Abstract
For more than 100 years, China has seen waves of students and scholars heading overseas and studying in the West as well as the concomitant returning waves. This study draws on information obtained from secondhand documents and firsthand field studies to analyze and compare two returning waves involving the complex dynamics of globalization/indigenization of Christianity in China. The first returning wave began in the early 1900s and lasted until 1950, in which many went overseas because of their connections with Western missionaries. The second returning wave is currently occurring following the study-abroad fever after 1978, in which many were exposed to the proselytizing endeavor of overseas Chinese Christian communities and eventually converted to Christianity before returning to China. The article compares the following themes in relation to these two groups of Christian returnees: their negotiation with their religious identities upon the return, perceptions on the meaning of Christianity to themselves and to China, their transnational religious networks, and potential implications to the glocalization of Christianity in China. Consequently, it involves the following topics that are important throughout the modern Chinese history: modernity/religion paradox, East–West interaction in relation to Christianity, contributions of Western-educated professionals to China, glocalization of Christianity in China, and complex internationalist/nationalist interaction.
In 1855, Rong Hong, the first Chinese student who studied in the United States, returned to China after spending 8 years in his host country. Thereafter, waves of Chinese students/scholars traveling overseas and studying in the West have been observed for approximately 160 years. Chinese societies have also witnessed concomitant returning waves. Han (2009) suggested three returning waves. The first wave refers to the students who returned to Republican China from the United States and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by the second wave in which students returned from the former Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. The third wave refers to those who returned from 1978 onward. Bieler (2004) identified the return of Rong Hong and the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) students after the 1870s as the first wave, those who went overseas between 1909 and 1930 and returned to China before 1949 were identified as the second wave, and those who studied in the West and returned in the post-1978 era were considered the third wave. These different waves of emigration and return have different implications to Chinese societies. The reason is the disparate demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds of Chinese students/scholars and different historical circumstances of Chinese societies in question. 1 Apart from the emigration and returning waves to and from the former Soviet Union that happened between the 1950s and 1960s, other waves moving to and from European and North American countries involve complex encounter between Christianity and Chinese societies. 2
Before 1949, many Chinese students went overseas because of their connections with Western missionaries. Others converted to Christianity in the West. Those who followed the study-abroad fever after 1978 were exposed to the evangelizing endeavor of local Christian institutions and overseas Chinese Christian communities. Consequently, many of these students converted to Christianity before returning to China (Huang & Hsiao, 2015). The encounter between Christianity and Chinese societies that accompanied Chinese students and scholars to go and return from overseas provides a good opportunity to analyze the complex interface among Protestant Christianity, nationalism, and modernity. The implications of these Western-educated returnees, an elite group in any period of Chinese history, to Chinese societies have been complicated because of their other identities. On one hand, they are foreign-educated returnees who pursue national strength and modernity. On the other hand, they have their Christian faith whose fate in China has been situated in concrete political and social contexts and has been fluctuating. The study of the interface among Protestant Christianity, nationalism, and modernity, particularly the comparison between these interfaces at different historical times, involves themes that are important throughout modern Chinese history. These themes are modernity/religion paradox, East–West interaction in relation to Christianity, contributions of Western-educated professionals to China, glocalization of Christianity in China, and complex internationalist/nationalist interaction. To date, no research has directly focused on Christian returnees and the complex intertwining among Christianity, modernity, and nationalism during different historical times. The existing wisdom has considered the separate categories of “Chinese Christians” or “foreign-educated returnees” during different historical periods. However, research on those with both identities, especially those in post-1978 China, is extremely rare.
In a broader context, in recent years, new trends have been observed in understanding Protestant Christianity in China. First, Protestant Christianity in China has been examined against a global context and also redefined for the local Chinese contexts (Jansen, 2014). In this glocalization process, the transmission of Christianity under globalization is considered multidirectional rather than an overwhelmingly unidirectional movement from the global center to the passive margin (Cao, 2019). Second, as it globalizes and localizes, the diversification of Christianity is inevitable. Not one but “multiple Christianities” have been widely recognized within the multiple Chinese cultures (Madsen, 2017, p. 319). Third, a variety of agents and their specific interests during the glocalization of Christianities are emphasized. Among others, the efforts of Chinese Christians in the history of Christianity in China are paid particular attention to in recent years (Zheng, 2017). Finally, the glocalization of Chinese Christianities is not to be understood in a normative sense but on a practical level, that is, as experienced by those practicing it in real-life settings (Cao, 2019).
The current study, situating itself against this backdrop, uses existing wisdom as basis to combine historical and sociological perspectives and draws on information obtained from secondhand documents and firsthand field studies. Moreover, the current research intends to analyze and compare foreign-educated Christian returnees during the pre-1949 era and the post-1978 era, their understanding of the meaning of Christianity to Chinese societies, and the attendant complex interface among Christianity, modernity, and nationalism in a transnational context in China. The analysis of the pre-1949 era is based on the discussion of the existing documents. The part on contemporary Christian returnees draws on information obtained from a “multi-sited fieldwork” approach (Marcus, 1999) among Chinese Christians, including ordinary converts and ministers in the United Kingdom, Germany, and foreign-educated Christian returnees in Shanghai between 2009 and 2013. We conducted in-depth interviews and participant observations in 14 Chinese Christian churches and fellowships in England, one Chinese Christian church in Germany, and six Christian churches and fellowships in Shanghai. Apart from those venues, we also interviewed ministers and converts on Christian camps and workshops organized by Chinese Christian communities in both Europe and Shanghai. In the end, we interviewed a total of 37 Chinese ministers and 44 ordinary Chinese converts in these three countries. A “snowballing” method was used to choose the potential interviewees. The information was complemented by church publications, such as distributed prayer letters, articles in Chinese Christian magazines, newspapers, 3 and newsletters issued by the main Chinese Christian agencies in Europe. 4
On the basis of the information, this article intends to contribute to the aforementioned new trends. It contrasts and compares the experiences and practices of foreign-educated Christian returnees, new agents for transmitting Christianity to and in China, and examines how Christianity has been redefined for the local contexts in the pre-1949 era and at present. It suggests that the Christianity of the returnees is one among a multitude of Christianities in China and emphasizes that the Chinese have understood Christianity in terms of their appeal and experiences. One particular focus is the relation of Christianities to the nationalist pursuits of these foreign-educated returnees and the role of Christianities in their dream of modernity at different historical times. It starts with briefly reviewing the existing literature that focuses on Christian returnees in the pre-1949 and contemporary eras. Thereafter, it will proceed to compare these two groups on the bases of the social contexts of their conversion and return, potential implications to the glocalization of Christianity in China, and perceptions on the meaning of Christianity to themselves and to China. During the comparison, the complex relationship among imperialism, nationalism, and transnationalism in relation to modernity and Christianity over time will be analyzed. Thereafter, the theoretical and empirical significance of the research are concluded and summarized.
Christian Returnees in Pre-1949 and Post-1978: A Review
Historians who analyze the development of Christianity in pre-1949 late Imperial and Republican eras in China have considerably focused on the activities of Western missionaries and the history of missions and church leaders (Barwick, 2011; Hamrin & Bieler, 2009). Only in recent years saw the initial burgeoning of academic interests in the affinity between Protestantism and modernity and how the lay elite Chinese Protestants during the late Imperial and Republican eras contributed to the nation-building of Chinese societies. These studies tend to treat religion, particularly Protestant Christianity, as an important causative agent in its own right rather than merely being explained by other factors. Moreover, these studies explore how Protestant Christianity had contributed to the shaping of modern China through the elite Chinese Christians in the late Imperial and Republican eras.
A three-volume book series edited by Carol Lee Hamrin and Stacey Bieler (2009, 2010, 2011) analyzed how outstanding lay Chinese Christians became early modernizers who promoted nation-building and moral progress in China in the early 20th century. The majority of these lay Chinese Christians were products of the Western Christian missionary enterprise in China and pioneers in the modern professions of education, medicine, journalism, and diplomacy. The series linked their practical social reforms and values to their Christian faith. Hamrin and Bieler (2009) also considered the complex balancing of loyalties to the nation and the church of these Chinese Christians by presenting the stories of approximately 27 people. Accordingly, the primary focus is the nation, in which the majority of these Christian nationalists have contributed to the erosion of Christian vitality.
Other scholars have also observed how Protestantism facilitated Chinese nationalism through Western-educated Christian returnees. Lian (2006/2007) suggested that Chinese elites, most of whom had overseas study experiences often made possible because of their missionary friends in the late 19th century, became reformers and believed that Westernization would save their country. Their counterparts in the Republican era, particularly the key players in politics and a few leading intellectuals, also attempted to obtain the beneficial aspects of Western Christian civilization and inject such information into Chinese attempts at state-building.
John Barwick offered a considerably detailed empirical analysis of the contribution of Western-educated Christian returnees to modernize China in the pre-1949 era. He utilized a list of prominent Chinese Protestants between 1900 and 1950 that was compiled by an American missionary named Miner Searle Bates. Although this list was an informal sociological survey, it was the best resource available on the Chinese Protestant elites during the first half of the 20th century. Barwick reworked on the list and selected 469 people with relatively complete profile out of the 816 people on the original list. His analysis indicated that among the 469 people who were considered prominent Protestant Christians during that period, 288 (more than 61%) had overseas study experiences, of whom 91% once went to the United States, 10% to the United Kingdom, 3.5% to Japan, and 1.7% to Germany (Barwick, 2011, p. 171). This observation reflects the remarkable American and British missionary involvements in the Christian colleges in China and their part in facilitating the production of elite Chinese Protestants with overseas education background. Barwick suggested that Protestant institutions, particularly mission schools where these social elites had gone to or established connections with, played an important role in its linkage with the West, thereby facilitating their upward social mobility and shaping their Protestant values. He proposed a strong affinity between Protestantism and modernity and believed that Protestant Christianity enhanced these social elites’ embracement of modernity and shaped their particular vision of a modern China. Such vision included the institutions of individualism, modern education, nationalism, democracy, civil society, women’s rights, and nuclear family.
Despite the close connection between Protestant Christianity and modern China, scholars often hold a pessimistic attitude toward the link. Xi Lian suggested that the marriage of Christian and nationalist pursuits in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did not last because Protestant and pro-Christian patriots lost their nationalist hopes, and the Christian formula became irrelevant to save China. He emphasized the disillusionment of these eager patriotic returning students to change the country through Westernization and modernization (Lian, 2014). Bieler (2004), who wrote a book on Chinese students to the United States, echoed the opinion of Lian and suggested a troubled relationship between Western-educated returnees and Chinese nations. This opinion is highlighted in the title of her book, “Patriots” or “Traitors?” A History of American-Educated Chinese Students. These students, who were considered “patriots,” studied in the West to return and build a strong and prosperous China. However, upon their return, they were often labeled as “traitors” who advocated Western ideals. This situation was also faced by the Christian returnees, thereby adding to their predicament of being stuck between faith adherence and the nationalist dream.
These authors also project the pessimistic view against the contemporary era. Lian (2014) predicted an emerging and subsequently persistent pattern in the troubled relationship between the Westernized elite and the state in post-1978 China. Lian argued that contemporary Chinese Protestants shun political activism, and Protestantism had lost its role as a midwife of nationalist and modernizing schemes in contemporary China. Moreover, Chinese nationalism has come of age, thereby leaving Western Christianity no place in the architects’ dream of a different China (Lian, 2006/2007). Bieler (2004) also observed that unlike their predecessors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most Chinese students to the United States in the post-1978 era have remained, whereas those who returned have often been held at the fringes of influence.
The exception was John Barwick (2011), who suggested that educated urban Protestants emerging in urban China in recent years will ascend to influence the trajectory of Chinese modernity. Different from Lian (2010), who argued that the popular Christianity of the rural masses will be the defining aspect of Chinese Protestantism, Barwick believed that educated urban Protestants, particularly the elites, will rise to cultural dominance in the contemporary Chinese church. Barwick suggested that the ways the educated urban Christians exert their influences will not be revolutionary but gradual.
These arguments on the influences of foreign-educated Protestant returnees in contemporary China are brief and generally presumptive. The topic on contemporary foreign-educated Chinese Christian returnee suffers from double scholarly neglect compared with the research on Christian returnees in the pre-1949 era as a nascent area. On one hand, the incipient scholarly interests in contemporary returnees often gear toward their possible influences on and contribution to the economy, science and technology (H. Wang & Miao, 2013), education (Y. Lin, 2011), and politics of China (Han & Zweig, 2010). By contrast, the religious aspect is simply neglected. On other hand, most attention on the studies about Christianity in contemporary China has been directed toward the causes of recent revivals (Bays, 2003; Hunter & Chan, 1993) and the church–state relationship, particularly whether and how the endeavor of Chinese Christians for religious freedom would advance the shaping of a civil society in China (Cao, 2007; Kindopp, 2004; Madsen, 2010). However, discussions of contemporary Christian returnees are missing from this type of scholarship.
This current research presents an effort to expand the scholarly interests to include this rarely studied group, namely, foreign-educated Christian returnees in post-1978 China, via an empirical analysis. In addition, this study aims to understand the parallel relationship between Protestant Christianity and Chinese society in the pre-1949 and contemporary eras by comparing the lives and experiences of Protestant returnees and their implications in these two periods. Although the review of the existing wisdom informs us the detailed mechanisms of the interface among Christianity, modernity, nationalism, and transnationalism in the pre-1949 era, the empirical study of this research can unravel the parallel in post-1978 China.
Chinese Christian Returnees, Nationalism, and Modernity in Pre-1949 and Post-1978
This section utilizes the empirical data collected among Chinese Christian communities in Europe and Christian returnees in Shanghai to present the complex interface among Protestant Christianity, modernity, transnationalism, and nationalism in the post-1978 era. At the same time, it aligns the configurations with those in the pre-1949 era.
Rise of Returning Christians in Two Eras: Scales and Circumstances
Both pre-1949 and post-1978 eras have witnessed waves of Chinese young people going overseas to study and returning. The changing emigrating and returning waves, together with the circumstances in both origin and host countries, substantially shaped how returnees have encountered Christianity in the destination and in China upon return in the two eras. During the entire Republic era, nearly 50,000 Chinese students were travelling abroad to study (Li, 2010). Counting their predecessors before 1911 when the Republic of China was founded, a total of approximately 100,000 Chinese students were once educated abroad before 1949, with the United States and Japan being the most important destinations. They often went through strict selection and were public-financed for their studies overseas. In the end, the great majority returned to China after completing their study (Lei, 2017). Among them, how many were Protestant Christians? Determining the numbers is difficult. However, the Bates’s list, which documented prominent Christians between 1900 and 1950 and was used by Barwick (2011), only documented 288 foreign-educated Christian returnees. The actual figure was certainly higher than the given value, allowing for those who were not considered “prominent.”
Before 1949, a proportion of Chinese returnees were the product of the Western Christian missionary enterprise to China, and this connection likely made their studies abroad possible (Barwick, 2011; Hamrin & Bieler, 2009). A few others converted to Christianity in the West. For them, no matter where they went, behind them was a motherland which was experiencing numerous turmoil and eagerness to develop itself by introducing advanced technology and institutions. After they returned, they were facing somewhat paradoxical circumstances in which, on one hand, their Western credentials were highly extolled and could often secure them a prestigious place in the government or in the universities. Both the Qing Dynasty and the subsequent Republican government established a particular recruitment examination for the returnees to join the public sectors. Between 1905 and 1911, more than 1,400 returnees passed the examination and became officials of the Qing government. Moreover, according to the statistics on the employment condition of returnees from the United States in 1916, among 340 returnees, 110 entered the public sector, of which 90% secured a job in the central administrative, justice, and legislative departments (Lei, 2017). By contrast, the complex domestic politics might endow them a troubled relationship with Chinese nations, that is, they might be labeled “traitors” who advocated Western ideals (Bieler, 2004). For those returning Christians, this paradoxical situation, together with the split between Christianity and Chinese nations, added to their predicament. Despite their hope to inject the beneficial aspects of Western Christian civilization into the state-building of Chinese nation, the relationship between nationalism and Christianity was complicated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because the mission work of Western missionaries was implicated in the large project of Western imperialism. The anti-imperialism and anti-Christianity atmosphere, which fiercely denounced Christianity as a tool of the imperialist West, made Chinese Christians a target of criticism (Barwick, 2011). In this context, compared with non-Christian returnees, Christian returnees were somewhat stuck between faith adherence and the nationalist dream.
In the post-1978 era, compared with their pre-1949 counterparts, Chinese students traveling overseas and returning constitute a significantly bigger group. According to the Ministry of Education (MoE), from 1978 to the end of 2018, approximately 5,857,100 Chinese went overseas as students and scholars (MoE, P. R. China, 2019). Since the late 1990s, the number of returnees has been increasing by approximately 13% annually. In such areas as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, the increase rate even reaches 20% annually (Meng & Cui, 2003). MoE added that since 1978, 3,651,400 foreign-educated Chinese have returned to China by the end of 2018, accounting for 84.46% of those who have completed their study overseas (MoE, P. R. China, 2019). The returning pace has particularly speeded up after 2008; from 2008 to 2013, more than 800,000 students have returned after graduation, more than thrice the number between 1978 and 2008 (H. Wang & Miao, 2013). The returned population has been even bigger in these 2 years than in others. For example, in 2018 alone, nearly 519,400 returned, an 8% increase from the previous year (MoE, P. R. China, 2019).
Compared with the pre-1949 era, several new changes have also been observed in the emigration and return configurations in the post-1978 era. First, although the United States (32.76%) remains the first option for Chinese students when they plan to study overseas, Japan (3.63%) has been dislodged by the United Kingdom (17.24%) in the second place, followed by Australia (13.82%) and Canada (11.58%; see Figure 1; Xu, 2012). Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, has seen a rapid increase in the number of Chinese students because of the considerably tight post-9/11 immigration policy of the United States. Second, the returning scenario in the post-1978 era is also different. Bieler (2004) observed that most contemporary Chinese students in the United States do not return. However, this situation has changed after 2008 when their returning pace has accelerated. Moreover, the majority of students studying in Europe will eventually return to China, whereas the majority of students going to North America might choose to stay because the immigration controls in the former are stricter than in the latter. This observation has been confirmed by recent statistics on returnees. H. Wang and Miao (2013) showed that among their returnee sample in 2012, more than 20% returned from the United Kingdom, whereas approximately 16.7% returned from the United States, followed by 9.9% from Australia (see Figure 2). Finally, the contemporary returnees are generally not as prominent as their predecessors in the pre-1949 era. Returnees in the early 20th century were pioneers in their respective fields and were known for their public achievements (Bieler, 2004). However, despite the massive returning waves in the past several years in contemporary China, high-end talents with a PhD or with working experiences overseas only account for a small percentage. H. Wang and Miao (2013) emphasized in their sample that a large proportion of returnees from the United Kingdom are MA holders.
Main destinations of Chinese students studying abroad by country (%).
Where the returnees studied by country (%).
Different from their pre-1949 counterpart, the going abroad and returning of these foreign-educated returnees in the post-1978 era is relatively the result of the rise of contemporary China. Different from their pre-1949 counterparts, most contemporary Christian returnees became Protestants in host countries, apart from the few returnees who converted before they went overseas. After arriving in the West as students or visiting scholars, they have become the main evangelizing targets of overseas Chinese Christian communities (Huang & Hsiao, 2015). Since the 1960s and 1970s, the major host countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have witnessed the burgeoning of Chinese Christian communities when many ethnic Chinese students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia went to study and in the end settle there (X. Lin, 2011; Yang, 1999). In Germany, missionary work toward ethnic Chinese started among refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Further expansions of Chinese Christian communities in these three countries happened after 1978 with the arrival of many students and scholars from Mainland China. Thereafter, students and scholars from Mainland China have become the largest group among the Chinese Christian congregations in North America and Europe (X. Lin, 2011; Tao, 2009).
At the same time, the changing emigrating and returning waves, under the influence of the rise of China, have produced a prevalent ideology among Chinese Christian communities worldwide, in which ethnic Chinese are considered the new chosen people of God to ensure salvation; moreover, the vision for Chinese Christian churches in the 21st century is “Gospel into China, Gospel out of China,” that is, the gospel will be introduced to Mainland China again and then spread to the rest of the world via mobile Chinese (Tao, 2009, p. 24). The arrival of the students and scholars from Mainland China, therefore, ignited the hope of overseas Chinese Christian communities to achieve the goal of “Gospel into China,” that is, to spread the gospel to Mainland China again. Furthermore, from aforementioned Figure 2, those returning from Europe have apparently accounted for at least one third of the foreign-educated returnees, with 21.1% from the United Kingdom, 7.6% from France, and 4.6% from Germany. This trend was partially made by the relatively conservative immigration policy in Europe, partially by the fact that after 2001, Europe experienced a substantial increase in Chinese students and scholars because of the tight visa control policy of the United States after 9/11 (Tao, 2009). Therefore, Europe is considered a “Chinese returnee reservoir” that has become a potential “gospel transit” to Mainland China by the overseas Chinese Christian Communities.
From 2001 onward, the Chinese Christian communities in Europe have seen an increasing number of religious resources and personnel flow from Chinese Christian communities in North America. “Short-term” mission teams comprising ethnic Chinese Christians from North America can be regularly seen in Europe, particularly during Christmas and Easter. Long-term ethnic Chinese missionaries are sent to establish churches around university campuses in the United Kingdom and Germany or to work in Chinese Christian missions.
5
A Chinese American minister moved to the United Kingdom together with his wife and two children and assumed the position as the director of a Chinese Christian mission in the United Kingdom in 2008. He and his wife were students from Mainland China pursuing advanced study in the United States in the 1990s. They both converted to the Chinese Christian Fellowship in the city where their university was situated. They became professionals after graduation, settled down in a different city and started their family. In the new city, they were active members of the local Chinese Christian church and later even resigned and became a full-time minister couple, working with Chinese immigrants. In an interview, he talked about why and how he and his family moved to the United Kingdom: After we settled down in the USA, we just feel indebted to our motherland, gospel wise. We also took part in the short-term mission trips back to China, in the name of tourism, but due to the long distance and also the religious circumstances in China, those were not that effective. We then heard the sharing of a brother from the UK about the great need of Chinese ministers in Europe; we realized that working with Chinese students would be a good opportunity to serve China, since the majority of them would return to China upon graduation. Jesus’ messages would be taken back to China if they believe in our Lord before they return.
Under the targeted proselytizing strategy, how many Chinese students and scholars have returned as a Christian in the contemporary era? Knowing the precise number is difficult, but active evangelists who work with returning Christians in Beijing and Shanghai affirm that approximately 10% of the returnees returned to China as converted Christians in recent years (X. Wang, 2012).
The circumstances upon the return of foreign-educated returnees are also different in the post-1978 era. First, the schism and the predicament related to the concern with imperialism are no longer the case because of the “upgrade” of transnational emigration and transnationalism in China in recent years. After 1978, the Chinese government moved to (re-)legitimize its allegiance to China in established overseas Chinese communities through institutional and discursive means, started celebrating migration as a patriotic and modern act, and encouraged transnational practices among the Chinese people. That is, contemporary returnees are no longer “traitors” but “heroes” who have accumulated cultural capital in the West (Nyiri, 2001). Second, although their international qualifications are still extolled by the general society, the contemporary returnees are facing an increasing competitive labor market in China and expecting a different and more complex set of opportunities and challenges (Hao et al., 2016). Finally, the decline of public life and the retreat of the state from private lives beginning in the early 1980s created a social vacuum of moral values and behavioral norms soon to be filled with sweeping consumerism and other values of utilitarian individualism, which the anthropologist Yan (2009) suggested to result in the emergence of “uncivil individual” in contemporary China, referring to the imbalance between the rights and entitlements on one hand and duties or obligations on the other hand. On top of these issues, for those Christian returnees, the regulated religious environment and the tensive church–state relationship has added to their predicament (Kindopp, 2004).
From Nationalism to Transnationalism: Returning Christians and the Glocalization of Chinese Christianities
Thus far, the scales of foreign-educated Christian returnees and the circumstances they might encounter in both host and origin countries, before and after their return, in the pre-1949 and contemporary eras have been sketched out. Facing these circumstances, how have these returning Christians perceived their identities as a Western-educated returnee and a Protestant Christian in these two eras? In addition, how have these perceptions affected the development of Christianity in China? The comparison and juxtaposition enable us to raise several points regarding East–West interaction in relation to Christianity and the complex internationalist/nationalist interaction at different historical times.
As mentioned earlier, the conversion of the returnees in the pre-1949 era was often attributed to the actions of Western missionaries, regardless whether the conversion happened before or after they went abroad. They were somewhat stuck between faith adherence and the nationalist dream; on one hand, their nationalistic patriotism was aroused by the Chinese nation’s urgent need for state-building; on the other hand, they were facing an anti-Christianity atmosphere and became the target of criticism due to the complex entanglement of the mission work of Western missionaries and the large project of Western imperialism (Barwick, 2011).
Faced with the clashes and the hostility, returning Christians in the pre-1949 era wrestled to reconcile their religious identity with deeper Chinese cultural roots, that is, to indigenize Christianity. They considered it the ripe time for churches to become “fully Chinese,” with liturgy and hymnals available “for an entirely Chinese-language operation” (Starr, 2016, p. 60). For example, among others, Zhao Zichen (T.C. Chao) and Ding Guangxun, both Christian returnees, creatively made a case for a truly indigenous Chinese Christianity by employing both traditional Chinese forms and “Christian” content to exemplify work of indigenous adaptation (Starr, 2016, pp. 77–83). Their efforts intended to create a space for the Christian church within a somewhat hostile environment, and this intention had lasted till after 1949 when the Communist state was founded. Another Christian returnee, John Sung (Song Shangjie), who received a PhD in chemistry in the United States, became the leader of a popular Protestant movement in the 1930s and 1940s. The indigenous Christian movements led by John Sung and other radical fundamentalists and Pentecostal preachers attracted large audiences and went on to shape the revival of Christianity, particularly in rural China, since the 1980s (Lian, 2010). The trend of indigenization and Sinicisation of Christianity started the process of breaking away from the mission churches.
This trend of Sinicisation of Christianity has continued and developed from a local level to a transnational level in the post-1978 era. In terms of faith, returning Christians, from the facilitators of Christianity indigenization in the pre-1949 era, have become “the new gospel agents to China” in the contemporary era. As mentioned earlier, the conversion of the contemporary Christian returnees is often the result of the proselytization of overseas Chinese Christian communities rather than the Western missionaries. Moreover, the far-reaching ideology of ethnic Chinese being the new chosen people of God to ensure salvation has facilitated the building up of a transnational ethno-religious space of ethnic Chinese, in which Christian returnees become very important nodes to fulfill the goal of “Gospel into China, Gospel out of China” in the contemporary era. These ethnicized religious networks are grand and multidirectional and cover major Western Chinese migration destinations and Chinese societies (e.g., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Mainland China) compared with small and bidirectional networks between the host Western countries and pre-1949 China (Bieler & Minli, 2010; Huang & Hsiao, 2015). Among these networks, two related institutions have risen, that is, a “returnee ministry” (haigui shigong, 海归事工) in overseas Chinese Christian communities and “Returnee’s Church” (haigui jiaohui 海归教会) in the Chinese metropolis.
The “returnee ministry” (haigui shigong, 海归事工) has drawn immense attention from Chinese faith communities in North America and Europe. In this missionary enterprise, extensive efforts have been exerted by Chinese Christians in North America and Europe to spiritually equip (would-be) Chinese Christian returnees. Numerous training courses and workshops were organized, and the emphasis has been placed on how to resume a religious life upon re-entry and how to discern orthodox Biblical teaching from heterodoxies. The Campus Evangelical Fellowship (CEF, 海外校园), which is the most influential overseas Chinese Christian mission ever, compiled a Returnee Handbook in 2009 (and an enlarged version in 2012) to assist the (would-be) returnees in spiritually equipping themselves, thereby enabling them to firmly hold onto their Christian faith after their return to China. Lively testimonies from 10 foreign-educated returnees are included in the enlarged version to advise readers on how to adapt to the spiritual situation in China. This “return ministry” also actively weaves networks between would-be Christian returnees and those who have already returned and between Christian returnees and overseas Chinese Christian communities. Cathy, a lady who obtained her MA degree and converted to Christianity via a Chinese Christian Fellowship in the United Kingdom, returned to China and settled down in Shanghai in 2013. She shared her story of re-entry during an interview: Before I landed in Shanghai, I have gotten in touch with a sister who studied in the same city with me in the UK and also settled in Shanghai. My minister from the Chinese Christian Fellowship in the UK introduced us to each other. After I returned, the sister visited me and took me to her church on the first Sunday. I met many other returnees in the church and found out in happy surprise that I once attended the same Christian camp in the UK with two of them . . . My UK minister visited China every two years. Every time, she would visit each of us who used to stay in her Fellowship. Now, all of us have a WeChat group in which we share our lives and distribute requests of prayers. Every year, those members of the Fellowship who will graduate and return to China would be introduced to this network. And we could often find some sisters/brothers to help them upon their return in the cities they will settle . . . And every year, as a returnee, we are often approached by those who have the intention to study in our university in the UK, querying about the prospective lives. We will introduce them to our minister in the UK, and she and the sisters and brothers in the Fellowship will give a hand to them upon their arrival.
Interviews with Chinese ministers in the United Kingdom and Germany have confirmed that the same pattern is operating to build up ethno-religious transnational networks between the migration destinations and China. In this operation, returning Chinese Christians have slowly become influential religious forces in the Chinese metropolis where they reside. Their influences also come from their being the members of a new prominent religious force in Chinese metropolises, particularly the first-tier cities, that is, the recently risen “Returnee’s Church” (haigui jiaohui 海归教会).
“Returnee’s Church” was either started by returning Christians or has a remarkable number of foreign-educated Christian returnees among their congregation. Our field study in Shanghai has discovered that the returning Christians in these churches assist incoming Christian returnees to resettle and continue their religious life in China and guide overseas Chinese Christian communities reach out to those who are leaving to study overseas by working as intermediaries as described in the story told by Cathy. Moreover, members of the “Returnee’s Church” facilitate the further channeling of the gospel from overseas Chinese Christian communities into Shanghai and then to other areas of China. The interview with Peter and Amanda, a Christian returnee couple who obtained their degree in Germany, revealed how the “Returnee’s Church” they belong to has come into being since the early 2000s: We came to Shanghai in 2003 after we graduated in Germany. We started believing in God through a Chinese Christian Fellowship in central Germany where our university was situated. After we both settled in Shanghai, we decided to find a local church. We visited quite a few churches then, including a registered church with a cross outside of their building and a house church introduced by one of my colleagues. But the styles were different. The registered churches in Shanghai are often very big. We knew nobody. Of course, they also had small groups to hold weekly Bible studies in the church. But the ways of interpreting the scripts were different. Moreover, we were used to the faith lives in Germany where we might hold Sunday services at a church building borrowed from a local Lutheran Church. We had a weekly Bible Study at the minister’s house, which often started with a shared dinner. We really enjoyed the close relationship with the sisters and brothers then. The experience with the house church in Shanghai was better. But we found our need often could not be met due to our trans-cultural backgrounds. As returnees, we need some re-adaptations which were not shared by the other members of the church. We then met some sisters and brothers who were also returnees and also encountered similar problems. After consulting with our Chinese minister in Germany, my husband and I decided to open our home to start a fellowship for these sisters and brothers. In order to accommodate more people, we moved to the southern part of Shanghai where there was easy access to the metro, but the rent was much lower than the central part. We held Bible Study every Friday evening and Sunday service each Sunday. At first, the brothers took turns to preach. Later, our stories were shared among many Chinese ministers in Europe and North America, and they often paid a visit and preach to us when they visited China.
After over 17 years now, this little Christian Fellowship launched by Christian returnees has been broken into five “brother groups,” with 30 to 40 and 60 to 70 members each, scattering in different parts of Shanghai, all with easy access to the metro system. All are functioning as a formal house church. More than half of the members are Christian returnees who were once educated in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, and the United States. Others are from all walks of life. In 2012–2013, three Chinese American ministers (one couple and one woman, all in their fifties) were sent by their Chinese churches in the United States to move to Shanghai to work as mentors for these returnee’s churches. They also follow those church members who are migrants from other parts of China to proselytize people in their hometowns.
Determining the number of returnee-leading or returnee-involved churches or Bible study groups that exist in Chinese metropolises is impossible. However, within Chinese Christian communities at home and abroad, “Returnee’s Churches” are extensively accepted to have become an important component among house churches in large Chinese cities. Peng (2012) explained that approximately one third of house churches and Christian fellowships in Chinese cities are led by foreign-educated returnees. A U.S.-based Chinese minister who has regularly visited returning Christians shared during a personal communication that more than 10,000 churches and fellowships in Shanghai and the nearby cities in the Yangtze River Delta are led by returnees. These churches and fellowships have made Shanghai and the surrounding areas a gateway of gospel to the other areas of China.
Modernizing China or Christianizing China? Christianities, Nationalism, and Modernity
Since the early 20th century, the center of stories about returnees and Christianity was in relation to Chinese nationalism (Lian, 2010). How have the returning Christians practiced their faith, and how have these practices contributed to the modernization of the Chinese nation in the pre-1949 and post-1978 eras? The comparison enabled us to raise several points regarding the implications of Western-educated returnees to Chinese societies and modernity/religion paradox.
The pre-1949 Christian returnees had often been pioneers in the modern professions of education, medicine, journalism, and diplomacy and were active promoters of modern institutions, such as individualism, modern education, nationalism, democracy, civil society, women’s rights, and nuclear family in China. They were often considered “the conduits of modern ideas and practices into China” (Barwick, 2011, p. 77). They sought to use the Christian faith to modernize China and inevitably politicize faith with politics and patriotism. For example, “Cheng-chih hui” (Association for Accomplishing Ideals, 成志会), an organization established by Chinese Christian students studying in the United States in the early 20th century, established branches in Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, Tianjin, and Guanzhou in the 1930s, particularly to network returning Christians for social reforms, practicing a “social gospel.” Returning Christians worked with Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) to develop the mass education and public health education in China via the “Cheng-chih hui” (Bieler & Minli, 2010).
In the post-1978 era, the circumstances are different, as mentioned earlier. First, the Chinese nation-building has somewhat come of age (Lian, 2006/2007). Second, the schism and the predicament related to the concern with imperialism are no longer the case, but Christians are facing tensive church–state relationship (Kindopp, 2004; Nyiri, 2001). Finally, the voices of filling in the social vacuum of moral values with some proper values other than consumerism have been resonated by Chinese Christians, including Christian returnees.
Different from their pre-1949 predecessors who intended to save China by modernizing China, the contemporary Christian returnees consider faith and moralities that the current Chinese nation is lacking. The aforementioned line of argument that contemporary China lacks proper moral values to replace the consumerism and utilitarianism is congruent with what we often hear in Chinese churches in the Diaspora and at home. Therefore, the pursuit of contemporary Christian returnees is to fill in the moral vacuum with Christian values and pursuing a civil society with Christian spirituality for the nation. Under the current Chinese policy on religion, they shun involvement in politics because their church, house church for most purposes, has become a suppressed and domesticated public space that cannot undertake the functions of a public space. However, our field research reveals that contemporary returning Christians are exerting their influence by transforming Christianity into an indigenized religion suitable for the Chinese urban middle class, by promoting their understanding of the Christian theology.
Their Christian theology is contextualized in a contemporary Chinese metropolitan environment. Christian returnees in Shanghai reported that their faith has become the major source of their moralities in daily life, particularly in the realms of ethics on work, family, and child-rearing and the value of a person. In these areas that are crucial to life in the competitive and diverse environment of a cosmopolitan city, such as Shanghai, returning Christians promote the Christianized way of life by applying the Scripture to concrete life situations that are highly familiar to the urban middle class. This approach has attracted numerous proponents among the urban middle class. For example, a few Christian returnees who work as accountants share stories about how they refuse to falsify accounts in business. Several others tell stories about how their interpretation of the Scripture guides them to rise above workplace politics in the foreign companies. The most discussed area is children’s education. Christian values on parenting and parent–child relationship have been extensively circulated among young middle-class parents who are unhappy with the current educational system. Among all the life stories we have collected, the story told by Sarah is very impressive. After obtaining an MA degree from France, Sarah had worked in a French company in Shanghai for a couple of years, before she decided to quit her job due to her pregnancy of a second child. Financially, her family was fine as her husband had his own business. However, her parents became furious and felt humiliated. Her father said that he did not invest on her education abroad for her to become a full-time mother, a label often considered as no or low value in urban China (Wu, 2010). What was most striking for her was what her 8-year-old son said to her. She related this story to me during an interview: One day after school, my son told me and my husband that the teacher mentioned the importance of money in class that day. He then announced that “I think Daddy is very important, as he earned all our money; while Mom is not important, since her work can be done by the A-yi (nanny)!” I collapsed at that moment! My first reaction was that I have sacrificed so much, my future, my career, to take care of you at home; in the end, you think my role can be replaced by a nanny! . . . But later, I realized that since I chose to stay at home, I could not expect too much from our children, for example, expecting that he or she would be standing out among their peers, or expecting that one day they would tell you, “Thank you, mom. I owe you all my achievements today,” If you have these kinds of expectations, both you and your children would be weary.
Having or not having this kind of expectations Sarah said was the biggest difference between the many Christian full-time and non-Christian full-time moms who she happened to know: The difference between those with Christian faith and those without is the latter is often under greater pressure. They would invest all their energy and time to the child (ren) and take them here and there to learn this and that. This has made them weary. However, if you set your expectations on God, you would know that you are the one who plants and fertilizes but not the one who decides whether they would grow or not.
Sarah and other full-time mothers from her Returnee’s Church set up a “full-time mom fellowship” in which they have regular sharing and prayer meetings to support one another. They are also actively inviting other full-time moms, both Christians and non-Christians, to join the fellowship. When I was there, I noticed a wide range of topics were raised and discussed, from relationship problems between husband and wife, parent and children, and with in-laws to children’s school problems. Apparently, this fellowship had profound influences to some of the non-Christian participants who showed a deep interest in Christianity. Sarah and other returnee full-time mothers are also active in the running of a semi-home-school with Christian background in Shanghai. Its initiators and many teachers are native English speakers, and its international environment and the enormous emphasis it places on the English language have also attracted some non-Christian parents’ attention. Considering that it only enrolls pupils who have at least one Christian parent, this school has aroused people’s interest to learn more about Christianity.
Sarah’s story is only one manifesto of how these returning Christians are working to pursue a civil society with Christian spirituality in the Chinese metropolis. By borrowing their identity as foreign-educated returnees who are often considered someone having connections with Western modernity and relying on their endeavor of contextualizing Christianity against the concrete life situations in urban China, the returning Christians manage to transform Christianity into a religion of the elites. This Christianity is one of multi-Christianities existing in contemporary China, different from the indigenous popular Christianity (Lian, 2010) and disparate from those Christianities practiced by cultural Christian or urban intellectuals (Chow, 2018).
Conclusion and Discussion
Thus far, the complex interaction among imperialism, nationalism, transnationalism, modernity, and Christianity in the pre-1949 and post-1978 eras has been unraveled by drawing a parallelism between the returning Christians in the pre-1949 and contemporary eras. In the configurations of the interplay, Christian returnees in these two eras hold different positions, thereby resulting in their disparate impacts on Chinese Christianity, world Christianity, and other Chinese societies. One can see the continuity in terms of the glocalization of Christianity for the Christian returnees in these two eras. What differentiates the returnees in the pre-1949 era from those from the post-1978 era lies in the purposes. The former indigenized Christianity to make it “fully Chinese” (Starr, 2016, p. 60) and to resolve the schism between Christianity and nationalism, whereas the latter ethnicizes Christianity and builds up transnational ethno-religious networks, with the intention to fulfill the vision of ethnic Chinese as the new chosen people of God. Both groups can demonstrate affinity among Christianity, nationalism, and modernity. Returning Christians in the pre-1949 era intended to modernize China, and Christianity was considered a force that might be able to play a role. Those in the post-1978 era endeavor to Christianize China not only by working as important nodes on the transnational ethno-religious networks to achieve “Gospel into China, Gospel out of China” but also by transforming Christianity into a religion of the urban elite. In a word, Christianity offers hope for the formation of Chinese civility and morality. Whereas early Christian returnees sought to use the Christian faith to save China from imperialistic aggression and inevitably politicized faith with politics and patriotism, today’s urban middle-class Christian returnees pursued a civil society with Christian spirituality.
Following the comparison and contrast, this article responds to the new trends in understanding Christianity in China. It presents Christianity of the returnees as one among multiple Christianities in China, different from the indigenous popular Christianity (Lian, 2010) and many other Christianities practiced by other urban populations (Chow, 2018). It unpacks the glocalization process by presenting the multidirectional ethno-religious networks the contemporary Christian returnees are involved in and how they contextualize Christianity in the Chinese metropolis. Christian returnees, in both eras, are presented as active agents, and how they practiced/practice Christianity in real-life settings is examined. It also shows that religion (Protestantism in this case) has played an important role in nation-building and politics of modern China, which indicates that religion cannot be confined to the private sphere (Casanova, 2001). The reentry stories of the Western-educated Chinese Christian Returnees in both the pre-1949 era and the post-1978 era are about how religion plays a part in the issues of immigration and integration (Hirschman, 2004).
Scholars commented that due to the schism between Christianity and nationalism, returning Christians in the pre-1949 era would only have limited influences as they were unreachable to the masses. They predicted that the troubled relationship between the returning Christians and the state will persist in post-Mao China given that contemporary Chinese Protestants shun political activism (Lian, 2014). This research, however, suggests that Christian returnees, in both the pre-1949 and post-1949 eras, have exerted their influences on both Christianity and the Chinese nation. Particularly, the contemporary returning Christians, although not as prominent as some of their pre-1949 predecessors, will impact the country through their life testimonies in living out civic ethics and Christian values here and now. Their pursuit of Christian enterprise even transcends the Chinese nation and aims to fulfill the ultimate missionary enterprise of the “Great Commission” (Huang & Hsiao, 2015). Therefore, when Chinese returnees are considered a globalizing force in reshaping contemporary China in terms of its economy, science and technology, education, and politics, the religious impacts of those converted returnees among them also require analysis.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The writing and publication of this article has been financially supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (16BSH017) and ECUST Research Team Building Fund (JKE022023002).
