Chinese Christian Returnees in Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic
Sean Cheng and Stacey Bieler
The first generation of Chinese returnees was the young students who came to the US through the state-sponsored Chinese Educational Mission (1872 to 1881), as well as a few students who were sponsored by their families or churches before 1900; the second generation was the large number of students in the US who were sponsored by the Boxer Indemnity beginning in 1909 and those who studied in Europe and Japan from 1900 to 1927. A considerable percentage of the Chinese who studied in the US were graduates of Christian colleges in China, and perhaps around one-third of them had some connection with Christianity during their time in America, primarily through the Chinese Students Christian Association (CSCA) or the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)/ Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), but only a minority of this group were baptized and practicing Christians.
Focusing on several well-known Christians from these two generations as examples, this article will briefly review the contributions of these historical returnee Christians to China in various social and cultural fields as well as in evangelism and mission. It will also discuss the social, cultural, and political difficulties they faced and some of their responses to these challenges. It is hoped that such a review will help today’s Chinese returnee Christians and Christian workers in returnee ministry gain insights about their callings and strategies.
Read full text on ChinaSource website.