In Saving the Nation, Thomas H. Reilly brings to the fore the ways in which the Chinese Protestant urban elite contributed to the construction of a modern Chinese nation-state. Using Shanghai as the focal point of his study, and a timeframe marked by the birth and eventual demise of the National Christian Council (NCC, a Chinese Protestant–controlled organization that coordinated the efforts of missionary societies and Chinese churches), Reilly makes a strong case for the centrality of this Protestant elite in modern China. Indeed, although every historian is aware that national leaders like Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek were Christians, and most have at least some understanding of missionary and Chinese church social reform efforts, especially in the realms of medicine and education, still it is the case that Chinese Christian reformers do not get coverage in the pages of history monographs and articles equal to the amount of their activity and the level of their influence at the time (Ryan Dunch's work on Fuzhou Protestants and a few others notwithstanding). As such, Reilly's book is a welcome correction to this relative dearth.

Reilly makes the case that the Chinese Protestant urban elite moved from being advocates for moderate reform in the 1920s, on to more radical efforts towards “National Salvation” and resisting Japan in the 1930s, and then they finally offered “support for a Communist-led social revolution” in the 1940s (2). Reilly admits that the elite were following wider patterns in general, but through his reading of a wide variety of Chinese and English sources, including periodicals, personal letters, and reports of all kinds, he is convinced that they were in fact also “influencing these changes” (2). Reilly focuses primarily on the NCC, the Shanghai YMCA and YWCA, and the Protestant-run private schools.

Chapters 1 and 2 present the early work of the NCC Committee on Christianizing the Economy and the Shanghai YWCA in promoting Whiggish reforms intended to rein in the worst abuses of the factory bosses. There are several pages, for instance, on the activities of Eleanor Hinder, the head of the Industrial Division of the Shanghai YWCA, who spent much time inspecting factories and lobbying the foreign-run Shanghai Municipal Council to improve working conditions. Ultimately, Ms. Hinder and the NCC's efforts were frustrated by imperialist solidarity. In the third chapter, Reilly turns his attention to the Shanghai YMCA, showing how new Chinese Secretaries, most of whom had been educated in the United States, shifted the aims of the organization from ones that had been guided by paternalist concern to a more radical orientation. For instance, Union Theological Seminary and Columbia-educated Wu Yaozong, though wary of violent revolution, welcomed the arrival of socialism in the pages of the prominent missionary magazine Chinese Recorder. Chapters 4 and 5 explore further this more radical turn as the Chinese Protestant urban elite began to abandon Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party and join with or even take leading roles in the left-wing National Salvation Movement, which advocated for a harder line of resistance to Japanese imperialism. Again, YMCA leader Liu Liangmou articulated the new vision: “The spirit of Christ struggling for the people must express itself in the Saving the Nation movement; if not, Christianity in China will be forsaken by all the people . . . when church and society come together, the Heavenly Kingdom will descend to earth to take up residence in the midst of mankind” (129–130). The final chapter recounts the postwar experience when, given the option of retreating to Taiwan, many of the Chinese Protestant urban elite instead chose to stay in China, believing they could work with the victorious Communist Party. After an initial honeymoon phase, the Party made increasingly hard demands on the Christian elite, and Reilly insightfully points to a key problem: the advocates for social Christianity in China were now required by the Party to accept faith as a purely private matter or risk severe criticism (188).

In addition to filling in the gaps in our understanding of the role of the Protestant elite, Reilly also makes several intriguing, larger points along the way. First, somewhat contrary to the trend of finding the indigenization of Christianity in charismatic and fundamentalist groups (such as is best exemplified in the work of Lian Xi), Reilly suggests that what Daniel Bays called the “Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment” was itself a kind of indigenizing project, in the sense that building a Chinese nation-state through schools, Y's and the NCC made Christianity local. Second, of particular interest to readers of Church History, Reilly maintains that the theological motivations of his actors mattered. He does not assume they make contributions to the building of modern China for no reason, and he attempts to locate the reason from within their understanding of the Christian faith. Finally, Reilly takes seriously the possibility that communism could be a live option for the Chinese Christian urban elite. Given the stilted presentation of the Party as the enemy of all religious expression, this is a good reminder.

This book is a fine introduction to the importance of the Chinese Protestant urban elite. It is not without some defects, here briefly two: First, at times there can seem to be a lack of focus. The Shanghai YMCA and YWCA receive most attention, but the book is not strictly about the Y's, as the NCC provides the larger framework, and then there are schools and some individuals seemingly only loosely connected to these organizations. The theme persists, but one occasionally wonders who exactly are these elite? Second, a tad more theorization would be welcome. In a rather oddly placed literature review, pp. 63–66, Reilly brings up the possibility of, but does not then pursue, seeing the Protestant establishment as secularizing agents. This line seems promising and could explain simultaneously how these elite became so enamored with the nation-state, but also why, despite the rhetoric, they were not ready for the power of a state given over to Marxist ideals. Were they perhaps, after all, given over primarily to capitalist modernity?

These minor criticisms, looked at another way, would provide great fodder for discussion in graduate history classes on Chinese Christianity, modern China, and missions. Reilly has provided a solid foundation for understanding the impact of Chinese Protestant elite at a pivotal moment in modern China, and makes a strong case for their inclusion in the study of both the Church in China and China's twentieth-century story.