In his first book, The Conversion of Missionaries (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), Lian Xi explored how life in China changed some Protestant missionaries, moving them from their initially conservative and exclusivist attitudes toward more liberal theological positions. In a fascinating counterpoint, Redeemed by Fire shows how the cross-cultural religious encounter, grounded in the Chinese culture and politics of the time, produced quite the opposite reaction among many Chinese Christians. The “Popular Christianity” of the title most often refers to the many fundamentalist or pentecostal indigenous churches that took root in early twentieth-century China, some of which continue to influence the development and spread of Chinese Christianity today. In recounting the stories of these groups, and generally eschewing any extended discussion of the missionaries (though they appear here and there throughout the text, now as inspiration, now as foil), Lian answers the call of scholars like Daniel Bays, Tao Feiya, and Liu Jiafeng, who have been advocating for more attention to Christianity as a Chinese religion, one not necessarily beholden to what Bays calls the “Sino-foreign Protestant establishment.”
Although Lian devotes some ink to the periods before and after (about a chapter each), the bulk of the book consists of case studies of Republican era (1912–1949) indigenous Christian groups in China. The True Jesus Church, the Jesus Family, Wang Mingdao and his Christian Tabernacle, John Sung and the Bethel Band, and Watchman Nee's Little Flock each receive an entire chapter's worth of attention. Several other Chinese evangelists or Christian organizations are given briefer treatment. In most cases, Lian approaches the task by outlining the life experiences of the founder(s) of the group, followed by some discussion of any distinct doctrine and the group's evolving relationship with the foreign church, the Chinese state and the local place. So, for instance, Lian introduces his readers to poor farmer Wei Enbo, who, as Lian puts it, “the Lord commanded, in slightly ungrammatical Chinese, to ‘correct the [Christian] Church’” (47, Lian's dry wit is evidenced throughout the book). Lian recounts Wei's struggles with the Western missionary church, which he saw as decadent in its material comfort and morally and spiritually bankrupt, particularly in light of the destructiveness of World War I. Turning his back on the establishment, Wei, confident that he was the “second Paul” sent to reform the church, established his own denomination, the True Jesus Church. The True Jesus Church preached an egalitarian ideal, denied the trinity, practiced ecstatic worship and healing, and declared eternal salvation to be for its members only. Needless to say, the missionary-linked churches did not take kindly to Wei's revelation, but Lian demonstrates that many common Chinese were strongly attracted by the eschatological hope, coupled with the immediate benefits of church membership, such as sharing wealth in hard times and assistance in overcoming opium addiction. In the last chapter, Lian returns briefly to the True Jesus Church, to bring the story up to date, explaining the great successes of recent years, as the True Jesus Church has returned to prominence (post-Mao) on the landscape of Chinese Christianity, both in a more staid government-approved version and as inspiration to unofficial, charismatic groups.
In general, this biographical approach to the various Chinese Christian bodies serves Lian's purposes well. By so doing, he is able to vividly portray the diverse forms of indigenous Christianity in China while at the same time allowing the reader to notice many commonalities among groups, such as frustration at missionary superiority, and expectation of Jesus' imminent return, to name two prominent ones. The veracity of Lian's account is bolstered by the wide variety of both Chinese and English primary sources he uses, including tracts, newsletters, and theological documents produced by the groups in question, contemporaneous (often critical) analysis of the groups provided by missionaries or Chinese Christians of the establishment, and his own interviews with former members.
On a descriptive level, Lian's work excels. The analysis that accompanies the description, though intriguing, still leaves something to be desired. The Republican era was a trying time for many in China, as Western and Japanese imperialism pressured from without and the chaos of warlord rule and civil war ravaged within. Lian suggests that the indigenous Christian groups flourished in part because of their commensurability with the already familiar millennial traditions in China and in part because of their nationalist appeal. Both of these suggestions seem plausible, and probably true to a point, but Lian does not sufficiently flesh them out. The case for the connection to Chinese millennial tradition is perhaps the stronger of the two, as Lian is able to show several lines of apparent influence, such as in the person of Jing Dianying, founder of the communal Jesus Family, who had once been a member of the “Way of the Sages and Worthies” sect, which expected the return of the Buddhist savior (74). Still, much more needs to be done in this vein before we should believe it. The case for the “nationalist” appeal of indigenous Christianity is even murkier. There is quite a bit of evidence that early twentieth-century religious believers (of all stripes) in China opposed nationalism, which they rightly saw as carrying the baggage of secularism (compare, several of the articles in Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, ed., Chinese Religiosities [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008]). In fact, much of Lian's own evidence shows that these groups were strongly opposed to Chinese nationalism (itself a recent invention): for instance, John Sung's refusal to bow before an image of the Father of the Republic, Sun Yat-sen (141), and Watchman Nee's declaration that “we pray not for China, nor Japan” (176). Some confusion on this score might have been avoided if Lian provided a definition for his use of “nationalism.”
Still, these conceptual difficulties are more than compensated for in Lian's well-executed and detailed portrayal of the formation of Christianity as a Chinese religion. This engaging and provocative book would readily provoke stimulating discussion in many undergraduate classrooms.
