DIDCOT, England (ABP) — More than a half-century after the last missionaries left the country, a delegation of British Baptists is visiting China to explore re-establishing work in the world's most populous nation.
A team representing BMS World Mission and Baptist churches in the United Kingdom arrived Sept. 15 for an 11-day tour of four locations in eastern China where British Baptist missionaries formerly served. They are guests of several secular Chinese institutions, including one medical school originally started by a Baptist missionary in 1885, which asked them to help research the history of missionary work in China and to consider a new ongoing partnership.
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BMS World Mission, formed in 1792 as the Baptist Missionary Society at the initiative of a shoemaker and pastor named William Carey, once had about 400 missionaries working in China.
They first entered in 1859, not long after the Opium Wars opened China's ports to trade, but it wasn't until 1870 when a BMS missionary named Timothy Richard moved inland and aimed to contextualize Christianity into Chinese culture. Richard also was instrumental in establishing relief work during the worst famine in Chinese history between 1876 and 1879.
Missionaries frequently battled anti-American sentiment in China. As many as 30,000 Chinese Christians were massacred in the 1898-1901 Boxer Rebellion, along with 159 Protestant missionaries, including 12 BMS workers and three of their children.
British Baptist missionaries eventually were forced out of China by the communist revolution led by Mao Zedong that established the People's Republic of China in 1949. All British Baptist missionaries had withdrawn from the nation by 1952.
Churches started by missionaries carried on after they departed, but they were driven underground by the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and 1967. During that period, communist leaders tried, through political and social upheaval, to rid China of Western values and institutions — including Christian churches and seminaries.
After relations with the West improved in the 1970s, China's government gradually allowed churches to reopen. The China Christian Council, an umbrella organization of Protestant churches officially recognized by the Chinese government, today works with Christian organizations from other countries — including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — to provide volunteer opportunities like teaching English in Chinese schools.
Other Western Christians, particularly more conservative ones, distrust the official ecumenical organization and view it as controlled by the government. Some support instead unregistered "house" churches that sometimes run afoul of local authorities enforcing laws that permit only "normal" religious activities.
The British Baptist delegation includes two BMS staff members and two members of Baptist churches with interests in China. One, David McClellan, BMS manager for mission partnerships, called the society's involvement in China "an unfinished chapter" in history, because of the circumstances under which past missionaries left.
"Now there's a strong and growing Church in China," McClellan said. "We're looking to see what we can do in partnership, and see if there are areas where we can be of help."
Margaret Gibbs, BMS regional secretary for Asia, said she sensed during a trip "a new openness in China today to look into the past and rehabilitate the history of Christian investment in the development of Chinese institutions."
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.