Missionary Primitivism and Chinese Modernity: the Brethren in Twentieth-Century China
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Missionary Primitivism and Chinese Modernity: the Brethren in Twentieth-Century China A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities. 2012 DAVID WOODBRIDGE SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Contents List of Maps and Illustrations ...................................................................................... 3 Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 6 Declaration ................................................................................................................... 7 Copyright Statement .................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 9 Introduction: the Brethren in Modern China .............................................................. 10 1) Primitivism, Modernity and Chinese Nationalism ................................................ 46 2) ‘So far from this land as China’: Watchman Nee and the New Missionary Primitivism ................................................................................................................. 94 3) ‘To the uttermost part’: Reginald Sturt and the evangelisation of Mongolia, 1906- 1948 .......................................................................................................................... 139 4) Primitivism and Politics: The Echoes Mission to Tibet ...................................... 188 5) Missionary Primitivism versus Chinese Modernity: Fallout from the Withdrawal from China ............................................................................................................... 238 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 278 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 290 Final word count: 84,288. 2 List of Maps and Illustrations Maps Map 1 – Nationalist China in the 1930s, in Hsiao-ting Lin, Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928-49 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), p.4. Map 2 – Protestant Mission Fields in Jiangxi, in Milton T. Stauffer, The Christian Occupation of China: A General Survey of the Numerical Strength and Geographical Distribution of the Christian Forces in China (Shanghai: China Continuation Committee, 1922), p. 124. Map 3 - Protestant Mission Fields in Shandong, in Stauffer, Christian Occupation of China, p. 197. Map 4 - Protestant Mission Fields in Inner and Outer Mongolia, in Stauffer, Christian Occupation of China, p. 269). Map 5 – Northeast China during the Republican period, in Lin, Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier, p.4. Map 6 - Sturt’s map of Jehol Territory, in Echoes of Service (February 1935), p. 35. Map 7 – Manchukuo, in Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), p. 66. Map 8 – Bull and Patterson’s journey across China to Tibet, in Geoffrey T. Bull, When Iron Gates Yield (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955), p. 6. Map 9 – Southwest China during the Republican period, in Lin, Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier, p.4. Map 10 – Tibet during the Republican period, from a Tibetan administrative perspective, in Carole McGranahan, Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), p. xviii. Map 11 – Patterson’s route through Tibet to India, in George N. Patterson, Tibetan Journey (London: Faber & Faber, 1952)., pp. 12-13. 3 Map 12 – Patterson’s route in the context of Central Asia, in Patterson, Tibetan Journey, p. 14. Illustrations Figure 1 - Echoes of Service (July 1926), front page. Figure 2 - Echoes of Service (July 1926), inside pages. Figure 3 - Echoes of Service (March 1921), inside pages. Figure 4 - Echoes of Service (March 1921), inside pages. Figure 5 – Echoes of Service (January 1921), front page. Figure 6 – Echoes of Service (July 1921), front page. Figure 7 – The Little Flock and the Taylorite Brethren in Shanghai, 1932 (Brethren Photograph Collection, BPC/1/53, John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester). Figure 8 – Watchman Nee (Brethren Photograph Collection, BPC/1/53). Figure 9 – ‘A group of Christians in Hada, N. China’ in Echoes of Service (August 1926), p. 178. Figure 10 – Echoes of Service (September 1926), inside pages. Figure 11 - Echoes of Service (September 1926), inside pages. Figure 12 – Echoes of Service (September 1926), inside pages. Figure 13 – Geoffrey Bull and George Patterson (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3, John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester). Figure 14 – Chinese evangelists in Tibetan dress (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). Figure 15 – Rapga Pandatsang with Robert Ford (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). Figure 16 – Topgyay Pandatsang (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). 4 Figure 17 – ‘Gospel literature being explained to herdsmen’ (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). Figure 18 – ‘George Patterson with yak herdsmen’ (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). Figure 19 – ‘George joins in the horse racing’ (Geoffrey Bull Papers, GBP/3). 5 Abstract Using previously undocumented archival material, this dissertation examines missionaries from the Brethren agency Echoes of Service. A consideration of missionary primitivism provides a more complex picture of the mission engagement with China. The Brethren are a radical evangelical group that originated in Britain in the nineteenth century. They looked backwards to an original ideal of Christian faith and church organisation, which they sought to revive in the modern world. This was a reaction against modernity, but it should also be seen as part of modernity. The Brethren attempt to take missionary primitivism to China demonstrates how Christianity in the West and in China during this period were mutually constitutive, with influences circulating freely and unpredictably between the two. The thesis is organised into five chapters which develop these themes. Chapter one focuses on changes taking place in Britain at the start of the twentieth century, and shows how the promotion of missionary primitivism abroad was seen as essential for the health of the Brethren movement at home. In particular, missionary supporters elevated the individual missionary who operated according to simple, scriptural principles. Accordingly, the remainder of the thesis focuses on a number of individuals who sought to enact this model in different ways and in a variety of settings. Chapter two examines Watchman Nee, the founder of the Little Flock movement. Nee appropriated missionary primitivism as a means of establishing a truly independent Chinese Christianity, and his success provoked extreme and contrasting responses from Christians in the West. In addition, although Nee emphasised the primitive character of his movement, its immediate context was the cosmopolitan, bourgeois world of China’s treaty-ports. Chapters three and four examine the work of Brethren missionaries on China’s margins, specifically on the Sino-Mongolian and Sino-Tibetan borders. Missionary primitivism lauded its pioneers in these ‘regions beyond’, which were seen as arenas where a Brethren missionary could truly fulfil their calling. The remoteness of these places also meant that the modernity of a missionary became more pronounced. Through administering modern medicine or as a result of business or political contacts, missionaries would often become important figures in the mediation of modernity in these regions. Finally, chapter five examines missionary primitivism in the context of decolonisation. Two points of continuity are particularly noted: first, the survival and growth of the Little Flock in communist China has led to it becoming a significant feature of the landscape of popular religion in contemporary China. The memorialisation of Watchman Nee has also left an enduring legacy among Christians in the West. Second, the Echoes missionary George Patterson, after being involved in the mission to Tibet, began reporting about and campaigning for the Tibetan cause. Though he saw this as a continuation of his missionary calling, it has led to him promoting causes at tension with his earlier convictions. These regional stories of missionary primitivism serve to challenge existing paradigms of modern Chinese history. They demonstrate that, rather than seeing the modern as superseding the primitive, the relationship between the two should be seen as a coterminous and symbiotic one. In addition, the emergence of modern and primitive forms should be seen as a product of the free movement of influences between China and the West, and of their mixing in a variety of contexts. 6 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 7 Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be