This is my search section here
Capitol Hill Baptist
Connect

Sermons

← back to Sermons

    Oct 23, 2022

    Class 3: China

    Series: Global Christian History

    Category: Core Seminars

    Summary:

     The history of the church in China is gripping, filled with unexpected turns no one could foresee. But in addition, there are a few specific reasons why we should be looking at this material today. First, the mere fact that there are 70-90 million Protestants in China[1] begs the question, “how did an atheistic country become home to so many Christians?” Second, missionaries played a major role in founding and developing the Chinese Protestant church during its first 140 years, and so there is much we can learn from this for missionary efforts today. And third, we as the Capitol Hill Baptist Church are closely tied to the church in China through our Chinese members, past Chinese pastoral interns, and supported workers we have sent to China. If we’re to serve our own church and the churches we know there well, it’s important to know the history and context of the story of Christianity in China.

    Detail:

    Introduction: Why Study the History of the Protestant Church in China?

     The history of the church in China is gripping, filled with unexpected turns no one could foresee. But in addition, there are a few specific reasons why we should be looking at this material today. First, the mere fact that there are 70-90 million Protestants in China[1] begs the question, “how did an atheistic country become home to so many Christians?” Second, missionaries played a major role in founding and developing the Chinese Protestant church during its first 140 years, and so there is much we can learn from this for missionary efforts today. And third, we as the Capitol Hill Baptist Church are closely tied to the church in China through our Chinese members, past Chinese pastoral interns, and supported workers we have sent to China. If we’re to serve our own church and the churches we know there well, it’s important to know the history and context of the story of Christianity in China.

    So let’s start with the question, when did the gospel first enter China?

     

    Pre-Protestant Christianity in China

    It’s possible that the apostle Thomas, who we learned last week evangelized and established the church in India, may have visited China during the first century AD.[2] The first confirmed entrance of Christian teaching into China was in the 7th century during the Tang dynasty with the Nestorian Christians. Then in the 13th century Marco Polo wrote about returning from China to Europe with a request from the first emperor of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The emperor asked for 100 well-educated Christian teachers from the West. But only two were sent and neither made it as far as China.[3] What a tragic, missed opportunity. Although the common telling of the story—that China could have become Christian and instead became Buddhist—is almost certainly overblown. After all, the emperor who made the request-- Khubilai Khan—had been raised by a Christian mother, a reminder that at the time Nestorian Christianity was still present. There’s some evidence that his motivation had more to do with wanting educated scholars in his land rather than their Christianity.[4] And several decades before Marco Polo delivered this message, Franciscan missionaries were already in China.[5]

    But in total, these early expansions of Christianity to China had—as best we can tell—only minimal impact. That began to change when the first Protestant missionary to China landed in 1807. And so it’s that story that we’ll pick up now. Which means that for the rest of our time together this morning when I talk about Christianity in China or the church in China, it’s the Protestants that I have in mind.

    The History of the Protestant Church in China

    Robert Morrison

    By the early 1800s, the Qing dynasty had ruled China for 150 years.[6] During this time, China had effectively been closed to foreigners and especially to missionaries.[7] Foreigners were excluded from most of the country, and evangelism was punishable by death.[8]

    Yet the conspicuous lack of a single Protestant in a country of 300 million began stirring some Western Christians to consider moving to China for the spread of the gospel. In 1803, a working-class British man named Robert Morrison attended the Missionary Academy at Gosport, England, with the goal of moving to China.[9] Upon graduation, a Chinese man in London tutored him in the language for two years.[10] This proved to be a remarkable provision for Morrison because the Qing government forbade its citizens from teaching foreigners Chinese on pain of death.[11] In 1807, just 14 years after William Carey had sailed for India, Morrison landed at Macau, which is on the southern coast of China, as you can see on the map on the back of your handout.[12]

    Shortly after his arrival on September 7, 1807, Morrison found himself at a crossroads: evangelize or translate the Bible?[13] As he saw it, evangelism would quickly get him kicked out, and any converts would need Scripture.[14] So within a few months of arriving in China, Morrison began translating the Bible.[15] For the next 27 years, he published materials in Chinese that would lay a strong foundation for future gospel work. By the time he died in 1834, Morrison had only baptized 10 Chinese converts[16] yet his life proved immensely productive. He published the first systematic grammar of the Chinese language, a three-volume Chinese-English dictionary, a 103 question Catechism[17], and a Bible in Chinese.[18]

    First Opium War

    During the last decade of Morrison’s life, tensions were rising between the British government and the Qing dynasty over the import of opium from British India.[19] By the time of Morrison’s death, over 2 million in China were addicted to opium.[20] In 1839 the conflict boiled over with what became known as the First Opium War. Three years later, the British had defeated the Chinese and imposed the first of the so-called Unequal Treaties.[21] This document contained two provisions that would alter the course of Christianity in China: First, Christianity became legal.[22] And second, five coastal cities, including Shanghai and Guangzhou[23], were opened up for trade and permanent residence by foreigners, including missionaries.[24]

    For missionary work, the Unequal Treaties would be a mixed blessing. Yes, it was helpful that missionaries now had access to some of China. But the missionaries’ association with their own oppressive government and the opium trade became a significant obstacle. Sadly, the same treaty that essentially opened China for legal opium also opened the Chinese coast for legal missionary activity.[25] While many Western Christians in China had long denounced[26] the opium[27] trade[28], total separation from it proved nearly impossible as opium boats represented the only means of transportation to the Chinese interior. And in the same way, the Chinese they sought to convert often struggled to separate the message of Christianity from the immorality of Western Christendom. The great Protestant missionary to China, Griffith John (1831-1912), once wrote that the Western involvement in the opium trade “speaks more eloquently and convincingly to the Chinese mind against Christianity ... than the missionary does or can do for it.”[29] But this was only one event that complicated Christian witness in China. Another was the

    Taiping Rebellion

    In the late 1840s, a man named Hong Xiuquan was converted through the ministry a Baptist missionary in Hong Kong. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom which instituted communal land policies, food quotas, gender segregation, and many other stringent regulations.[30] At first, Western missionaries celebrated the Taipings and their rapid growth. But by 1852 when the Taipings added to Scripture with The Book of Heaven-Commanded Edicts, it became clear that the Taipings were not orthodox Christians.[31]

    By the mid-1850s, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had become not only a religious group but also a violent political and military uprising. Between 1851 and 1864, the quasi-Christian Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty and the vicious civil war it incited cost between 20 and 30 million lives.[32] Ironically, it took the forces of a Christian British General to save the non-Christian Manchu Qing empire from the pseudo-Christian Taiping warriors.[33]

    For many Chinese political leaders, the Taiping Rebellion was a lesson in the danger of unregulated religion. And so perhaps even more than the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion became a significant obstacle to the advancement of the gospel in China and especially of foreign advancement of the gospel in China.

    Hudson Taylor

    By now, China had seen 50 years of missionary activity, but by 1860 there were only 351 Chinese Protestant church members[34] and 91 Protestant missionaries in China—all of whom were in coastal cities.[35] But that was about to change. In 1854, during the Taiping Rebellion, a young doctor named Hudson Taylor arrived in Shanghai. In his first few years there, he took 18 preaching trips in the area around Shanghai, often alone. He was looked down on by other missionaries, in part because he had made the unpopular decision to shed western clothing in favor of the Chinese style of dress, in order to be more socially acceptable to the people he was preaching to.

    Six years later, Taylor returned to England due to health problems[36] and spent the next five years preaching and recruiting missionaries to go to the inland, unreached areas of China. In June of 1865 he founded[37] the China Inland Mission (CIM).[38]

    This new organization embraced several policies that were relatively unprecedented in the history of Protestant missions: (i) Being a “faith mission,” Taylor argued against appeals for money, whether at a church[39] or in person.[40] (ii) Taylor mainly sent out lay working-class people[41] and not ordained clergy.[42] (iii) Taylor insisted on wearing native dress[43] as a general policy.[44] (iv) Taylor accepted a large number of single women as missionaries and sent some of them to work in the countryside alone.[45]

    And Taylor’s work had an impact. By 1880, the number of Chinese missionaries with CIM eclipsed the number of Western missionaries outside of CIM (100 to 96)[46] and by 1893, there were 1,323 Protestant missionaries in China.[47] Taylor would spend most of his life in China despite painful health challenges[48], but as his death approached, he was once more back in England. So he insisted on returning to China one last time. On June 1, 1905 he arrived in Changsha, China, twice widowed and 73 years of age. He died two days later.[49]

    Boxer Rebellion

    As the number of foreign missionaries in China surged with the close of the 19th century, many in China increasingly saw indigenous Christian converts as dangerous and unpatriotic.[50] By early 1899, groups of locals, called Boxers[51], began vandalizing towns as they proclaimed “Exalt the Dynasty; Destroy the Foreigners”.[52] As this Boxer Rebellion spread, foreign missionaries and Christian converts alike became targets of physical attacks.[53] Many, both in the West and in China, faulted missionaries for the violence.[54] Foreign troops eventually stopped the violence but not before the Boxers had killed roughly 200 foreign missionaries and about 30,000 Chinese Christians[55], most of them Roman Catholic.[56] The Boxer Rebellion would sadly turn out to but a foretaste of how Chinese attitudes and opposition toward Christianity were changing. That’s a summary of foreign missionary activity in China. In a moment we’ll consider some indigenous Christian movements in China. But before we do, are there any questions?

    Indigenous Christian Movements: John Sung & Watchman Nee

    The same month that the Boxer rebellion ended, China’s greatest evangelist of the 20th century[57], John Sung, was born in Fujian, China. Academically gifted, Sung traveled to the United Stated where he earned a PhD in chemistry from Ohio State University in 1926[58] and then went on to study theology at Union Seminary in New York City on a tuition-free scholarship.[59] Between the faculty of Union Seminary and the work of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Sung became convinced of Protestant liberalism.[60] Eventually, after an emotional, psychological, and spiritual crisis, coupled with attendance at a revival meeting[61], Sung rejected Protestant liberalism, burned his theology books as “books of the demons”, and confronted Fosdick saying, “You are of the Devil. You made me lose my faith.”[62]

    In October 1927, Sung returned to China[63] and in 1931 a Chinese Christian named Andrew Gih assembled the Bethel Worldwide Evangelistic Band and made John Sung the lead evangelist.[64] As the group traveled throughout China, John Sung preached with an emotional intensity and theatrical style that captivated the imagination of many. For example, to illustrate the Biblical story of Naaman’s healing of leprosy after going into the water seven times, Sung jumped off the stage seven times.[65] John Sung’s Bethel Band revival meetings drew from early 20th century American Pentecostalism, often featuring miraculous healings. Sadly, not all seems to have been genuine. For example, a missionary doctor recounted the story of a young boy ostensibly healed at a Bethel Band service in the early 1930s: “Dr. Sung had told him that he must say, ‘I can see’; otherwise, it would be a lack of faith and he would never be able to see.”[66]

    Yet the Bethel Band’s healing and evangelistic services grew in popularity. Between 1931 and 1935, they visited 133 cities, and held almost 3,400 revival meetings.[67] In one year alone, its members preached to 425,980 people in thirteen provinces and 65 cities, seeing a reported 18,118 conversions.[68]

    At the same time, another Chinese pastor named Watchman Nee was forming a fellowship of churches with calls for holiness and warnings against denominationalism. Born into a Christian family in Guangdong,[69] he was converted as a teenager at an evangelistic meeting in 1920, held by the first well-known Chinese female evangelist, Dora Yu.[70] In the years that followed, Nee became enamored with the Plymouth Brethren, classic Scofield Dispensationalist theology[71], Keswick Higher Life teaching[72], and mystics such as Madame Guyon.[73] In 1928, Watchman Nee published his best-known book, The Spiritual Man, which drew heavily from the mystic Jessie Penn-Lewis and her work Soul and Spirit.[74]

    By the early 1930s, Nee’s following began to grow rapidly and Nee used his elevated position to denounce denominations, which he saw as an unhelpful import from Western missionaries.[75] Ironically, about the same time, a group of churches founded by Nee called Little Flock[76] began to expand quickly. By late 1933, Nee reported that there were already more than 100 Little Flock assemblies[77], and as Nee continued to publish and preach, the ministry continued to expand, even through the disruption and persecution of China’s war with Japan during World War II.[78] In 1952 Nee was arrested by the Chinese Communist government and spent the last 20 years of his life in prison. Which brings us to the impact of the communists on Chinese Christianity.

    Three-Self Patriotic Movement

    Shortly after war between China and Japan ended in the mid-1940s, a brutal civil war engulfed China. On one side were the Nationalists, who had toppled the Qing dynasty in 1912, and on the other the Communists, led by Mao Zedong. Eventually, the Communists won and on October 1, 1949, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Like the emperors of earlier dynasties, the Communists insisted on monitoring religious life and required all sects to register with the government. Events like the Taiping Rebellion help put that into context[79]. So what did this look like for the Christians?

    In May of 1950 the Communist Protestant Y. T. Wu and 18 other Chinese church leaders traveled to Beijing for a series of meetings with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Out of these discussions, the Christians acknowledged the history of imperial entanglement and pledged to extricate any remaining foreign ties.[80] In a document produced by the group called the “Christian Manifesto” that tended strongly toward liberal theology[81] the authors wrote: “Recognize clearly the evils that have been wrought in China by imperialism; recognize the fact that in the past imperialism has made use of Christianity; purge imperialistic influences from within Christianity itself; and be vigilant against imperialism, especially American imperialism, in its plot to use religion in fostering the growth of reactionary forces.”[82]

    In May 1951, Y. T. Wu assembled a group of Protestants in Beijing to start the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) as a formal institution.[83] The phrase Three-Self dates back to three goals missionary strategy in the mid-1800s: self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation.[84][85] While religious in appearance, the TSPM had highly political goals. In fact, the initial council that launched the organization had overtly Communist political aims and called itself the “Preparatory Council of the China Christian Resist-America Help-Korea Three-Self Reform Movement”.[86]

    With the launch of the TSPM as government-sanctioned Christianity, the government accelerated its persecution of Christian leaders outside of the TSPM. By 1955, the vast majority of these leaders had been jailed, subjected to severe public denouncement, or had fled the country.[87] Generally accusations against these leaders were non-religious in nature—like fraud or disloyalty—in an attempt to preserve the facade of religious freedom.[88] As a result, by the mid 1950s, every major indigenous Chinese church movement that could genuinely claim to be “three-self” was in decline[89]. But this was just the beginning of organized persecution.

    Persecution: Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution

    Beginning in 1958, Mao instituted The Great Leap Forward that sought rapid industrialization and collectivization. This reform effort created forced agricultural communes, criminalized private farming, and heightened religious persecution. In 1958 alone, The Great Leap Forward closed upwards of 20,000 churches, sending many pastors into the fields to labor.[90] And by 1960, increasing TSPM control over the small number of public churches that remained open led to an exodus of many Christians, inaugurating the so-called “house church” movement.[91] And Mao’s Great Leap Forward hurt far more than just Christians. In three years alone, between a manmade famine and political repression, at least thirty million were killed.[92]

    In the wake of this disaster, Mao himself was politically marginalized. So beginning in 1966, he created the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) to purge moderating influences from society and resecure his power. Young people in particular were encouraged to denounce those suspected of disloyalty in schools, cultural institutions, and even in their own families. As part of the Cultural Revolution, every church was closed by the end of 1966[93] and in the late 1960s, Mao instituted a nationwide policy to eliminate all religion[94] and close the TSPM.[95]

    The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 with Mao Zedong’s death, making the final 20 years of Mao’s life the greatest period of religious persecution in Chinese history.[96]

    Opening

    The years following Mao’s death were a period of opening to the West and loosening of internal regulation.[97] Many churches re-opened and the TSPM re-emerged to regulate Protestant congregations. By the late 1970s, Protestants numbered five- to six million, a figure that was growing quickly.[98] It seems then that the Protestant church had grown by anywhere from three- to six-fold during the Cultural Revolution.[99] And growth continued.

    Today

    So where does this leave the church in China today? Estimates vary widely but it seems that there were roughly 70-90 million Protestant adherents in China as of 2015[100]. You’ll see under roman numeral #5 on your handout that we can characterize this movement in a few different ways.

     

    Three Self vs. House Churches

    The biggest distinction between churches in China today is the divide between government-regulated TSPM churches and illegal house churches.

    Many Three Self churches today are theologically liberal, while some preach the Biblical gospel.

    There are many true Christians, even true pastors in Three Self Churches. But what they all share in common is that their teaching and gatherings are regulated by the government, and as a result, they are not allowed to teach the whole Bible.

    House churches, on the other hand, are illegal, unregistered churches in China. The majority of Christian adherents in China are in house churches. Conditions vary city to city, but in general the government tends to not crackdown on these unregistered churches until they grow to 150 or maybe 200 people[101]. Yet recent years have brought increased persecution of these churches, especially in smaller cities. Which brings us to a second characteristic of the modern church in China:

     

    Persecution

    Western Christians often have a rosy-eyed view of religious persecution. Yes, Tertullian’s famous saying from the third century—"the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”—has largely proved true, certainly in China. Yet persecution often weakens the church, which also describes the Chinese experience.

    • For example, because of persecution, churches in China tend to be isolated from each other. If a house church leader starts teaching false doctrines, there may not be other leaders around to correct him or warn the flock.
    • Because of government restrictions, many Chinese Christians don’t have access to Christian literature—either online or as books—that could help them better understand Scripture, strengthening their faith and protecting them from false teaching.
    • Another challenge caused by persecution is the difficulty of hiring full-time staff pastors because churches are small. As a result, the quality of their teaching suffers, with pastors stretched between preaching, discipling, counseling, and often working another job.
    • Persecution also makes good theological education and training for ministry hard to come by. There are some small, underground seminaries in China, and some aspiring Chinese pastors go to other countries for training. But that requires funding and often proficiency in another language. And when you’re struggling to survive as a small church, it’s difficult to consider sending away one of your promising young leaders for several years of training. This is compounded by the lack of men in many churches in China—who make up roughly 1 in 3 Christian adherents in China.

    All these challenges brought on by persecution are some of the reasons why many refer to the church in China as a mile wide but an inch thin, with healthy churches seemingly few and far between. So when we say there are upwards of 70 million Protestant adherents in China, that’s sadly very far from saying that 70 million people in China believe the Bible, or the Biblical gospel. Let alone 70 million who are gathered into churches where the Word is faithfully preached and the ordinances faithfully administered. That’s one reason why nearly all of our work in China as a church is focused on training pastors and supporting local churches.

     

    Unreached People and Cities

    Given what I just said about 70-90 million Protestant adherents, this last point might surprise you. Yet China is the country in the world with the third-most unreached people groups. Tens of millions of Christians in the east, yes. But the west, far north, and far south are often quite unreached with the gospel.

    With access limited to foreigners, it is Chinese Christians who can best access these areas. As a result, one great gospel opportunity of our present day is for Chinese churches to send missionaries to bring the gospel to unreached people within their own country.

     

                Let’s conclude with some lessons for us from this amazing story.

    Conclusion

    Lessons From Recent Chinese Church History

    Despite the challenges facing the Chinese church today, its history is a gripping story of perseverance and even amazing growth through opposition. While there is much we can learn from the past 200 years of Chinese Protestantism, a few brief lessons stand out.

    (1) Cultural Associations with the Gospel Matter. The scandalous behavior of Western governments toward the Chinese people left a negative perception toward Western missionaries that made—and still makes—evangelism difficult. As one woman who served as a dressmaker for three generations of China Inland Mission workers once said, “there seemed little inducement to repent and be saved, if going to heaven would entail associating with foreigners for all eternity.”[102]

    (2) Protestant Liberalism Doesn’t Survive Persecution. In the three decades before Mao, many Western Protestant liberals spread their theology in China. However, little of that survived his rule, and after China re-opened in 1978, few liberal missionaries returned.[103] Mao’s persecution had the unintended consequence of largely ridding China of theological liberalism.

    (3) Persecution is Not an Insurmountable Obstacle for the Church. Even though Mao sought to eliminate Christianity in China during the Cultural Revolution, the church actually grew. And grew massively. As we face growing societal pressure from the world around us, we can learn from the faithfulness and boldness of Chinese Christians, who not only persevered through persecution, and not also preserved the gospel for future generations in China, but shared that gospel.

    (4) Importance of Theological Training. Theological training of locals and not just conversions is vitally important for the long-term health of an indigenous church. The lack of extensive theological training during the first century of missions gave rise to many movements with unchristian or barely Christian beliefs.

     

    How Can We Help?

    Finally, how can we, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, serve the churches in China?

    • We can faithfully disciple Chinese Christians at CHBC who may go back to China one day. Many of you probably remember Benny and Amy from when Benny did the pastoral internship here. Benny has been pastoring in Shanghai for a little over a year, and soon after he moved back, one of our members also moved to Shanghai and joined his church. She has been an enormous help and encouragement to Benny and Amy in their ministry, because she is the only other person at their church who has experienced a church with a culture of discipleship.
    • Another way we can help the church in China is by continuing to promote the translation and publishing of good resources, like 9Marks books and articles. My guess is that very few American Christians have heard of a book like Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. But in China, with Christian books difficult to get, it’s actually one of the most widely distributed Christian titles.
    • And of course pastoral training, such as the internship and Weekenders, and sending supported workers to support churches in China.
    • Finally, we need to keep praying for China, for the strengthening of churches and the furtherance of the gospel, especially among China’s unreached.

     

    Any final questions?

    Pray to close.

     

    [1] Rodney Stark, A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2015), 11.

    [2] Daniel Bays, A New History of Christianity in China (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 5.

     

    [3] Marco Polo, Description of the World, trans. A. C. Moule and P. Pelliot (London: Routledge, 1938), 79.

    [4] Morris Rossabi, "The reign of Khubilai Khan", pp. 414–489 in Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and border states (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 463–465.

    [5] Bayes, 12.

    [6] Bayes, 22.

    [7] Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia: Volume II 1500-1900 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), 286.

    [8] Moffett, 287.

    [9] Christopher Hancock, Robert Morrison and the Birth of CHinese Protestantism (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2008), 19.

    [10] Bays, 43.

    [11] Baugus, 30.

    [12] Morrison sought passage to China with the British East India Company yet it refused. [Bob Davey, The Power to Save (Carlisle, PA: EP Books, 2011), 43.] As a result, Morrison would need to sail 80 days to New York and then 113 days to Guangzhou, China. [Hancock, 35.]

    [13] Davey, 36.

    [14] Moffett, 288.

    [15] Bays 43.

    [16] Lian Xi, Redeemed By Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 17.

    [17] Robert Morrison, “Appendix A: Robert Morrison’s Catechism (1811)” in China’s Reforming Churches, ed. Bruce Baugus (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 309.

    [18] Bays 44.

    [19] Bays 47.

    [20] Moffett, 297.

    [21] Bays, 47.

    [22] Bays, 48.

    [23] Xi, 19.

    [24] Bays, 48.

    [25] Moffett, 197.

    [26] Moffett, 290.

    [27] Bays 47.

    [28] Moffett, 464.

    [29] Moffett, 473.

    [30] Xi, 81.

    [31] Moffett, 299.

    [32] Baugus, 2.

    [33] Moffett, 300.

    [34] Moffett, 463.

    [35] Moffett, 465.

    [36] Davey, 101.

    [37] Davey, 107.

    [38] Davey, 105.

    [39] Davey, 86.

    [40] Davey, 108.

    [41] John Pollock, Hudson Taylor & Maria: A Match Made in Heaven (Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publication, 2008), 140.

    [42] Bays, 68.

    [43] Davey, 110.

    [44] Bays, 68.

    [45] Bays, 68.

    [46] Moffett, 467.

    [47] Moffett, 473.

    [48] Davey, 117.

    [49] Davey, 134.

    [50] Xi, 32.

    [51] Called “Boxers” because many used martial arts which the English called “Chinese Boxing.”

    [52] Moffett, 484.

    [53] Bays, 84.

    [54] Moffett, 484.

    [55] Bays, 85.

    [56] Moffett, 486.

    [57] Xi, 141.

    [58] Bays, 138.

    [59] Xi, 139.

    [60] Xi, 139.

    [61] Led by a fourteen year old woman from California named Uldine Utley.

    [62] Xi, 140-141.

    [63] Xi, 141.

    [64] Bays, 137.

    [65] Xi, 144.

    [66] Xi, 147.

    [67] Bays, 137.

    [68] Xi, 136.

    [69] Xi, 156.

    [70] Bays, 132.

    [71] Xi, 169.

    [72] Xi, 163.

    [73] Xi, 176.

    [74] Xi, 165.

    [75] Bays, 133.

    [76] It took its name from a Plymouth Brethren hymnal popular among Nee’s followers, titled Hymns for the Little Flock.

    [77] Xi, 170.

    [78] Xi, 194.

    [79] Bays, 159.

    [80] Bays, 161-162.

    [81] David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing (Washington, DC: Regency Publishing, 2006), 152.

    [82] Bays, 158.

    [83] Bays, 163.

    [84] Bays, 160.

    [85] Xi, 17.

    [86] Bays, 164.

    [87] Bays, 165.

    [88] Bays, 165.

    [89] Brent Fulton, “A Tale of Two Churches?” in China’s Reforming Churches, ed. Bruce Baugus (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 182.

    [90] Xi, 202.

    [91] Bays, 176-177.

    [92] Bays, 194.

    [93] Xi, 202.

    [94] Xi, 204.

    [95] Bays, 185.

    [96] Bays, 176.

    [97] under Deng Xiaoping

    [98] Bays, 186.

    [99] Bays, 186.

    [100] Stark, 11.

    [101] Interview with GY.

    [102] Xi, 7.

    [103] Michael M, “A Brief History of the Western Presbyterian and Reformed Mission to China” in China’s Reforming Churches, ed. Bruce Baugus (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2014), 56.