The Bible and the Gun

by Joseph Tse-Hei Lee

This book takes a new look at the impacts of Christianity in the late-nineteenth-century China. Using American Baptist and English Presbyterian examples in Guangdong province, it examines the scale of Chinese conversions, the creation of Christian villages, and the power relations between Christians and non-Christians, and between different Christian denominations. This book is based on a very comprehensive foundation of data. By supplementing the Protestant missionary and Chinese archival materials with fieldwork data that were collected in several Christian villages, this study not only highlights the inner dynamics of Chinese Christianity but also explores a variety of crisis management strategies employed by missionaries, Christian converts, foreign diplomats and Chinese officials in local politics.

246 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2002

Reviews

[Joshua Sim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good local-level study of Chaozhou Christians that demonstrates how Christianity in its Baptist and Presbyterian forms was integrated into village and lineage networks in China. The Chinese Christian convert was the main agent of change and builder of communities; the missionaries while important and in a patron-client relationship with the Chinese churches due to their access to funds and imperial powers, were limited in their control over the scattered churches in Chaozhou, and at times, manipulated by the Chinese Christians for their own ends. Of course the missionaries were not stupid but they found it a hard time trying to discern who were true converts and also making decisions on the degree of protection they should afford for these congregation.

It was interesting reading about how intra-lineage disputes implicated denominational loyalties and how they utilised religious groupings to accentuate differences within lineages, harden boundaries, and incorporate denominational identity into lineage identity.

This study also shows that most reasons for conversion then were for practical or political purposes rather than religious purposes (in the context of the villages studied).