Table Of ContentSaving the Nation
Saving the Nation
Chinese Protestant Elites and the Quest to
Build a New China, 1922–1952
THOMAS H. REILLY
1
3
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations xi
A Note on Romanization xiii
Introduction: The Protestant Elite and National Salvation 1
1. The Mission to China 11
2. Social Reform and the Campaign to Christianize the Economy 34
3. The YMCA and the Gospel for the Urban Elite 63
4. Protestant Youth Save the Nation 106
5. Resisting Japan, Fighting Imperialism 141
6. The YMCA and the Protestant Elite Welcome the Revolution 177
Epilogue: New Protestants in a New China 214
Glossary 219
Bibliography 221
Index 231
Acknowledgments
There is no worthier tradition in the writing of books than to begin your
work by offering your appreciation to all the people who helped and encour-
aged you in your study.
I first of all would like to thank Dr. Lee Kats, the associate provost for re-
search at Pepperdine University, for his and his office’s support over all the
years, and Dr. Michael Feltner, Dean of Pepperdine’s Seaver College. Through
the Seaver Research Scholarship Fund and the Seaver Dean’s Fund, Dr. Kats
and Dr. Feltner aided my research as I traveled several times to China and
Hong Kong, and to places nearer and closer by.
The project would have taken me at least one year longer if not for the
generosity of Dr. Hsing- wei Lee and the Chiang Ching- kuo Foundation for
International Scholarly Exchange, as they provided the financial backing
I needed to take a semester off from my teaching duties, providing me the
time to write the first draft of the manuscript. I am grateful for their support.
Many different archivists and librarians in Asia and America also made
significant contributions to this scholarly effort. Much of the material for
my research was gleaned from the Shanghai Municipal Archive, which
houses most of the former Chinese YMCA library, and is the only repos-
itory that has complete print runs of the YMCA journals Tong Gong (Co-
worker) and Xiaoxi Yuekan (News Monthly), along with other YMCA and
Protestant church materials. The archive also supplied me with records of
the Industrial Department of the Shanghai Municipal Council. I thank
Professor Jin Guangyao at Fudan University for helping facilitate my time at
the Shanghai Archive. I also examined material at the Shanghai City Library
and the National Christian Council archive housed at Huadong Seminary
outside Shanghai. Irene Wong of the Hong Kong Baptist University Chinese
Christianity archive was always warm and helpful whenever I visited there,
as were Helen Ng and others at the Chinese University of Hong Kong library.
Ryan Bean of the Kautz Family YMCA Archive at the University of Minnesota
went out of his way to make my two visits to the archive smooth, trouble-f ree,
productive, and enjoyable. The staff at Yale Divinity School’s Day Missions
Library, especially Martha Smalley, Chris Anderson, and Joan Duffy, have
viii Acknowledgments
also been very welcoming, and have graciously responded to all my requests.
The staff at the Presbyterian Historical Society archive in Philadelphia were
efficient and supportive. A brief visit to the Hoover Library at Stanford also
made it possible for me to access materials from the Nym Wales collection.
Nor can I overlook the significant amount of material that was made avail-
able to me via interlibrary loan, possible only through the hard work and cre-
ativity of all our librarians here at Pepperdine, but especially as a result of the
work of Melissa Pichette.
Some very special people provided me a fuller understanding of the
people and the events about which I have written. Professor Ying Fuk-t sang
of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, an authority on Wu Yaozong and
on Chinese Protestantism, in general, helped me with my questions about
Chinese Protestantism during the Republican period. Professor Zhao
Xiaoyang of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing helped me
work through some intellectual issues related to Chinese nationalism and the
YMCA. Franklin Jiang, the son of Jiang Wenhan, Student Division secretary
of the YMCA, was especially kind and generous in helping me better under-
stand his father, the man and the Christian scholar.
Other individuals who also helped me work through various issues re-
lated to Chinese Christianity include: Dr. Xie Wenyu, who understands the
landscape of present- day Chinese Christianity better than most observers,
and Dr. Kim- kwong Chan, executive secretary of the Hong Kong Christian
Council, who offered a sympathetic hearing to some of my early ideas.
Presentations of some of this material were made at different conferences,
but it is especially those held in Hong Kong, at the two different gatherings
of the International Symposium on the History of Christianity in Modern
China, in 2011 and 2015, for which I am most grateful. I thank Professors
K. K. Lee and Timothy M. K. Wong of the Hong Kong Baptist University,
whose hospitality provided us all an engaging collegial atmosphere. Talking
about matters of Christianity and society with Chinese scholars who have
dedicated their life’s work to more deeply understanding these ideas was a
valuable learning experience.
Material from two articles I published earlier was also used in the writing
of chapters 2 and 3. I thank the editors of the journal Ching Feng for per-
mission to use material from my article on Protestants and economic mod-
ernization and the editors of the Journal of American- East Asian Relations
for their permission to use material from my article on Wu Yaozong and the
YMCA in the writing of these chapters.
Acknowledgments ix
There is also a list of individuals who helped me with the writing of
the manuscript itself, by offering critiques of content, by proposing dif-
ferent perspectives, by suggesting ways to make my writing clearer, or by
recommending new sources. These were the individuals who read through
the manuscript at various stages of completion, and who provided me
with insight using their own expertise. That list includes: the late Randon
Wickman, a close friend who had a gift for engaging writing; Dr. Elizabeth
Vanderven, whose comments helped me better understand the Republican
period; Rev. Frank Woo, who served as the director of the China program of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ (USA) from 1976– 1993, and
who met some of the individuals whom I profile; Professor Mike Sugimoto,
who helped me better understand the impact of modernization and of mo-
dernity on the cultures and societies of Asia John Reilly, who has the rare
ability to make the most complex issues clear and comprehensible; the late
Dr. Dan Bays, the scholar who was singularly responsible for helping make
scholarship on Chinese Protestantism an important field of academic in-
terest; and Professor Kent Guy, my adviser in graduate school, who always
seems to have a better idea of the significance of what I am working on than
I have myself.
I would be remiss if I did not express my appreciation to the reviewers,
who remain anonymous, who read and commented on the manuscript for
Oxford University Press, and helped me better address some of the issues
I am examining. I also thank the editors who have overseen this project at
the press: Alexandra Dauler, Theo Calderara, Brent Matheny and Shalini
Balakrishnan.
There also have been small kindnesses offered along the way by
colleagues here at Pepperdine and elsewhere, recommending to me the
title of a book or graciously explaining the significance of events and
movements, especially in American religion and history, and for such
I thank Professors Christina Butterfield, Mike Ditmore, Darlene Rivas,
and Stewart Davenport. I also would like to thank Professors Alex Diener
and James Hudson for helping me better understand different aspects of
the history and cultures of East Asia. My appreciation goes out, as well, to
my student assistants, who ran various research errands, but also provided
enjoyable company, for a semester each: James Matthews, Griffin Duvall,
Caitlin Fogg, Robert Kiernan, and Michael Kruel. Students in my History
of Modern China class have also offered me valuable feedback in their
reading of different chapters.
