Abstract
What does popular Chinese Christianity look like? Answers are elusive, because the materials that survive tend to be books and buildings—artifacts that tell us more about the elites who produced them than the average believers who used them. The Center for Global Christianity and Mission’s digitization of 700 Chinese Christian propaganda posters at ccposters.com offers a rare glimpse into the Christian ideas and images that circulated on the street. Produced between 1920 and 1950, these posters packaged Christianity for mass consumption, and what they offered China was not Jesus Christ but his cross. Popular Christianity was crucicentric, not Christocentric.
Posters were the most common Christian visual imagery in China in the first half of the twentieth century. It might be an overstatement to say they were ubiquitous, but they were printed by the millions and hung in tearooms, on city walls, and on temple gates. Posters were put up in houses and churches; they were unfolded for street evangelism. Not only did they appear in the urban treaty ports of the eastern seaboard, but they were also popular in village evangelism in western provinces such as Yunnan and Tibet. Posters so dominated the Christian visual landscape that when a Christian artwork appeared that was not in poster form (figure 1), it was likely to have been inspired by one (figure 2). Christian propaganda posters were innovations in mass-produced art. They appeared just about everywhere, were aesthetically pleasing, symbolically rich, yet easily understood. Between 1925 and 1950 posters were the most visible manifestation of Chinese Christianity.
Ralph C. Lewis, untitled photographic print of a painting on a mission compound wall, Lewis Family Papers. Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Transform into New Persons, Yen Song-p’u, 1929, 76 × 54 cm, The Religious Tract Society of Hankow (and Shanghai). Courtesy of the Boston University School of Theology Archives, Boston, MA.
No other Christian material permeated China like posters, save perhaps tracts, which around 1929 often became just miniature black-and-white reproductions of the same. 1 If someone in China was exposed to Christianity, it was most likely through one of these images. For comparison’s sake, in 1934 the Religious Tract Society (RTS) printed at least one million pictures that appeared on posters (or tracts with the same images). 2 That same year, Wu Yaozong (Y. T. Wu) bolstered his place as one of China’s leading theological voices with the publication of The Social Gospel [Shehui fuyin]. His book was extremely popular, confirming the wisdom of the printing press to run off 4,000 copies—the largest print run by the YMCA that year. 3 In terms of saturation, the posters swamped the book. Yet scholars have turned to Wu’s text and similar academic publications to create a picture of Chinese Christianity in the early twentieth century. That is a useful service, but to focus on China’s educated elite and their theological creativity can mask how most people imagined the Christian faith. It is time to expand the theological canon. If the aim is to understand Chinese theology as it was popularly understood, then we must look to the posters.
Chinese Christian artists and some missionaries designed posters for mass consumption. They had to make their art works woo their audiences. So, what did these lay theologians believe would be compelling to their compatriots? What did they think could win people over to Christ? How did they make Christianity meaningful for the masses? Posters were thoughtfully crafted to address a number of issues that were important to the average man and woman on the street, including how Christianity could improve their labor conditions, 4 get them access to a modern education, 5 provide biomedical alternatives for common diseases, 6 and help viewers enter heaven rather than suffer the tortures of hell. 7 Posters conveyed all kinds of pertinent messages to the nation, but one image was repeated over and over. The cross appears far more often than any other object, person, symbol, or text. 8 Christian artists believed that the cross communicated the gospel better than anything else—better even than Jesus Christ himself, who is almost entirely absent from Protestant posters. 9
For a religion named after Christ, the disparity between the high visibility of the cross and the virtual absence of the Christ is stark. Why such a gap? It may be that artists found Jesus a difficult subject for portraiture. The human figure is notoriously difficult to draw well, and if one is to paint the Son of God, the stakes cannot get any higher. Perhaps that explains why Chinese artists preferred to copy iconic images of Jesus from the West, if they had to paint him at all. 10 However, borrowing proved to be problematic. A Western Jesus reinforced the stereotype that Christianity was a foreign religion. That did not appeal to a nation that had become agitated by cultural imperialism. Roman Catholics, therefore, sought to circumvent such an accusation by presenting a Sinicized Jesus in their posters. 11 A Chinese-looking Savior was not a bad strategy, but Roman Catholics often depicted Christ on the cross, which was offensive to Confucian sensibilities. Any mutilation of the body was a transgression of filial piety; it defaced the sacred gift given by one’s parents. 12 Perhaps feeling trapped, Protestant artists simply avoided presenting the central person of the Christian faith. Instead, they promoted the cross, turning it into a highly condensed and multifaceted symbol that could speak to the desires of China’s millions. Their strategy may have made Christianity more appealing, but it also made popular Chinese Christianity crucicentric rather than Christocentric. The cross became the good news for China.
The cross as Christ
The cross functioned in at least four different ways in Christian posters. One of the most obvious patterns is the way in which the cross substitutes for Christ. In the absence of a Savior, the cross takes his place. (See figure 3.) In this poster, for example, the cross in the upper right-hand corner shoots rays across the otherwise dark background. At the bottom, a young man is looking at the Word of God. With his back turned to the brilliant cross, the shadow cast by his body makes the Scriptures difficult to read. He scratches his head in confusion. Another young man, however, has turned to the cross. His Bible is well lit by the light, and he reads the words eagerly. Someone familiar with the Bible will see several allusions in the picture: the poster acts as a vivid illustration that the light has come into the world, but the world has not understood it (John 1:5, 9); however, for anyone who comes into the light, there is eternal life (John 3:18–21). In case someone misses the fact that Jesus himself is that light, the title of the poster quotes Christ: “I Am the Light (John 8:12).” But when one looks at the poster, no actual person is to be seen. In Jesus’s place is a red cross. Visually, at least, it is the cross that is the Light of the world. 13
I Am the Light, artist and date unknown, 76 × 54 cm, China Sunday School Association. Courtesy of the Buswell Library Archives and Special Collections, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.
In the same way that the cross replaces the figure of Jesus, it can also speak on his behalf. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is the one who calls out, “Come, follow me” (Matt 4:19), “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28), “Come share your Master’s happiness” (Matt 25:21), and “Come to the wedding banquet” (Matt 22:4). In the New Testament, Jesus is the powerful figure who issues the compelling invitation “Come.” In the posters, however, that responsibility is shifted to the cross. In An Old Invitation Renewed, Jesus’s parable of the wedding banquet is divided into four scenes (Matt 22:1–14). 14 At the center is a yellow cross. Beneath the horizontal bar of the cross are additional black and white strokes that turn the cross into the Chinese character 來, or “Come.” The visual pun of “Come” in the form of a cross is clever, but now the cross not only speaks the word of invitation; the cross itself has become the invitation.
The dual role of the cross, both its capacity to stand in for Jesus and its agency in offering salvation, is combined in Gate of Humility. (See figure 4.) In this poster, three men negotiate an enormous wall. Clearly, the people in the poster want to get to the other side. We do not know what lies there, but the man on the left, who has climbed up on stilts, gazes at the top of the wall longingly. Despite his ability to raise himself so high, he is still just too short to see over the top or to get his hand in a place to pull himself up. However, at the base of the wall is a small entrance in the shape of the cross, and a person is slipping through it. The entrance to the other side of the wall is open and unguarded, but the travelers have to be willing to crawl to get there.
Gate of Humility, artist unknown, 1942, 54 × 76 cm, The Religious Tract Society of Hankow (and Shanghai). Courtesy of the Boston University School of Theology Archives, Boston, MA.
This poster evokes Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of John: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). As in other posters, the cross visually substitutes for the Savior. This poster also makes it clear, however, that the cross plays the central role in the drama of salvation; it makes things happen. The cross requires people to humble themselves and get down on their knees. A person might refuse, of course. We can see that attitude in the person standing on his stilts, which are named “arrogance” and “pride.” If, however, one wishes to pass through the wall, it will happen only if one obeys the dictates of the cross. This inanimate object has agency, and like Jesus, it exercises real power. By standing in for him, the cross—not Jesus—is projected as the one that saves.
Lest anyone think that viewers were too sophisticated to conflate the role of Jesus with the role of the cross, consider two things. First, most people who saw these posters were not Christians. They had not read the Bible, nor—in some cases—even heard the name of Jesus. How could they know, then, that Jesus and not the cross said, “I am the Light” or “I am the Gate”? People uninitiated into Christianity could only take the posters at face value, and on the surface, the posters are clear: the cross is the savior. Second, we should not assume that Christian viewers were more sophisticated or somehow more careful to differentiate the cross from Christ. Evidence suggests that some Chinese Christians, at least, did not bother. Consider the words of Song Shangjie (John Sung), who preached to more Chinese Christians than anyone else in the first half of the twentieth century and in many ways was the spokesperson of popular Chinese Christianity. “There are many self-designated religious people who think the cross does not surpass their so-called ‘self-sacrifice-ism,’ and so do not place great stress on the precious blood shed by the cross.” 15 Christians were not only conflating the cross with Christ visually, but also verbally. That suggests that somewhere deep in the Chinese Protestant imagination, the cross had converged with and maybe even supplanted Christ. For unbelievers and believers alike, the posters make Christianity a religion of the cross. It is the mediator of salvation.
The cross as agent of change
The cross often substitutes for the presence of Christ, but in many Christian posters it also assumes his power to save. How is that depicted? What does salvation by the cross look like? Become a New Creation shows that the cross’s power lies in its ability to effect change. (See figure 5.) This poster begins in the top-left corner with a man well-groomed and dressed in a neat Chinese robe, but when he sees himself in the mirror, he discovers that he is actually wretched. The mirror reflects his real self, which is dirty and unshaven, has messy hair, and is draped in tattered rags. In the central scene the filthy man encounters a red cross that exudes light. His arms are thrown back in a posture that suggests surprise and possibly surrender. In the concluding scene at the bottom right-hand corner, the man appears in a clean, spotless white Western suit. He is the symbolic image of a new creation.
Become a New Creation, artist and date unknown, 54 × 38 cm, Christian Witness Press. Courtesy of the Buswell Library Archives and Special Collections, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.
The man’s transformation is communicated largely through his clothing. The movement from a traditional blue Chinese robe to a white Western suit indicates that the cross does more than improve the man’s lot. It does not make his original clothes better; it puts him in an entirely different wardrobe. In other words, the cross fundamentally alters his life. To some it might appear that the cross Westernizes the man, visible proof that Christianity was the vanguard of cultural imperialism. 16 A more nuanced interpretation, however, would be that the cross modernizes the man. Few viewers in the first half of the twentieth century would have seen a suit as a sign of cultural aggression. Western clothes were adopted during and after the New Culture movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. They became visible signs that the wearers were not going to allow China to stagger on in the same direction. By the end of 1919, China had endured eight decades of defeats. The country had lost multiple wars, saw 135 towns and cities turned into treaty ports and foreign stations, and watched helplessly as the nation’s claim of sovereignty over its own land was pushed aside at the Treaty of Versailles. 17 To go on acting the same or even wearing the same kinds of clothes appeared tantamount to surrender to many. China had to change immediately, or there would soon be no China at all. In that context, a suit was not an advertisement for Westernization or Japanization. Primarily, the imported cut was a way for the wearer to visibly express his commitment to be different, his belief that China had to be made new. 18
That obsession with the need to break from the past is precisely what Leo Ou-fan Lee has described as the foundation of China’s modernization. He argues that it was not new technologies or social arrangements that birthed modernity in China, but a new perception of time. A new era began when Chinese people imagined and rejected the past as benighted and inglorious while sacralizing the now and the new. 19 That rupture in time is what this poster illustrates so eloquently: everything associated with tradition and the past is depicted as dirty, ripped, and ragged, whereas the new is not only clean but even brilliant. Changed by the cross, the new man radiates light; freed from his past, and the present is literally bright. For someone seeking to be different, it is the cross that has the power to create a modern Chinese person!
Lest that message be reduced to individuals being made new one-by-one, other posters suggested the cross had the power to remake the entire nation. Transform into New Persons shares a number of similarities to the poster above. (See figure 2 above.) The man on the right-hand side of the poster is in ragged clothes that have sins written all over them. Apparently, he stripped off his filthy garment and left it at the foot of the cross. The result is that he now stands covered in righteousness with the fruit of the Spirit embroidered onto his new white gown. It looks like another visual representation of an individual’s journey from sin to salvation by means of the cross as expressed in changed clothes. However, one detail of the poster sets it apart: its title was politically loaded. Since China’s defeat in the First Opium War in 1840, reformers had searched for ways to upgrade the nation. By the time the Chinese navy was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, desperation among Chinese government officials and intellectuals was palpable. Their navy had adopted modern weapons, yet they had still been routed by the Japanese. The conclusion seemed obvious. Changing technology was of no use unless the people who employed it were transformed first. Over the succeeding decades of the twentieth century, intellectual and political authorities adopted various strategies to renovate Chinese people in order to save the nation; they set out to gaizao ren, “to transform persons,” lest China be swallowed up by imperial powers. 20 The Christian use of that specific phrase at the top of this poster, gaizao xinren, “transform into new persons,” is the appropriation of a potent political slogan. It played on a recognizable phrase, suggesting that the cross is the means to remake the nation.
That conclusion is bolstered when one looks more closely at the details. On the dark robes, one finds more than forty words describing vices and wrongdoings: dissensions, factions, theft, greed, arrogance, and the like. These were the same things that the state identified as dividing, despoiling, and holding back the country. In fact, when Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) spoke about the need to save his country, his list of what needed to be reformed neatly coincided with the sins heaped beneath the cross. 21 But whereas Jiang suggested a program of state-instituted reform to rebuild China, Christian art indicated that if China wanted liberation from internal conflicts and external exploitation so that it could finally enjoy “peace” (a word that adorns the new clothes of the man in the poster), then the nation would have to be transformed by the power of the cross.
If figure 5, Become a New Creation, was trying to persuade audiences of the cross’s ability to bring about personal salvation, then Transform into New Persons (figure 2) expands the idea to include the entire nation. Chinese Christian posters dared to show that it was the cross that separates the dark, idolatrous, fractured, and dilapidated past of China from the new, modern, independent, and strong China, which Chinese Christians and their fellow citizens so deeply desired. Only the cross had the power to transform the troubled Middle Kingdom. It was the source of individual and collective salvation.
The cross as safe haven
The power of the cross is conveyed in its capacity to change a person and a nation, but posters also use other methods to communicate its incredible strength. Its sheer size, for instance, speaks of its might. In some posters, the cross is expanded to cosmic dimensions, as in Satan’s Snare. 22 More often, though, it is enlarged to exaggerate its magnitude. In Decision Time, the cross fills the entire sheet of paper from top to bottom, right to left. 23 This is no cross for crucifixion, the arms of the people at the bottom could never be stretched across the massive horizontal bar. Here, the primary point is to impress on the imagination the enormity of the cross.
In a similar vein, posters regularly emphasize the weight of the cross. Finished exaggerates the thickness of the cross, and its color indicates that it is not made of wood. 24 The blue and silver hint at metal, a material that conjures up images of such mighty modern machines as the locomotive and the gunboat. Moreover, this cross is immovable. It is not about to be pushed over. In fact, a number of posters make it look as if the cross fell from heaven like a meteor so that its base is driven deep into the earth like a stake. Sin and Righteousness even shows some of the rocks jutting out of the ground, having been displaced by the ponderous cross dropping to the earth. 25 Over and over again, viewers find the cross displayed as a profound point of stability.
For Christians in the United States, the Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy drove some people in the 1920s and 1930s to emphasize the historicity of the cross and resurrection. 26 For them, the cross became a firm historical fact, the one immovable object in time. For Chinese audiences, however, the cross served a different purpose. Their emphasis was on the cross as permanently anchored in space. Specifically, the cross is rooted in modern China. Ancient Palestine, Jerusalem, and Golgotha are visually absent. The giant cross of Chinese Protestant Christianity is always on native soil.
Why was that so important? For one thing, it was an effective way of communicating that Christianity was not a foreign import. A cross dropped from heaven into China bypassed the taint of foreign influence. More important, though, painting a massive cross in China offered something stable to a people enduring national chaos. Bookending the first decade of large-scale Christian poster production, China experienced two extraordinary natural disasters. The drought of 1921 pushed 20–30 million people toward starvation and claimed the lives of 500,000. Ten years later, floods displaced 52 million people, while the waters swallowed 2 million lives. In between those catastrophic events, China endured almost a dozen civil wars, withered under crippling economic sanctions, was stripped by the worldwide Great Depression, and watched helplessly as Japan annexed Manchuria. 27 The following decades were arguably worse, as the Nationalist and Communist armies turned regional conflicts into a national battle, and the invasion by Japan turned a national battle into a world war. China, in the heyday of Christian posters, was a nation teetering on the brink of an abyss. No wonder viewers felt like they needed something to hang on to. Repeatedly, posters provided that, quite concretely. (See figures 6 and 7.) Salvation through the Cross, 28 The Horrible Pit, and The Life Saver (1936) all offer anyone seeking safety something to grab hold of. The cross is a firm anchor or a lifeboat. It is the one thing a person can count on in a tumultuous and dangerous world.
The Horrible Pit, artist unknown, 1929, 76 × 109 cm, The Religious Tract Society of Hankow (and Shanghai). Courtesy of the Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, CT.
The Life Saver, Chow Chih Chen, 1936, 109 × 76 cm, The Religious Tract Society of Hankow (and Shanghai). Courtesy of the Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, CT.
The cross as sign of prosperity
China, in the second quarter of the twentieth century, was awash in tragedy and trauma. Chinese artists, however, did not turn to the cross for comfort or solace, even if other artists had done so for centuries. The Isenheim Altarpiece in Germany, for example, was commissioned to hang in a hospital dedicated to patients suffering from St. Anthony’s Fire, a disease that caused skin eruptions that would darken and turn gangrenous, and pain that would gnarl a person’s hands. 29 The gruesome crucifixion that Matthias Grunewald created became a visual reminder to patients that Jesus bore their same illness, and it invited them to see their pain as a way to participate in Christ’s own suffering. 30 In the nightmarish conditions of early twentieth-century China, one might suspect a similar artistic tradition to flourish, but it never materialized. Instead of promising comfort amid pain, the Chinese Protestant cross offered prosperity and an escape form life’s problems.
To accomplish that reversal, the cross underwent a renovation. Chinese crosses were almost universally painted in red, the color of joy and happiness. In China red is associated with good fortune. In fact, in the Principles of the Gospel the character for good fortune or blessing is superimposed onto the red cross in case audiences might miss the point. (See figure 8.) Red appears whenever there are new and wonderful beginnings in China such as weddings, a child’s first birthday, and the beginning of a new year. It is an easy extension to add red as a symbol of new life in Christ. Perhaps other Christian meanings were also associated with the red cross. It is quite possible that red is a mnemonic device to remember Jesus’ blood and his sacrifice. However, the crosses that appear in these posters do not focus on that sacrificial dimension. If they did, one would expect to see red in specific places, such as the points where Christ’s hands and feet were pierced. These crosses, however, are entirely coated in red and they no longer look like the wooden beams upon which Jesus hung. If one looks closely, it is impossible to see the grain or texture of these crosses, because they are not reproductions of wooden tools of torture and execution. They are celebrations of a new and better life.
Principles of the Gospel, artist and date unknown, 76 x 109 cm, Jiangxi China Inland Mission Bible School. Courtesy of the World Gospel Mission Archives, Marion, IN.
The red cross often appears in posters at the junction between the old and new. One of the most common visual devices in Chinese propaganda in the 1920s and 30s was the appearance of a fork in the road. Christians and non-Christians alike found it effective for illustrating their point. Down one road was misery. In non-Christian posters that usually meant deeper subjection to foreign powers, imperial exploitation, and the death of China. The other road, by contrast, led to freedom, innovation, and life. 31 Christians employed the same imagery, but the red cross invariably divided the road. The title of this poster says it clearly: There Are Only Two Roads. (See figure 9.) One leads to death, destruction, and hell. The other road leads to light, life, and heaven. If that is not enough to help a person make the right choice, the artistic depiction of the two paths tries to make the decision easier. The road to hell is paved with uneven stones, it twists, and it has such roadside hazards as a viper. In contrast, the road to heaven is perfectly smooth, absolutely straight, and no hindrances stand in the way. In fact, those walking the heavenly road do not even need to look down or to the right or left. With steady steps they approach heaven while enjoying the Word of God. In these types of posters, the cross divides life in two. On one side are sin and damnation; on the other, ease and salvation. The red cross is the signpost to a full and better life.
There Are Only Two Roads, artist and date unknown, 76 × 54 cm, Christian Book Room. Courtesy of the Boston University School of Theology Archives, Boston, MA.
The joy of a new life comes by passing through the cross. As we saw earlier in Gate of Humility (figure 4), that might require lowering oneself. In other cases, the visual instructions are less specific. The objective is simply to get to the other side. The only way to do that is to walk through the cross. Once through, posters unfailingly depict an easier life. (See figures 10 and 11.) In The Lord Died for Me, for instance, those who are willing to walk through the cross are promised victory over sin. Life gets better if one can just go to and through the cross. The Way, Truth, and Life illustrates the point well. On the bottom right a girl is bound by ropes that pull her toward the ground. She holds her face in shame or tears. However, once she navigates the cross that looms before her, the ensnaring cords disappear. Freedom is hers. She walks the path toward a radiant future, holding “Truth” in her hands. Significantly, the cross is left behind. Never do Chinese Christian posters depict Jesus’s words that his disciples must take up their cross daily and follow him (Luke 9:23). On the contrary, such things as “troubles” are specifically named as burdens that can be left at the foot of the cross. 32 In this way, Chinese Christian posters offer the Chinese Christian posters offer the cross, not as a way to make sense of the suffering, but as a means to escape it. Expressed more positively, the cross in China promises a better life and not merely a way to endure it.
The Lord Died for Me, artist and date unknown, 76 × 54 cm, China Inland Mission. Courtesy of the Buswell Library Archives and Special Collections, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.
The Way, Truth, and Life, artist and date unknown, 69 × 54 cm, China Inland Mission. Courtesy of the Buswell Library Archives and Special Collections, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.
Emptying the cross of its power
The cross is the central icon in Protestant Christian posters. Nothing else begins to come close to its visual dominance. It takes the place of Jesus. Through it, people can experience personal and national salvation. The cross is the one point of stability in a dangerous and chaotic world. And for those who accept it, the cross is the gateway to a new and better life. In Christian posters the cross towers above everything else. It is graphically almost always the largest thing in the posters, and symbolically, it is an extraordinarily condensed expression of popular Chinese Christian faith.
Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the cross was the first thing to be modified in posters that appeared in mainland China after the Communist revolution. 33 Prior to 1949, the cross loomed over posters. Afterward, crosses still appeared, but in truncated form. Quietly the cross was drained of its power. The few crosses that appeared became little more than a shorthand for Christianity. A poster The Lord’s Prayer from 1950, for example, includes a small countryside church in the distance. On the steeple is a tiny red cross. 34 Surely, it is more a sign that the building is a Christian structure than a particular theological statement. In a poster from the next year, two youths wear crosses on their clothes that sparkle. 35 (See figure 12.) The crosses are meant to draw the eye and mark the energetic young workers as Christians, but again, it would be difficult to say much more. Crosses no longer have rich or layered meanings. They are just generic references to Christianity.
All Believers Should Spread the Gospel, artist and publisher unknown, 1951, 27 × 38 cm. Courtesy of Hong Kong Baptist University Library Art Collections.
In one sense, of course, that was an extraordinary loss. The cross had almost come to define Protestant Christianity in China. Its diminution or, more recently, the removal of crosses from church buildings is a direct assault on popular Christian faith. 36 Yet, the forced visual alteration of Christianity gives Chinese believers a new opportunity. It gives them space to explore other objects and symbols, and maybe even the opportunity to see new dimensions of Jesus Christ himself. What was intended to harm, may yet prove to be good if it accomplishes what Chinese Protestant visual art has always aimed for: to express God’s salvation through Jesus Christ in a way that captures the Chinese imagination.
These Chinese Christian propaganda posters may be viewed in color in the online version of this article. More posters and information may be found online at ccposters.com.