Guns and Gospel: Imperialism and Evangelism in China by Ambrose Mong (review)

In Guns and Gospel: Imperialism and Evangelism in China, Ambrose Mong analyzes the complicated and ambivalent attitudes with which Protestant missionaries treated imperialism in their missions. Examples of several famous Protestant missionaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are cited, including the Anglo-Scottish Presbyterian, Robert Morrison (1782–1834); the German Charles Gützlaff (1803–51), first Lutheran missionary to China; the non-sectarian British evangelist, James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905); the Welsh Baptist, Timothy Richard (1845–1919); and Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973), a daughter raised in China by Southern Presbyterian missionaries, to demonstrate their varied theological and philosophical concerns in reacting to Western imperialist powers.

To present the context in which tensions arose between guns and gospel in Chinese Christianity, Chapter 1 briefly illuminates the relationship of imperialism and evangelism in the Catholic mission in the sixteenth century and the British and American Protestant missions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Christian missions connected with colonial powers shared a biased view that regarded the West as civilized and the East as backward. However, the attitudes of missionaries were complex and ambiguous, dependent on time, individual disposition, and institutional context. The second chapter discusses the background of the first unequal treaty during the First Opium War. The first group of Protestant missionaries to China expediently made use of imperialist forces in gaining entry for the missionaries, which eventually led to the Chinese people’s association of Christian missions with colonial powers. In Chapter 3, Mong discusses the uprisings in China in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from the Taiping 太平 (1850–64) to the Boxer (Yihetuan 義和團) rebellions (1899–1901). With the exception of the Taipings, who combined local anti-Qing religiosity and Christianity, there was a strong sentiment of “anti-foreignism” among the Chinese. This also led to resistance against Christianity as a foreign religion.

Mong has made great efforts to show the personalities of the above-mentioned Protestant missionaries and pinpoint their ambiguous roles in imperialism and evangelism. Their diverse responses are attributed to their denominations, socio-political contexts, and individual factors. Both Morrison and Gützlaff worked for imperial powers, namely, the East India Company and the British government. Gützlaff in particular was very controversial because of his implicit support for the opium trade and his work in military intelligence. In contrast, the founder of the China Inland Mission, Taylor, was explicitly against the opium trade and turned down indemnities after the Boxer Rebellion. To him, Christianity emphasized forgiveness and reconciliation. He worried that such compensation would associate his mission with Western imperialist powers. In contrast to the above three, Richard, from the American Baptist Missionary Society, was more eager to engage with Chinese Buddhism. Lastly, Buck, a missionary kid raised in China, was influenced by a critical view of the Christian missions by the American left wing. She strongly critiqued the previous missions which implicitly embraced Western civilization and superiority. She proclaimed that humanistic missions should promote “friendship and understanding between nations … [by]mutual respect and equality” (p. 155). This indeed opened up a new paradigm of missiology.

My critique of Mong’s project is that he fails to address the subtlety and complexity of imperialism and evangelism between and among missionaries and local Chinese. He adopts a broad and universal missionary narrative of the tension between guns and gospel from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries by focusing on five well-known and well-researched missionaries. More could be done in Mong’s project to make it a significant study in Chinese Christianity. Differences between missionaries related to their nationalities, denominations, ethnicities, classes, and genders should be analyzed as well. The book also fails to articulate how regional and ethnic differences, denominational affiliations, diverse theological positions, as well as faith expressions in China worked together with missionary efforts in local interactions. As Ryan Dunch proclaims, it is important to question how local Chinese (including Chinese Christians) participated in and/or selectively appropriated...