Comity Agreements and Sheep Stealers: The Elusive Search for Christian Unity Among Protestants in China R. G. Tiedemann ne persistent criticism of the Protestant missionary The China Centenary Missionary Conference at Shanghai Oenterprise in China has been its failure to overcome in 1907 provided further impetus to cooperation on the China denominational divisions and create a genuine Chinese Protes- mission field.5 In some ways this gathering anticipated the tant church. This accusation has been made most vociferously developments arising from the Edinburgh World Missionary by many Chinese commentators. Indeed, as early as 1910, none Conference of 1910, the gathering that initiated the process lead- other than Cheng Jingyi (1881–1939), eminent Beijing pastor ing to the formation of a nondenominational Chinese church. who was prominent among Sino-foreign Protestants, publicly Plans for establishing local Chinese churches had already been decried Western-imposed denominationalism at the Edinburgh developed in the nineteenth century, starting with the Amoy Missionary Conference.1 To be sure, in the early twentieth century Plan in the 1860s.6 This approach was subsequently adopted by the Protestant missionary endeavor was marked by considerable American Presbyterians in their drive toward a united Chinese denominational variety in China. It was, moreover, represented Presbyterian church. One of the key issues they considered was by organizations and agents from several countries of Europe the role of foreign missionaries in the local bodies. More concrete and North America, as well as from Australia and New Zealand. steps toward nationwide Christian unity were taken by Presby- In the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, terian missionaries in China in 1906, on the eve of the Centenary missionaries from various mainline denominations had been Missionary Conference of 1907, with the establishment of the able to establish themselves in most provinces of China. At the Synod of the Five Provinces as an autonomous Chinese church. same time, existing missionary work was expanded and intensi- This in turn led to the formation of the Council of Presbyterian fied, with greater emphasis on medical, educational, and social works. Around the turn of the twentieth century, new mainline missionary societies, especially missions supported by Lutheran Consultations prepared the churches in Scandinavia and ethnic Scandinavian churches in the United States, were entering the field. These developments way for a number of China- called for greater coordination of, and greater unity within, the wide cooperative ventures. Protestant movement in China. Early moves in this direction had already been made at the General Conferences of Protestant Missionaries of China, held in Shanghai in 1877 and 1890, which Churches, with representatives from the mission churches of the no foreign mission body failed to attend.2 These consultations Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (represent- achieved a significant consensus and prepared the way for a ing the Northern states), the Presbyterian Church in the United number of China-wide cooperative ventures, as well as comity States (representing the Southern states), the Reformed Church agreements among the mainline societies that sought to prevent in America, the Church of Scotland, the United Free Church of undue overlap of evangelistic work. Several cooperative councils Scotland, and the Presbyterian churches in Canada, Ireland, and and agencies were set up, such as the China Medical Missionary England, to act as a coordinating body for the new church that Association (1886) and the China Christian Educational Associa- was to be established. The General Assembly of the Presbyte- tion (1890), to coordinate various activities of the major European rian Church in China met in Shanghai in 1922 and decided on a and North American sending agencies. A traditional evangelical name for the church. Having opted for “The Church of Christ in theology inherited from the nineteenth century provided further China,” the Presbyterians invited other church bodies in China common ground, as shown for example in the role of the Student to join this union.7 Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM), coordinated In the meantime, another ecumenical venture with signifi- by John R. Mott and so influential from the 1890s to the 1920s.3 cant Presbyterian involvement had been initiated. Following the A sense of community among the mainline denominational mis- 1910 Edinburgh conference, the China Continuation Committee sionaries was also created by the publication since 1867 of the of the National Missionary Conference was set up to promote Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal. In addition to informing its coordination among Christian groups in China and to serve as a readers in China about current events, situations, problems, and means of connection between the Christian groups of China, the movements, “its main functions [were] to be a medium for the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh Missionary Confer- exchange of ideas, methods, proposed experiments and policies ence, and the mission boards in the West. The committee brought between missionaries, Chinese and western Christians working its work to an end with the calling of a National Conference in China and the Chinese and western churches.”4 of delegates elected by virtually all branches of the Protestant churches and missions in China in 1922. This conference, in turn, R. G. “Gary” Tiedemann, a citizen of Germany, has created the National Christian Council of China (NCC), a national taught as a visiting professor at Chinese universities Protestant coordinating and liaison body which was to “foster since his retirement from the University of London. He . unity of the Christian Church in China; to watch and study is currently associated with Oxford House Research the development of the Church in self-support, self-government, Ltd and is the editor of the Handbook of Christianity and self-propagation; to encourage every healthy movement of in China, vol. 2: 1800 to the Present (Brill, 2010). the Church that leads to full autonomy; and to seek and work —[email protected] for the adaptation of the Church to its environment and for its naturalization in China at as early a date as practicable.”8 Asher January 2012 3 Raymond Kepler (1879–1942), of the American Presbyterian the one hand it was a national church representing a variety of (North) mission, a committed proponent of church union, was denominational traditions and carrying on programs in the name asked by the National Christian Council in 1922 to prepare the of the total church. On the other hand it was a group of regional convocation of a general assembly to formally establish the churches in loose association with a central staff and not very interdenominational Church of Christ in China (CCC). close relations with each other.”10 The First General Assembly of the CCC was held in Shang- At the same time, several major mainline denominations hai in October 1927. The following groups were connected with did not join this venture but set up their own Chinese national this church: churches. In the wake of the First World War, the so-called fundamentalist-modernist controversy split the entire Protestant American Board of Commissioners for Foreign community in China, missionaries and Chinese Christians alike. Missions Furthermore, a bewildering variety of new Protestant groups, Baptist Missionary Society large and small, were establishing themselves throughout the Church of Scotland country—not to mention the many older groups, separated by London Missionary Society belief and nationality.11 Some of these were from relatively new Presbyterian Church in Korea sects at the fringe of the traditional evangelical consensus— Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (North) Holiness people, Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists, for Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (South) example. Most were ardent millenarians, expecting the imminent Presbyterian Church of England second coming of Christ.12 Especially the more radical evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ireland bodies shunned any kind of organizational arrangements and Presbyterian Church of New Zealand refused to enter into comity agreements. Finally, the Chinese Reformed Church in America independent churches that emerged during the early decades Reformed Church in the U.S. of the twentieth century further added to the divisions of Prot- South Fujian Conference of the Methodist Episcopal estantism in China. Church United Brethren in Christ The Anglican Communion in China. In accordance with the resolu- United Church of Canada tions of their 1909 conference in Shanghai, the churches of every branch of the Anglican Communion in China—American, British, In addition, the CCC included some independent Chinese and Canadian—were amalgamated in 1912 into one ostensibly churches. As a consequence of this union, the CCC became the independent church, the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (Holy largest Protestant church in China, as well as the most powerful Catholic Church of China). This included the churches of the member of the NCC. Despite differences in nuances and even American Church Mission, that is, the Domestic and Foreign outright disagreements over issues such as the role of schools or Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the social services versus evangelization, the unity of the mainline United States of America, the Society for