The Lasting Impact of Chinese Bible Women, 1860–1949
WCIU Journal: Women in International Development Topic
December 6, 2020
by Christy Chia
Introduction and Context
Christianity in China has experienced tumultuous cycles of growth and decline. The arrivals of the Nestorians in the seventh century and the Catholics in the thirteenth century were met with anti-Christian and anti-foreign sentiment, ultimately limiting their work. Protestant Missions to China began in 1807 when Robert Morrison was sent to Canton. By the 1940s, many Western Christians viewed the Chinese as hopelessly pagan. Harvard’s John K. Fairbank wrote that by the 1940s it was “evident that few Chinese people were likely to become Christians and the missionaries’ long-continued effort, if measured in numbers of converts had failed” (Stark and Liu 2011, 282). In 1946, missionary J. W. Decker wrote, “Many of the Chinese churches are exceedingly small and weak and lacking in adequately trained Chinese leadership. For them, the loss of missionary assistance may prove fatal” (Decker 1946, 58). Little did they know that in a few years their assumptions would be tested.
In 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) put an end to foreign missionary work and forced the Chinese Church to abide by government values, or else be banned. A Protestant Church – the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM)— was established with the oversight of the CPC and focused on the “three selves”: self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. Many Christians refused to join the TSPM and formed underground house churches instead. In 1966–1976, the Cultural Revolution banned all religious activity, even that of the TSPM (Lee 2007, 285).
In 1949, there were 700,000 Chinese Protestants (Kwok 2010, 1). By the end of the Cultural Revolution, it is estimated that there were three million TSPM Protestants, which grew to five million by 1990 and sixteen million by 2010 (Malek 2015, 122; Stark and Liu 2011, 285). Many Chinese churches still operate underground, thus attaining an accurate comprehensive estimate is difficult. Various surveys claim the current Christian population of China to be anywhere from sixteen million to two hundred million. Contrary to the assumptions of mid-twentieth century Western Christians, the Chinese Church not only survived but grew despite intense persecution and the lack of foreign leadership.
This leads to the question: “What enabled the Chinese Protestant Church to survive at a level previously unseen?” I propose that a major factor to this success is the ministry of thousands of Chinese Bible women from 1860–1949. This article looks into the history, ministries, and impact of Bible women and argues that the role of Chinese Bible women was critical to the growth and survival of Christianity in China because it bridged foreign missionary work and native Chinese leadership, thus laying the foundation for an autonomous Chinese Church that could survive under heavy persecution.
What Is a “Bible Woman”?
In China, Bible women were Chinese Christian women dedicated to evangelistic work, most often within churches, missions, education, and medicine. They came from an assortment of backgrounds. Early Bible women were low-class and illiterate, while later Bible women were of higher class and educated from their time at mission schools (Ling 2010, 253). Bible women were trained by foreign missionaries, in the church, or at theological colleges. Most never married or were widows, allowing them the freedom to travel without having to care for a household. Some were hired by churches or missions, while others simply volunteered their lives to evangelistic work (Kwok 1992, 80).
Bible women did whatever was needed in order to advance the gospel. They taught Bible study, Sunday school, catechism classes, literacy classes, held prayer meetings, made home visitations, and hosted an assortment of religious activities in their own homes. Some accompanied missionaries on their travels to translate and assist them in their work. Rural areas often lacked missionaries and Chinese clergy, who were concentrated in the cities; thus, Bible women ventured to the countryside and started churches, at times functioning as pastor (Kwok 1992, 79). Medical Bible women evangelized through their positions as doctors and nurses or functioned as chaplains, ministering to patients and distributing Christian literature at women’s dispensaries and hospitals (Kwok 1992, 65-77). Bible women in education taught in schools and evangelized between classes and outside of school to students, parents, and coworkers (Ling 2010, 252).
Rise of the Bible Women
For the first half of the nineteenth century, only male missionaries served in China, and for only a few months each year. Missionary work was slow-growing and male missionaries were not permitted to approach Chinese women due to gender segregation within Chinese society. With the end of the Opium War in 1842 came the Treaty of Nanjing, which allowed foreigners to settle in five treaty ports, enabling male missionaries to settle in China with their wives. By 1860, more treaties had allowed foreign missionaries to buy property and preach anywhere in China (Ling 1992, 7). However, as missionary wives became preoccupied with housework and growing families, mission organizations began sending single women missionaries to China. At this time, three influential thoughts ran concurrent:
1. Western mission organizations viewed converting women as the key to converting “heathen” nations.
2. Western First-wave Feminism grew and Western women formed their own mission boards.
3. The Chinese were highly suspicious of foreign men but were more open to foreign women.
Early missionary work advanced slowly through home visitation and mission schools. Upper-class Chinese women faced various social factors that limited their acceptance of Christianity. For example, class and gender expectations and the practice of foot-binding kept them from venturing out in public at all, much less to church services with men. Thus, early woman’s work made the most progress in rural areas where lower class women were not held to the same standards (Ling 1992, 80). The missionaries’ expanding ministries necessitated training local women to assist in evangelistic work. Bible women were efficient because they were familiar with Chinese language and culture, could use their networks, enter anti-missionary territory, and were more approachable than foreigners (Ling 2010, 251).
The defeat of the anti-foreign and anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) resulted in increased openness of the upper-class city-folk towards Western knowledge. As a result, the work of missionaries shifted to the cities (Kwok 1992, 14). Mission schools and organizations were key in evangelizing to urban girls and their families. Many of these female students not only found Christianity but were also empowered to pursue ministry and social reform. This new opportunity, in addition to seeing the freedom of women missionaries, motivated Chinese women to pursue increased women’s rights. The early 1900s saw the rise of the Chinese Woman’s Movement, which culminated in the 1919 May Fourth Movement. All the while, egalitarian ideals from the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the 1911 Chinese Revolution, both led by Chinese Christians, reinforced the rise of women, including that of the Bible women. By 1910, there were 5,782 Bible women in missionary records and likely many more unknown (Chiu and Wong 2018, 243-44).
The ministries of the Bible women peaked in the 1920s. Bible women led large revival meetings throughout China, a few even spoke internationally. Some started ministry training schools and mission organizations, others rose to leadership within their communities, while others faithfully continued in the laborious work of person-to-person evangelism.
Bible Women: A Cloud of Witnesses
Starting in the 1860s, thousands of Chinese women dedicated their lives to evangelism. Although most of their stories have been lost to time, some survive. In 1890, Mrs. Zhang Heling (Mrs. Ahok) sailed to England and Ireland to petition for more Western missionaries at one hundred meetings over the span of three months (Chiu and Wong 2018, 243-44). In 1893, a group of Chinese women formed the Chinese Woman’s Home Missionary Society (CWHMS) to mobilize local Bible women (Kwok 1992, 87). In 1920, medical doctor and Bible woman Shi Meiyu (Dr. Mary Stone) joined with American missionary, Jennie Hughes, to create the Bethel Mission. They established schools, a chapel, hospital, nursing school, orphanage, and sent evangelistic bands to spread the gospel (Bays 2011, chapter 6). In 1923, Janet Ho was licensed as a local preacher by the American Methodist Episcopal Church’s Fuzhou Conference, followed by four women from the Jiangxi Conference (Kwok 1992, 85). Peace Wang, a prominent female revivalist of the 1920s, spoke to theologians and missionaries in audiences totaling over a thousand Wu 2002, 95). Chen Yuling served as a missionary to Yunnan and is thought the be the first ordained Chinese woman pastor (1938) (Chiu and Wong, 108).
Dora Yu (Yu Cidu – 1873–1931) [1]
Dora Yu is commended as “the foremost” Chinese evangelist of the early twentieth century. In 1896, Yu was one of the first Chinese women to graduate from medical school. From 1897-–1903, she joined American missionary Mrs. Josephine Campbell to Korea. Yu served as a physician, translator, preacher, and teacher. She made home visitations and led Bible studies, reaching 925 women and 211 children. She returned to Shanghai in 1903 and led revival meetings throughout China until the late 1920s. In 1908, Yu established the Bible Study and Prayer House in Shanghai to hold Bible readings and prayer meetings and founded a Bible school to train women for ministry in 1916. She was a popular revivalist speaker, most well-known for her role in the 1925 Shanghai Revival and as keynote speaker at the International Missionary Meeting at the 1927 Keswick Convention in England. Peace Wang’s entrance into ministry, and the conversion and initial training of renown Chinese Christian leader, Watchman Nee, is attributed to her.
Christiana Tsai (Cai Sujuan – 1890–1984) [2]
Christiana Tsai converted to Christianity as a schoolgirl. After graduating high school, she joined American missionary Mary Leaman in evangelistic work. Tsai taught at a government school and evangelized many of her students. Three of her closest converts later led a group of Chinese Christians in faith-based missionary work, which reached beyond China into the islands of the Pacific. Tsai invited principals, teachers, and students to Bible classes and started a half-day school for older girls who did not previously have a chance to go to school. From 1914–1920, she traveled throughout China to translate, speak, and lead at evangelistic meetings. In some cases, she would speak up to three times a day in student centers and spend the rest of the day in one-on-one meetings with students (Tsai 1966, 62-106). One fruit of her work is the establishment of the Chinese Home Missionary Society (CHMS) in 1918, by Tsai, Catherine Woo, Dr. Mary Stone, Song Faxiang, and three men—Chen Weiping, Yu Rizhang, and Cheng Jingyi. They equipped and sent Chinese Christian leaders to Yunnan and Sichuan. The CHMS aimed to strengthen an autonomous Chinese Church through church planting, evangelistic meetings, theological training, educational and medical work, preaching, and public evangelism. By 1931, Tsai contracted malignant malaria that would substantially disable her until her death in 1984. Although she was bedridden for most of her life, she continued to write and minister to thousands of people from her room (Tsai 1966, 116-38).
Florence Tim-Oi Li (1907–1992) [3]
Florence Li was born into a Christian family in Hong Kong. During the 1931 ordination of Anglican Deaconess Lucy Vincent, Li dedicated her life to the church. From 1934–1938, she attended a four-year course at Canton Union Theological College. In 1937, Japan invaded China, wreaking havoc in much of western China. After graduating in 1938, Li returned to Hong Kong and served as a lay worker, working with thousands of refugees. She led youth group, taught Bible classes, organized confirmation classes, and made home visitations. As the Second Sino-Japanese War raged on, travel in and out of Macau became too dangerous for Anglican clergymen. Bishop R. O. Hall appointed Li to the parish in Macau in 1940, as a last resort. In 1941, Bishop Hall ordained her as a deacon. The same year, the Japanese occupied Hong Kong and refugees fled to Macau. Li baptized, buried, and fed her parishioners (both physically and spiritually). She administered medical care, taught in a girl’s school, and baptized hundreds of people in her parish. Li also preached and was authorized to perform Eucharist. Bishop Hall eventually decided “if [Li] was doing the work of a priest, she should be ordained as a priest.” In 1944, Li was ordained as the first female priest in the Anglican Church, 48 years before the denomination approved women’s ordination. Due to dissent from England, Li was told either she resign or Hall would be removed from his position. In 1946, Li resigned from her title as priest, but continued to serve. In 1947, Li was appointed to restart a parish in Hepu. In addition, she taught at two high schools and ran a maternity hospital, primary school, and kindergarten. In 1948, she traveled and preached throughout the U.S. Li later joined the TSPM and lived in China until 1983, when she immigrated to Toronto, Canada.[4]
Impact
The impact of the Bible women is extensive. Three of their greatest contributions to the Chinese Church are: 1. Expanding the reach of Christianity in China, thus growing the Christian population to sustainable levels, 2. Influencing the next generation of male Chinese Christian leaders, and 3. Strengthening the foundations of the autonomous Chinese Church.
Expanding the Reach of Christianity
Historian Daniel H. Bays writes, “The majority of Chinese Christians were converted by other Chinese, not by foreign missionaries, even before 1949, and that is overwhelmingly true today” (Bays 2003, 503). Certainly, the work of foreign missionaries is essential to the growth of Christianity in China, but we should not discount the work of thousands of Chinese Christians. Bible women expanded the reach of the gospel and made Christianity more approachable. Theologian Kwok Pui-lan cites records from the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Fuzhou, “In 1894, the four Bible women made 600 visits reaching an audience of 7,000; and in 1909, the sixteen Bible women made 3,141 visits, teaching 899 women regularly and reaching more than 20,000 altogether” (Kwok 1992, 81). This suggests that the 5,782 Bible women recorded in 1910 missionary records could collectively make 867,300–1.2 million visits, teach 325,237 women regularly, and reach 7-10 million people in one year.[5]
The work of the Bible women was most prominent in the first three decades of the twentieth century and their ministries culminated in the revivals of the 1920s (Bays 2011, chapter 5). Dora Yu, Christiana Tsai, Dr. Mary Stone, and many others joined with missionaries and other Chinese Christian leaders to initiate numerous revival meetings which reached thousands of people at a time, such as the National Christian Conference in 1922, the National Christian Council in 1923, the World-Wide Revival Prayer Movement of 1924, the Shanghai Revival of 1925, and the Second National Convention of YWCA in 1927 (Bays 2011, chapter 5; Kwok 1992, 173-75). The work of Bible women not only increased the reach of foreign missions, but also budded off into independent evangelistic work which allowed Christianity to spread quickly. From 1949 onwards, the Chinese Protestant population of 700,000 was able to withstand and flourish on its own despite hostile environments and severe persecution.
The Next Generation
The legacies of Bible women are continued in the people they influenced. In particular, a new generation of male evangelists arose in the 1930s, many of whom had been converted, inspired, or trained by Bible women. Most notable is Dora Yu’s impact on Watchman Nee. Nee converted to Christianity in 1920 after his mother encouraged him to attend Yu’s revival meeting. He later received training under Yu (Bays 2011, chapter 6). Nee went on to publish Christian works, establish churches, and provide ministry training. He is most well-known for the Little Flock Movement, which created autonomous Chinese churches that served as a template for house churches (Bays 2003, 494).
The Autonomous Chinese Church
The quest for an autonomous Church aimed to build a Chinese-led Church that followed the “three selves”: self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. However, Bays writes, “For many years after 1900 foreign missionaries were largely indifferent to or actually suspicious of the desire for autonomy of some Chinese Protestants” (Bays 2011, chapter 5). Although many foreign missionaries might not have prioritized these principles, Chinese Christians in the first half of the twentieth century began laying the foundations upon which the TSPM and house churches would build. As discussed, the Bible women deserve some of the credit for growing the native Christian population and influencing many of the male Christian leaders who spearheaded autonomy.
It should also be recognized that their own ministries upheld the three-self principles. Once a Bible woman was trained for ministry, she could travel, evangelize, and teach others. They were self-propagating and started their own prayer meetings, Bible classes, and churches. Some Bible women were self-supporting—funded apart from foreign support. For example, in 1904, Dora Yu decided to stop receiving financial support from foreign mission organizations and, instead, lived by faith that God would provide (Wu 2002, 92). Some Bible women pursued self-governance in their ministries, where the Chinese held leadership without regulation by foreign entities. Yu founded the Bible Study and Prayer House and Bible training school for Chinese Christians in 1908. The 1893 CWHMS and the 1918 CHMS, both started by Bible women, mobilized Chinese Christian leaders to build Chinese Christian communities, often with financial support from other Chinese Christians. Bible women like Chen Yuling, Janet Ho, and Florence Li pastored churches. Many more Bible women rose to leadership within schools, churches, and organizations. In addition, Chinese Christian leaders who remained in China from 1949 to the end of the Cultural Revolution, like Florence Li, were integral in leading and preserving the Chinese Church.
Decline of the Bible Women
In the 1930s, the prominence of Bible women began its decline. The anti-Christian movement of 1922–1927 highlighted Western Christianity’s oppressive patriarchal structure and discouraged Chinese women from becoming Christian. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression placed financial burdens on Western missions, forcing many foreign missions to shrink or stop altogether. The Second Sino-Japanese War (and WWII) from 1937–1945 ravaged China and many foreign missionaries returned home. The Chinese Civil War that had started in 1927 between the Kuomintang and CPC resumed from 1945–1949, culminating in the CPC’s victory and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These wars and hardships disrupted the work and community of churches and missions (Decker 1946, 58). In addition, the new generation of male revivalists of the 1930s were taught to abide by Western fundamentalism (Bays 2011, chapter 6). Many of the new Christian leaders who had grown under the leadership of Bible women now began asserting that women should not teach men. Watchman Nee himself was influenced by the writings of fundamentalist theologian John Nelson Darby and convinced his female co-workers to limit their public ministry (Wu 2002, 98). Thus, after 1930, the majority of prominent Chinese Church leaders were men.
A Look Ahead: Considerations for Future Scholarship
The middle of the twentieth century witnessed a decline in Bible women, particularly in conservative circles. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, the egalitarian ideals of communism plus the pressures of persecution created an environment in which women would again rise to leadership in the Chinese Church. In the underground Christian community, many of the house churches are started and led by women and half or more of the students of underground seminaries are female (Yau 2008, Location 1217). Not only have the legacies and impact of the Bible women continued, but so has the presence of Bible women themselves. However, as the Chinese Church is increasingly influenced by Western conservative theology that prohibits women from church leadership, the ministry of Christian women in China is once again being limited (Chow 2018).
The survival of Christianity and the phenomenon of prominent female leadership in the Church under the PRC is rooted in the lives of thousands of Bible women prior to 1949. A key to understanding the survival, growth, and demographics of Christianity in China (and even, of global Christianity) is acknowledging the role of Chinese Bible women. Strengthened by the Bible women’s legacy, the Chinese Church—once vastly underestimated by Western Christians—weathered the harshest adversities and has bloomed into a vibrant and self-sustaining Church.
References
Bays, Daniel H. 2003. “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today.” The China Quarterly, no. 174: 488-504. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bays, Daniel H. 2011. A New History of Christianity in China. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Chiu, Patricia, Wong, and Wai-Ching Angela Wong, eds. 2018. Christian Women in Chinese Society: the Anglican Story. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Chow, Alexander. 2018. “The Remarkable Story of China’s ‘Bible Women.’” Christianity Today. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2018/march/christian-china-bible-women.html.
Decker, J. W. 1946. “Christian Movement in China.” Far Eastern Survey 14, no. 4: 57-61.
Kwok, Pui-lan. 1992. Chinese Women and Christianity 1860-1927. Latvia: Scholars Press.
Kwok, Pui-lan. 2010. “Christianity and Women in Contemporary China.” In Journal of World Christianity 3, no. 1.
Li, Florence Tim-Oi. 1985. Much Beloved Daughter. London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
Ling, Oi Ki. 2010. “Bible Women.” In Pioneer Chinese Christian Women: Gender, Christianity, and Social Mobility, edited by Jessie G. Lutz. Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press.
Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei. 2007. “Christianity in Contemporary China: An Update.” Journal of Church and State 49, no. 2: 277-304.
Malek, Roman. 2015. “Christendom and its Manifestations in China Today.” In Religion in China, 113-41. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Science Press.
Stark, Rodney and Liu, Eric Y. 2011. “The Religious Awakening in China.” Review of Religious Research 52, no. 3: 282-89.
Tsai, Christiana. 1966. Queen of the Dark Chamber. Chicago: Moody Press.
Wu, Silas H. L. 2002. “Dora Yu.” In Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century, edited by Dana L. Robert. New York: Orbis Books.
Yau, Cecilia. 2008. “The Path of Biblical Equality for the Chinese Women.” In Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Ministering Together in the Church, edited by Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, and Mimi Haddad, Kindle, Chapter 3. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
End Notes
[1] The following is informed by Silas H. L. Wu’s biography of Dora Yu in Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century edited by Dana L. Robert.
[2] The following is informed by Christiana Tsai’s autobiography: Queen of the Dark Chamber. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966.
[3] The following is informed by Florence Li’s autobiography: Florence Tim-Oi Li and Ted Harrison. Much Beloved Daughter. London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd., 1985.
[4] The scandal of Li’s ordination accelerated the debate of women’s ordination at Anglican conferences. The Anglican Church later recognized her priesthood and celebrated the 40th anniversary of her ordination at Westminster Abbey in 1984. The Church of England did not approve women’s ordination to priesthood until 1992.
[5] Values found by calculating the average visits, women regularly taught, and people reached per Bible woman per year; then multiplied by the 5,782 Bible women recorded in 1910.
Christy Chia is a second-year MDiv student at Fuller Theological Seminary. She is passionate about creating safe spaces for building community and empowering women and people of color in the Church. Christy is currently serving with Fuller’s Asian American Center and on Fuller Student Council as a School of Theology representative.