Sun Yat-sen ended the rule of Today both Catholic and Protestant churches in China func­ the moribund Manchu Dynasty and launched China into the tion without missionary help. In numerous addresses and reports modern era. The new republic soon foundered under corrupt and given while visiting abroad in recent years, church leaders, Prot­ inept leaders, resulting first in a period of semi-anarchy when estantand Catholic, have reiterated their conviction that the Chinese petty warlords struggled with each other for control of provinces church must stand on its own feet. Fu Tieshan, Catholic bishop and regions, then the early years of the civil war, the Anti-Jap­ of Beijing, said this in Montreal in 1981: anese War, and the final stage of the civil war. The whole period was a kind of interregnum between two authoritarian central Because old China was a semi-colonial country, for a long time governments-the Manchu rulers and the leaders of the People's Church leadership was in the hands of foreign missionaries who Republic of China. This was a period of rising nationalism, ac­ represented colonial power, and the Church became a tool of co­ companied at tiines with outbursts of antiforeignism that im­ lonial aggressions.... After the establishment of New China, the pacted the missionaries for brief periods. But the missionaries Chinese clergy and laity stood up like the rest of the Chinese were virtually ignored by successive governments, free to come people. From the bitter lessons of history we had learned that we and go and to carry on their work, even in the first year of the must purify the Church, change the colonial status of the Church of Old China, and walk on the path of autonomy, independence communist regime. With the advent of the Korean War the mis­ 1 and self-administration. sionaries had to go. The Chinese Christians, together with ad­ herents of all religions, struggled and coped with cycles of reli­ Bishop K. H. Ting, president of the (Protestant) China Chris­ gious freedom and repression, emerging in 1979 tempered and tian Council, spoke recently about Chinese Christian selfhood: strengthened by the experience, judging by the vitality of the churches today. When Three-Self was first launched, Chinese Christians, while The early years of this period saw a rapid expansion of both thankful for all the good that missionaries had done in China, just Catholic and Protestant missions in China. Protestant Christians felt that it was time for weaning and that we needed our church quadrupled to 400,000 in the years between the Boxer Uprising to be de-westernized, Chinese, having a common language with (1899) and 1921, reaching 567,000 by 1936 and 936,000 in 1949. our people and thus gaining the right to be heard by them.... By1949there were 3,274,000baptized Roman Catholics and 194,000 Self-support is ... a principle we choose to adhere to, recognizing catechumens for a total constituency of 3,468,000. it as a most important precondition for the church in China to Comparative statistics on ordained clergy indicate a more become Chinese.... In other words, it is only as we overcome rapid devolution of leadership among the Protestants. In 1949 dependence and achieve independence that true interdependence is possible.2 there were 4,788 ordained Catholic priests, of whom 2,090 were missioners, while ordained Protestant missionaries numbered only Self-support, self-government, and self-propagation-these are 939 out of a total of 2,963. the Three-Self principles frequently cited by China's church lead­ Protestant institutional work outpaced the Catholics, partic­ ers today. In this essay we examine the experience of two mission ularly in higher education and full-scale hospitals. societies who worked in the northeast section of Guangdong Province, comparing Protestant and Catholic goals, methods and Statistics for 1949 results in a search for clues to church growth toward selfhood. Roman Catholic Protestant These societies are the English Presbyterian Mission and the Middle/High Schools 189 240 Maryknoll Fathers and Sisters, whose work in Guangdong over­ Universities 3 13 lapped with the Presbyterians in the Kaying (Meixian) district. Hospitals 216 322 Evolution/Revolution: The Chinese Churches

Data from G. T. Brown, Christianityin thePeople's Republic ofChina (Atlanta, The Chinese churches today, both Catholic and Protestant, would Ga.: John Knox Press, 1986), p. 79. be scarcely recognizable to the missionaries of the 1930s and 194Os. All former church and mission hospitals, schools, and other in­ stitutions have been secularized. The functions of the church have But, because most Catholic parishes and missioners were in the been pared down, centered on the parish church and related countryside, their influence was wider and deeper among the pre­ activities. Nondenominational union seminaries are training clergy dominantly rural population of China. to supply the churches, and lay leaders at local and national levels In 1979, under a restored policy of religious freedom, the have assumed a new prominence. Christian churches, Buddhist temples, and Muslim mosques of For the first time, democratically elected bodies represent all

January 1988 7 the churches, both Protestant and Catholic, at the national level, enterprises as the China Bible Society, the Christian Literature and of course the members are all Chinese. Related committees Society, the Chinese Christian Medical Association, and the China and commissions at provincial and municipal levels provide plan­ Sunday School Union, the Protestant churches of China were far ning and oversight for local church activities. from united. Denominational sectors made a checkerboard of the In former days over one hundred Protestant mission societies map of China. And in those years before Vatican II, there was had work in China, many of them founding denominational no Protestant-Catholic cooperation, not even in Bible translation. churches related to their particular home churches. Catholic mis­ Protestant and Catholic missionaries alike shared the stigma sion societies were assigned territories by Propaganda Fide, and of living and working under the protection of the unequal treaties, the Chinese clergy and churches in those parts derived identity and the history of gunboat imperialism, which opened China to from the particular mission society at work there. Those distinc­ foreign merchants and missionaries alike . Extraterritoriality, fi­ tions are gone now. nally abolished in 1943, protected them from Chinese legal juris­ Each Catholic mission territory functioned virtually indepen­ diction. The periodic outbursts of antiforeignism were directed dently under its own missionary bishop or vicar apostolic. As late at both. Yet the Catholics, primarily because of the history of the as 1949, out of 140 ecclesiastical jurisdictions there were only 29 "missionary cases"-lawsuits brought on behalf of Catholics Chinese bishops.f There was no national organization, although by the French government under the aegis of the French protec­ Celse B. L. Costantini, the apostolic delegate appointed in 1922, torate-suffered a special animosity. The protectorate fell into dis­ organized the first national Catholic conference in 1924, a General use early in this century, but the memory remained. Synod. However, not until the Catholic Central Bureau was opened in Shanghai was there a national office, and the bureau was only Different Methods, Goals, and Organization an office, headed by a missionary bishop, not a representative body. (Maryknoll Bishop James E. Walsh, a veteran China mis­ Despite decades and, for the Catholics, centuries of mission en­ sioner, became executive secretary of the Catholic Central Bureau deavor, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries in this period [CCB) in 1948. The CCB served as the coordinating office of Cath­ worked with churches still dependent on the missionaries for olic cultural, educational, and welfare activities in China.) Today funds and leadership. In this way their situations were similar. at the national level there is a Chinese Catholic Church Admin­ Yet there are striking differences between the Protestant and istrative Committee, a Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and Catholic missionaries who worked in the same territory of north­ a Chinese Bishop's Conference. east Guangdong-known as Lingtung--differences in organiza­ The Catholic missions in China accurately reflected the hier­ tion, goals, and methods that may have influenced the nature of archical nature of mission-church relations at the time. Under the the two Chinese churches that survive there today. practice of jus commissionis all mission territories were commis­ They had different historical backgrounds. The English Pres­ sioned by Propaganda Fide, where absolute authority was re­ byterians celebrated their first hundred years in 1949, while the tained. It was not until 1969 that jus commissionis was abolished, Catholics had been there for nearly four centuries. Yet Mary­ and now all Catholic mission societies make individual contracts knollers began their work with no experience in 1918, taking over with local bishops representing local churches. Since Vatican II their territories from the MEP Fathers. The legacy of the French the church is defined as the people of God, not the institution, missioners included a particular mission methodology, which in and the total ecclesial community-priests, religious, and laity­ many ways was paternalistic, dependent on the missioner priest have responsibility for the mission of the church, not just the and his financial resources. mission societies. While the Sacred Congregation for the Evan­ One example is the Catholic village, such as Siaoloc, a village gelization of Peoples (successor to Propaganda Fide) is still the in the Meixian district, which the French missioners had created, ultimate authority for all Catholic missions, that authority is sel­ buying land and bringing together Catholic families from other dom exercised." All church and mission activities are directly ac­ villages. The laudable purpose was to provide a community where countable to the local bishop. But, because the Chinese church Catholics, a tiny minority, could escape the opprobrium of their is not in communion with the Vatican at present, these devel­ non-Catholic neighbors and find mutual support. These villages opments are not felt in China. flourished, and descendants of the original converts sustain the Protestant mission societies, with some notable exceptions, church today. But the Maryknollers preferred devolution, giving worked for Christian unity from the early years. The Centenary up ownership of the land and turning it over to the tillers. By Missionary Conference in 1907 was attended by over one thou­ establishing a network of primary schools, junior seminaries, and sand missionaries (but less than ten Chinese). The first ongoing Chinese sisterhoods, their goal from the beginning was to train organization, the National Christian Council (NCC), was orga­ up Chinese leaders to take their places. It is those leaders, priests nized by the National Christian Conference, held in Shanghai in and sisters, laymen and women, who sustain the church toda y. 1922. Most of the delegates were Chinese, and the chairman . A second example is the catechumenate, the primary method (c. Y. Cheng) was Chinese. of Catholic evangelization, in which the missionary priest played The National Christian Conference prepared the way for a the central role. In one system, catechists, recruited and trained united church, the Church of Christ in China (CCC), which held by the missionaries, organized inquirers' classes in villages and its first assembly in 1927. Sixty-six of the eighty-six commissioners outstations surrounding the central mission. When they were were Chinese. However, only sixteen Protestant mission churches deemed ready, the missionary priest made his visit, examining joined the CCC, representing only one-third of the Protestant them and deciding who was read y for baptism. Subsequent classes Christians of China. Almost all member churches were of Cal­ trained catechumens for confirmation and Holy Communion. The vinist background with Presbyterian or Congregational polity. whole process might take as long as two years, and it produced The CCC was organized on synods, based in geographical re­ loyal Catholics who knew the basic teachings and prayers of the gions. Fujian and Guangdong provinces each contained three church. synods. A second system brought whole families of catechumens into By 1949, despite the CCC, the NCC and such cooperative the central mission station during the farmers ' off-season for weeks

8 International Bulletin of Missionary Research of residence and daily training. In both systems, the missionary administered mission funds sent to China. The missionaries main­ priest was the final examiner and, of course, the only person tained membership and rights in their home church, rather than qualified to administer the sacraments. the church in China. The system of catechumenates was inherited from the French Although the Lingtung Church founded by the English Pres­ Fathers, and depended (in the early years) on catechists trained byterians became a synod of the Church of Christ in China, the by the French'. Many of the catechumens were relatives or friends goal of a Three-Self church was never fully achieved. By 1931 the of Catholic families. Chinese share of the church budget for the Presbytery was 69 Due to the shortage of Chinese clergy, the whole system percent, and even less for schools and hospitals;' Among the rested on one man, the parish priest. There was no board of eighty-eight congregations, twenty-nine were fully self-support­ deacons or presbytery composed of Chinese laity and clergy, as ing-one-third of the total. However, the goal of a trained ministry with the Protestants. The missioner priest was directly respon­ and educated laity was achieved by the time of the missionaries' sible to the bishop, in this case (and all other cases in Guangdong departure. at this time) a missioner as well. Although Maryknoll missioners did not have a separate mis­ The Protestants, in contrast to the Catholics in the nineteenth sion council, their bishop in Kaying was a Maryknoller, and the century, began with nothing; there was no Protestant nucleus at bishop's residence was a place where missioners assembled for all. Facing hostility on all sides, the Protestants labored for years recreation and periodic retreats. Chinese priests, a minority even before gaining their first converts. In Fuzhou, the port city to the in the later years, would view this as a kind of mission council, north of Swatow, the first Methodist convert came after ten years even though institutionally it was not, for they all belonged to of effort." the same church and vicariate. As for ownership of church prop­ The English Presbyterians differed from the Catholics in many erties, the titles were held by Maryknoll and the deeds kept at ways. First, as a church (rather than mission) society, they were Maryknoll, New York. accountable to the home church that sent them out, the English Maryknoll missioners served the Roman Catholic Church, a Presbyterian church. Maryknoll, while accountable to the Prop­ universal church with the Holy See as the symbol of unity and aganda Fide, was not under supervision of the American Catholic the final source of authority. There was no question of creating church. Even today its Board of Directors, which is its corporate an independent Chinese Catholic church or of Chinese Catholics or legal entity, is made up entirely of Maryknoll priests." writing their own creeds or electing their own national or syn­ In contrast, a church missionary society like the Presbyterians odical officers. China was still technically a "mission field" (as is accountable to a board of missions elected by the home church was the United States until 1908), with vicars apostolic" instead at large. The missionaries kept their membership in the home of bishops, and mission territories assigned to various foreign church. Yet the Presbyterians, Baptists, Reformed, and Congre­ mission societies by Propaganda Fide. The first Chinese bishops gationalists, all of whom had mission work in south China, are in modern times were consecrated in 1926, and missionary bish­ nonhierarchical; congregational polity gives full authority to the ops were in charge of nearly all of the dioceses as late as 1950. local congregation, placing the missionaries in an ambiguous re­ It can be argued that the Protestant missionaries established lationship to the local church. What does church membership schools and universities to train up a literate membership equipped mean? For a Catholic, membership is in the universal church, to take over leadership of an independent church, while the goal eliminating ambiguity (but membership in Maryknoll raises other of the Catholic schools was, first of all, to bring youth into the questions in relation to the Chinese church). church for conversion and baptism and,' second, to enlist and From the early years, the goal of the English Presbyterians train young men for the priesthood and girls for the sisterhood. was a Chinese Three-Self church. In 1881, the official statement Maryknoll's first constitution, approved by Rome in 1930, gives issued at the inauguration of the presbytery established the prin­ the specific purpose of the society as "the preaching of the ciple that from that time on the church in Lingtung was an Gospel to the heathen within the territories entrusted to it by the "independent, self-~overning branch of the Holy Catholic and Vicar of Jesus Christ, through the Sacred Congregation of Prop­ Apostolic Church." The mission imposed no creed, leaving it to aganda Fide."ll In a survey of nearly 200 Maryknollers who served the church to define its own creed. "So far as the church order in China prior to 1951, virtually all replied to the question of was concerned, the mission claimed no more for Presbyterianism personal motivation in words like these: "The one big goal than that it was consistent with the Bibleand pragmatically sound.?" was saving souls, and also doing charity and certain amounts of Under congregational polity, each local church called its own social work. But the ultimate goal was souls. We ran dispensaries pastor. But because full financial self-sufficiency was required in order to attract the people and win their good will, but the before ordination of the pastor by the local church in Lingtung, ultimate goal was always saving souls.v " there was an imbalance between ordained and unordained pas­ Even so, the earliest General Rule of Maryknoll (taken ver­ tors. In 1927 the total number of unordained preachers was ten batim from the MEP Fathers) establishes the goal of the society times the number of ordained ministers, with the ordained mis­ to work itself out of a job in any given field. (This distinguishes sionaries continuing to oversee their work." Thus, despite the Maryknoll, as a secular society, from religious societies like the early commitment to a Three-Self church, the missionaries re­ Jesuits, who seek to recruit members and to establish permanently mained, in fact, the power factor in the church. local provinces of their societies.) Another factor inhibiting mission-church unity and devolu­ tion of authority was the Mission Council and its relationship to [The Society] will aim, wherever it is, to form at the earliest op­ the mission society in England. The Mission Council, a separate portunity a native clergy as the most efficacious means of perpet­ body consisting of all missionaries and wives, was a parallel in­ uating its work of conversion; and it will always be ready to withdraw its members and to work elsewhere when this object shall have stitution alongside the Chinese church and played a major role been attained; it will be even glad to be able to do this. 13 in oversight of the Chinese preachers and church institutions. The Mission Council, in the name of the mission society in Eng­ But the turmoil of the Anti-Japanese War and intermittent civil land, held title to most church and institutional property and wars intervened. The Maryknoll missioners left China without

January 1988 9 achieving their goal of a self-directing and self-supporting church. generations, but medical care, suitable housing, and schooling Even so, that same church, thirty-five years later, is indeed that costs for children necessitated much higher costs for families. kind of church. But discrepancies in missionary-support costs are attributable By 1985, in response to Vatican II and the emergence of new not only to different needs of celibate and married missionaries. concepts of the mission of the church, Maryknoll could proclaim David Paton, a British missionary who served in Fuzhou in the a new vision of mission-church relationships: 1940s, discovered that his salary at that time was three times that of his Chinese colleagues of comparable age and responsibility, The old sense of what mission entails is being replaced by a new and that comparable missionaries of American missions were paid understanding of Church, and especially by a new network of three times as much as he was." We have no comparable costs relationships among the local [national] churches ... and the Uni­ for the Catholics in south China, but judging by figures today, versal Church. Fundamental shifts have occurred in the perception the costs of a Maryknoll priest were but a fraction of those for a of the Church's functions, in the notion of structural sin, in the married Protestant missionary. They received the same "via­ importance of the servant role of the missioner. . . .14 tique" (personal living allowance) as the Chinese priests, but had Conclusion the advantage of receiving larger mass stipends from friends at home. There were differences in authority structure, organization There were striking differences between the two mission societies, their goals, lifestyle, mode of operation, authority structure, and style, and accountability. The Presbyterians, "free church" relationship to the church in China as well as to their home churches. non-conformists in their home churches, early on set up inde­ There was a different concept of membership. The EPM was pendent, democratically elected synods and presbyteries in China, a lay society with men and women, lay and clergy, all equal, all joining with the Reformed churches to form a united presbytery commissioned as members, with equal vote on the Mission Coun­ in 1857. In 1919 the Congregational Union (related to the London cil. The Maryknoll Fathers was a clerical society limited to Amer­ Missionary Society) joined them to form the South Fukien Synod ican priests. The Maryknoll Brothers and Sisters functioned in of the Church of Christ in China. The union was completed when ancillary roles, responsible to the bishop, himself a Maryknoll the Methodist South Fukien Conference joined the synod in 1934. Father. The south China synods organized by the English Presbyterian The two Chinese churches reflected the differences in mission Mission, together with those of the Reformed Church in America structure and mode of operation. Where Chinese clergy and lay in Amoy and the Methodist South Fukien Conference, joined the elders served as equals with missionaries on the presbytery, there Church of Christ in China, which held its first assembly in 1927. operated hierarchically under was no equivalent body for the Catholics. The Catholic churches, in contrast, There were differences in missionary goals and lifestyle. the direct authority of the pastor and the bishop, at that time Catholic missioners in the early years, all celibate priests, Sisters nearly always a foreign missioner. Their wider ecclesial identity or Brothers, expected to spend their lives in the field without and sense of unity came not from a regional or national council, but through the Holy See as the symbol of unity for the universal church. There was another major difference in mission methods, the "The Maryknoll emphasis placed on educational and medical institutions. From the beginning the Protestants established schools, universities, Missioners left China and hospitals, which set high standards in those early years. By without achieving their 1906 there were fourteen college-level Protestant institutions in goal of a self-directing and China. In 1949, after some mergers, there were thirteen Protestant and three Catholic universities. In that same year there were 322 self-supporting church.fI Protestant and 216 Catholic hospitals. By 1952 these had all been secularized, taken over by the state or municipality. The mission subsidies for these institutions home leave. Martyrdom-violentdeath for the faith-was not feared, were far more than the Chinese church alone could bear, and even welcomed, as can be seen in this passage from the first church leaders today are glad to be spared that burden. David General Rule of Maryknoll: Paton, who served on the boards of managers of a mission hos­ pital and a university in Fuzhou, believes that both kinds of in­ To die in the missions, even a premature death, has always been stitutions "for the most part have made a poor return" for the considered by the true missioners as a gain for themselves, as the money invested. 17 They created a group of college graduates and assurance of their predestination, as a source of grace for the mis­ medical personnel who would be unhappy with less than the sions, as an edifying example for other missioners, and as an honor high Western standards they had seen and experienced in the for the society. 15 mission institutions. Later, viewed with suspicion as culturally denationalized, many of them suffered during campaigns of class While there were many celibate Protestant missionaries, mostly struggle. women, it was the married men and their families who largely Lessons to Be Learned from the Experiences of Christian Missions determined the lifestyle. For a variety of reasons they congregated in China is a thirty-page report issued in 1951, summarizing the in the cities and lived comfortably in mission compounds, re­ replies to a questionnaire by 152 American Protestant missionaries turning home for periodic furloughs and often terminating over­ recently returned from China." The answers to these questions seas service when their children reached high school or college refer to missions, missionaries, institutions, and the church. No­ age. The Maryknollers lived in the villages, often the only foreign where do these missionaries, recently living in the midst of the persons in residence. greatest revolutionary upheaval in modern history, refer to that The costs of supporting families were, of course, much higher. cataclysmic event or to the social forces that brought it about. Protestant missionaries have been advocating simpler living for Their concerns are parochial, institutional, focused on them­

10 International Bulletin of Missionary Research selves, the mission, and the church they served. The signs of the times reveal God's action in secular history as There is a new understanding of mission today, exemplified well as the church. Maryknoll now looks for God's hand in in the Statement of Mission Vision from the 1984 Eighth General China's ongoing history: "Maryknoll must be nourished by Chapter of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers: the people and culture of every land it serves, and the Universal Church stands in need of the unique contribution that the local [Mission vision] is a process of continually clarifying expressions Church of China can make.,,20 of our apostolate in light of the mission of Jesus, whose challenging and life-giving presence we discern in rapidly changing signs of the times. This process is guided by our ongoing analysis of the human reality in which we live and work. 19 Notes------­

1. T. Chu and C. Lind, A New Beginning (Toronto: Canada China Pro­ 8. Ibid. gramme of the Canadian Council of Churches, 1983), p. 22. 9. Ibid., p. 295. 2. Nanjing '86-Ecumenical Sharing: A New Agenda, report of an Ecunem­ 10. It was not until 1946 that China was granted its own hierarchy. ical Conference in Nanjing, China, May 14-20, 1986(New York: China 11. Constitutions of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Mary­ Program of the National Council of Churches of the United States), knoll, N.Y., 1930). pp. 77,79. 12. Oral history transcript of Father William Kaschmitter, TF50, Mary­ 3. Liu Bainian, Chinese Catholic Friendship Delegation, New York, Oc­ knoll China History Project. tober 1986. 13. General RuleoftheCatholic Foreign Mission Society ofAmerica (Maryknoll, 4. Maryknoll is an order of secular priests, responsible to the Congre­ N.Y., 1914), p. 1. gation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Orders of religious priests, 14. The· Society Response to China, 1985, 1986 (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1985), p. 7. like the Jesuits and Franciscans, are responsible to the Congregation 15. General Rule, p. 37. for Religious and work under direct authority of their superiors rather 16. David Paton, Christian Missionsand theJudgement ofGod(London: SCM than the local bishop. Press, 1953), p. 79. 5. Walter N. Lacy, A HundredYears ofChina Methodism (New York: Abing­ 17. Ibid., p. 40. don-Cokesbury Press, 1948), p. 53. 18. China Committee, Division of Foreign Missions (New York: NCCUSA, 6. The legal title for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers is the Catholic 1951). Foreign Mission Society of America, Inc. 19. Statement of Mission Vision, Acts and Motions, Eighth General Chap­ 7. George A. Hood, MissionAccomplished? TheEnglish Presbyterian Mission ter, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, 1984, p. 1. in Lingtung, SouthChina(Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1986), 20. The Society Response, p. 7. p.294.

Newsletter Theology: eMS Newsletters since Max Warren, 1963-1985

Timothy E. Yates

ertain individuals in the world church are particularly The aim of this article is to pick up the series of CMS News­ C well placed to listen to what "the Spirit is saying to letters in the periods of Max's two successors: J. V. Taylor (1963­ the churches" (Rev. 2:7). Among them in the second half of the 75) and Simon Barrington-Ward (1975-85). Although both, in their twentieth century have been the general secretaries of the An­ opening letters, looked back to Max as a "giant,,,2 each. was glican Church Missionary Society (CMS) in London, England. I equipped with similar, if also distinctive, gifts as a missiological have written elsewhere of Max Warren (general secretary, 1942­ interpreter. Both had studied Christian theology and taught it to 63),1 now widely regarded as something of a prophet, with a others. Both had experience of Africa, Taylor largely in Uganda, vision that reached beyond his own time and place. Max did not where he had taught at Bishop Tucker Theological College, an begin the CMS Newsletters (they were begun by his predecessor Anglican seminary near Kampala, and Barrington-Ward in the W. W. Cash), but it was Max who made them a vehicle for what University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Like Max, both had studied at he called a "theology of attention," where he reflected pro­ Cambridge and came to theology from other academic disciplines, foundly on contemporary issues in the light of his wide-ranging in Taylor's case English, in Ward's, history. Both had literary flair knowledge of history and theology. In his time the circulation of and skill, with the ability to encapsulate much in a brief quotation the letters was 14,000. from a poet or a literary classic. Both were widely read and sen­ sitive to contemporary writing and movements in the church and its mission and proved able to reflect with insight on the church's essential task. Like Warren, they were aided in gaining a world TimothyE. Yatestaughtin theUniversityof Durham, Eng!and, andwasawarded vision by global travel and by extensive correspondence with a doctorate from the Univesity of Uppsala for his workon the Church Missionary Christians all over the world, especially in East and West Africa, Society leader of the nineteenth century, Henry Venn, subsequently published as the Middle East and the Sudan, India, Pakistan, and Japan-all Venn and Victorian Bishops Abroad. He is presently rector of Darley Dale traditional areas of CMS involvement. and Director of Ordinands of the Anglican Diocese of Derby, England.

January 1988 11