100 years ago--an anti-Christian spirit in China

The following article was published three months after the death of Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China and Premier of its governing party, the Kuomintang (KMT). China was ruled by the collective leadership of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang from March 1925-May 1926, before Chiang Kai-shek won a power struggle for party and national leadership in 1927. The arguments used against Christianity in China in the 1920s sound like those used by the Communists in later years. As reported in an anonymous article pubished in the Border Cities Star, June 26, 1925 (bold in original):

Strong Anti-Christian Spirit is Big Factor in Chinese Situation

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China's dislikes of foreigners is a stream gathered from many sources, but perhaps the most important of them is the strong anti-Christian spirit in China today. Naturally the Chinese have identified the foreign religion with the foreigners who first brought it to them and continued to preach it, and they believe it has been used as a cloak to conceal imperialist designs. But the sentiment is even wider than that. It is more than anti-Christian. it is anti-religious in the same sense as is the spirit among the leading Bolshevists. Probably the challenge of Christianity was responsible for the growth of anti-religious feeling. The Chinese were forced to think seriously upon religious matters because the question was pressed upon them by missionaries, and as a result, many of them came to the conclusion that all religious ideas were mistaken and immoral. The anit-religious movement is being carried on by the anti-Christian Federation among other similar agencies. They spring up like mushrooms and are manned largely by young and educated Chinese, many of them having been first trained in Christian missions.

AROUSED THE STUDENTS

Writing in The Nation, Stanley High, who is connected with the American Methodist Board of Foreign Missions, says that it is doubtful if even in Soviet Russia the literature of anti-religion has grown more rapidly in the past two years than it has in China. It was given impetus in 1922 by the eleventh conference of the World's Student Christian Federation in Pekin. Many distinguished representatives of organized Christianity addressed the student delegates from some 40 nations on the significance of the Christian world program. The publicity given the proceedings and some of the remarks of the speakers aroused hostility of the anti-religionists in Pekin, and shortly after the conference concluded there came into being the Student Anti-Religious movement, sponsored by several professors of national reputation. The anti-imperialist movement which began among students last year aided the drive against Christianity, and was followed by the Anti-Christian Federation organized by a prominent student leader who had been discharged from Shanghai College. He founded the paper, The Awakened, which is having a tremendous sale.

RELIGION IS OPPOSED

At the inauguration of the Federation a manifesto was issued declaring the purpose of the movement to "actively oppose Christianity and its various expressions with a nationalistic consciousness and a scientific spirit." In regard to religion in general opposition is declared because:

It is conservative and traditional and it does not make for intellectual progress.

It encourages denominational prejudice and hatred. It does not make for the unity and harmony of the human race.

It develops superstition (sic) in superhuman beings.

It does not make for scientific enlightenment.

It cultivates the attitude of dependence as over against the development of self-realization.

It suppresses individuality. It does not develop the human instincts.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH

In regard to Christianity in particular, this opposition is especially pronounced because:

It is one form of religion.

It contains dogmatisms and monopolizes good teachings of the past.

It is the forerunner of imperialism and foreign exploitation.

Further, in regard to the Christian Church, hostility is expressed because:

It always allies itself with the influential class.

It draws people into its membership by material temptations.

It is alrady composed of eaters on religion (sic) as well as hypocrites.

It interferes with the civil and military affairs of China and other nations.

It sometimes meddles with personal affairs.

It substitutes God for gods and develops a servile attitude toward foreigners.

NOT OPPOSED TO CHRIST

Mr. High says that the movement is not fundamentally a result of Bolshevist propaganda though that has not been lacking. While foreign prestige in China has declined as a result of the war, the spirit of nationalism has constantly grown. It is believed that Western influence is the chief obstacle to a rediscovery of the basis of China's ancient civilization which is the aim of the young nationalists. It is particularly felt, says Mr. High, that Christian missionaries are too conservative to aid in China's progress. The books which are most reverenced in missionary circles are said to be of no interest whatever to many of the outstanding students. Ibsen, Kropotkin and Marx are mores esteemed even than Confucius, and they are at the centre of the intellectual ferment among the leading young Chinese. At the annual meeting of the National Federation of Provincial Educational Associations further anti-foreign sentiment was shown because education is being maintained in China by foreigners. This is held to kill the nationalistic spirit, and is an interference with the educational rights of a free people. Mr. High concludes by observing that though there is widespread hostility toward many Christian organizations there is very little hostility toward the person or teachings of Jesus Christ. He thinks it is possible that when the history of this period of western ascendancy is written, it may be recorded that its greatest achievement was not the advance of the organizations of Christianity, but the restoration of the person of Christ to the Orient.