Cheng Jingyi: Prophet of His Time Peter Tze Ming Ng heng Jingyi (C. Y. Cheng, 1881–1939) distinguished him- missionary movement was dominated by organized missionary Cself by presenting what has been called the best speech at societies, most of them agencies of Western mainline denomi- the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference. In his remarks national churches. (The China Inland Mission was the primary he said: “As a representative of the Chinese Church, I speak entirely exception.) After 1900, however, there was a great increase in the from the Chinese standpoint. Speaking plainly we hope to amount of local, independent missionary work done by Chinese see, in the near future, a united Christian Church without any Christians. Much attention has been paid to the development of denominational distinctions. This may seem somewhat peculiar denominational Christianity in China, but only in more recent to you, but, friends, do not forget to view years have scholars begun to look into the us from our standpoint, and if you fail to growth of Chinese indigenous Christian- do that, the Chinese will remain always as ity immediately after 1900.5 Daniel Bays, a mysterious people to you.”1 for example, reports that “the number Jingyi was a Chinese born in Beijing of Protestant Christian church members on September 22, 1881. His father was a grew rapidly, from 37,000 in 1889 to 178,000 pastor with the London Missionary Soci- in 1906.” He also notes, “In retrospect, the ety (LMS). Jingyi received education from most important feature of this period was LMS’s Anglo-Chinese College in Beijing the growth of the spirit of independence and theological training from LMS’s theo- in Chinese Protestant churches. This had logical school in Tientsin (Tianjin). Within hardly begun in the nineteenth century, two weeks of his graduation day in 1900, but it was a prominent theme after 1900.”6 Jingyi and his family became involved in the terrible experiences of the Boxer Indigenous Movements from outbreak. “Six times he had very narrow 1900 to 1949 escapes from death. His family was shut up in the British Legation quarter in Peking Chinese Christians exhibited a strong desire for two months, where they suffered ter- for independence after the outburst of the rible hardships, costing the life of his little Boxer incidents in 1900. Chinese Christians sister and permanent injury of his younger had long been accused of believing in a brothers.”2 These experiences had a great foreign religion (yang jiao).7 They were Cheng Jingyi, 1910 impact on Jingyi’s life. criticized for being protected by Western He went to England in 1903 to help missionaries and foreigners and for enjoy- George Owen of the LMS in the translation of the Union version ing a number of privileges as a result of religious court cases of the Mandarin Bible. Then from 1906 to 1908 he studied at the (jiaoan) that arose as a result of the so-called unequal treaties Bible Training Institute in Glasgow, Scotland. In the summer of made with Western governments.8 In order to avoid these accu- 1908 he returned to China and served as an assistant pastor at sations, a new consciousness arose among Chinese Christians the Mi-shi Hutong Church in Beijing. He returned to Scotland that sought a form of Christianity freed from the dominance of for the 1910 Edinburgh conference, then back to Beijing, where the foreign missionaries. Chinese Christians, including Cheng he was ordained as pastor of this church, which was associated and others, were seeking a new identity for themselves. They with LMS but was an independent Chinese church.3 Cheng wanted to demonstrate their independence, fostering a self-reliant was thus working on the front lines of promoting indigenous Christianity that was freed from foreign funding, from foreign Christianity in China. Some parts of China saw some “three- mission direction, and from foreign preaching and theology—that self” movements initiated by missionaries in the mid-nineteenth is, the churches should be self-supporting, self-governing, and century, including the development of the First and Second self-propagating.9 Amoy Church in Xiamen, as well as the self-governing pres- As early as 1902, two years after the Boxer incident, Pastor byteries under the English Presbyterian Mission in Swatow.4 Yu Guozhen and some Chinese Christians met in Shanghai and The movement was led to a second stage with the indigenous formed the Chinese Christian Union (Zhonghua Jidutuhui). Real- movements started by local Chinese Christians in response to izing the utmost importance of developing three-self Christian the Boxer movement. churches, in 1903 they started a quarterly magazine, the Chinese Throughout China in the nineteenth century, the Protestant Christian (Zhongguo Jidutubao),10 and in 1906 formed the Chi- nese Christian Independent Church (Zhonghua Yesujiao Zilihui), Peter Tze Ming Ng was a professor in the Depart- an independent, all-Chinese Christian organization. It was ment of Religion, the Chinese University of Hong clearly stated that this church was to be separate from all Kong (CUHK), from 1985 to 2008. He now serves as foreign missionary societies in order to demonstrate to the Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study Chinese people that they could run their own churches, hence of Religion and Chinese Society, Chung Chi College, becoming truly native and fully self-governing, self-supporting, CUHK. —[email protected] and self-propagating. By 1924 more than 330 local churches had joined the Chinese Christian Independent Church, with over 20,000 total members.11 14 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 1 In 1907 the Centenary Missionary Conference was held in more concerned with the development of a united Christian Shanghai, with the topic of the Chinese church high on its agenda.12 church in China that was freed from denominationalism. For There had already been suggestions as to how to establish three- the Christian churches to cooperate and to unite in China, they self, independent Chinese churches for indigenous Christianity needed to put aside the spirit of denominationalism. As a matter in China. They included proposals for uniting independent of fact, “denominationalism has never interested the Chinese churches and of organizing regional conferences in different mind. He finds no delight in it, but sometimes he suffers for parts of China.13 In 1910 a movement was started in North China it.”20 The statement “Your denominationalism does not inter- involving a comparable federation of independent churches. It was est Chinese Christians” has been often repeated and quoted.21 also called the Chinese Christian Independent Church, but with a It is striking that Cheng could make such a statement at the different Chinese name (Zhongguo Jidujiao Zilihui); Chang Po Ling 1910 conference. was appointed president.14 The federation centered in Beijing and As noted, some observers thought that Cheng’s speech Tianjin and soon was joined by independent Chinese churches was the best speech of the conference. Afterward he returned to from all over Shangdong and Shanxi Provinces, including Tsing- China and continued to work for the development of a united dao (1911), Jinan (1912), and Yantai (1919). These movements of Chinese Christian church along the lines he had envisioned. With the independent churches laid a substantial groundwork for a the support of John R. Mott and the China Continuation Com- series of regional conferences throughout China. The conferences mittee, Cheng traveled widely throughout China in 1912–13, led to the first national conference of the China Continuation working to promote interdenominational cooperation among Committee in Shanghai between the years 1912–13, and the later denominational churches, as well as to foster coordination development of the National Christian Council in China, which among individual Chinese Christians. He helped indepen- was formed by Cheng Jingyi in Shanghai in 1922.15 dent churches attain the goals of the three-self movement and Consider some interesting statistics. Between 1910 and 1920 promoted the idea of federation as a first step toward union the number of foreign missionaries grew from 5,144 to 6,204, an among the Chinese Christian churches. increase of 20.6 percent, whereas the number of Christian believ- When the China Continuation Committee met in 1913, ers more than doubled, from around 180,000 to 366,524. With it was attended by 1,100 representatives, one-third of whom the anti-Christian movements attacking missionary work in the were Chinese. Because of Cheng’s work among the indepen- 1920s, the number of missionaries dropped to 4,375 by 1928. Yet dent churches, when the committee convened again in 1922, the number of Christian believers continued to rise: to 446,631 the number of Chinese representatives had increased to more in 1928, then 536,089 in 1936, and then 834,909 in 1949.16 Western than half of the total attendance. At the second meeting, Cheng missionaries had obviously done much good work and laid a proposed broadening the work of the committee and renamed it substantial foundation for the subsequent growth of Christianity the National Christian Council (NCC, Zhongguo Jidujiao xiehui).22 in China. But the dramatic growth in the number of Christians in Cheng was appointed its general secretary. He also worked for the twentieth century witnesses also to the significant effort made the formation of the Church of Christ in China (CCC, Zhonghua by the various indigenous Christian groups and independent Jidujiao linhui), which began operating in 1927. The CCC soon Chinese churches, not to mention individual Chinese Christians, became the largest Protestant church in China, representing close for a Christianity that was truly self-propagating.17 to a quarter of China’s Protestant churches, including members from both denominational and independent churches.