On the Localization of the Evangelistic Work of the Disciples of Christ at Batang in the Border Region of Sichuan and the Close of Its Mission 1919–1932

2.1.1 The chapels and meeting spots and the number of local christians in the church

The number of DOC chapels, meeting spots and local church members in Batang from 1919 to 1932 is shown below (Table 2).

During this period, Ba’an Jiduhui (The Disciples of Christ in Batang) remained one church established in 1919. After ten years of development, it added 2 to 3 chapels and 2 to 4 meeting spots. From 1919 to 1929, the Church had one chapel building located in the town. From 1929 to 1930, after its new chapel was completed, the Church had 2 chapels (one was located at the Mission Compound of Jia Paoding, the mission station outside of the town, the other in the town). From 1930 to 1931, there were three chapels (probably one temporary chapel was added). The preaching range covered Batang and nearby Tibetan villages scattering in the Batang valley. The Church had three regular meeting spots in 1922, 1923 and 1925, 2 in 1926–1930 and 1932, and 4 in 1931 (The UCMS [Disciples], 1921, p. 49; The UCMS, 1923a, pp. 7–10; 1924, p. 70; 1925, p. 82; 1926, p. 59; 1927, p. 37; 1928, p. 40; 1929, p. 45; 1930a, p. 56; 1931, p. 42; 1932, p. 31; 1933, p. 18).

During this time period, while the overall number of the people who were baptized was increasing, the total number remained under 100 all the time. Probably, two major factors resulted in the small size of the Church. One is the social unrest with high mobility of local population, which was shown by the facts that it “lost 30 members and inquirers out of 162 by their moving away” from Batang between 1919 and 1920 (Duncan, 1999, pp. 55–56) and that 11 church members had “left for other parts” during the year between 1926 and 1927 (The UCMS, 1927, p. 36). The other factor is also related to the unrest of the Board Region of Sichuan. For instance, it was reported that “itinerating was confined to the villages in the Batang Valley” in 1923 (The UCMS, 1923, p. 8), and that “the evangelist attempted to go outside the town for work, but was turned back by robbers” in 1924 (The UCMS, 1924, p. 69). In 1926, “24 were added by baptism during the year,” when there were 19 missionaries and 27 native workers, and totally 46 personnel members shown in Table 1—all the three annual statistical figures for the Mission were the largest numbers during the years between 1919 and 1932.

2.1.2 The traveling evangelistic work or itineration outside of Batang

During this time period, Ba’an Jiduhui remained a small size. The main reason for the increase or decrease in the number of Christians, preaching spots and preaching tours in different years was related to the change of local situations. Although Batang was located on the main traffic route of the Sichuan-Tibet Route, the local society was characterized by armed conflict, rampant banditry, social instability, and high mobility of people, which created obstacles to missionary work and church development. In particular, preaching out of town and into the countryside and surrounding areas was more dependent on the local situation and the directives of the local government (Zhao, 2020). In 1920, an intense armed conflict resulted in the burning of more than 80 houses totally in the town of Batang (Bai, 1942), while “50 (half of Ba) homes are burned” by April 20, 2020, according to a missionary report (Duncan, 1999, p. 58). In 1924–1925, when the local society was more stable, 2 Bible Men (Women) were allowed to travel to preach outside of the town in 5 days a week. Missionaries and local pastors even traveled far to Atuntze (阿墩子, present-day Deqin County 德钦县, Yunnan云南) and Yan Jin or Yanjing (present-day Yanjing Township 盐井 of Mangkang County 芒康县, Tibet Autonomous Region) to investigate the possibility of opening new missions there, while preaching to more than 3000 people on the trip. Mr. Ogden wrote in his General Annual Report: “The year 1925 has been crowded with difficulties, problems, obstacles, internal and external strife, bad economic and political conditions all around us, with collapse of trade bringing money stringency.” (Ogden, 1925, p. 1) In this situation, the Mission was difficult to survive, as Ogden described, “general depression of spirit, distrust, turmoil, war, and banditry, epidemics, have made mission work difficult in the extreme, and over-turned some of our plans, forcing us to modified lines of activity.” (Ogden, 1925, p. 1) In 1927, the local situation worsened. “The TCM has been cut off by lawlessness, a state of rebellion and banditry, making money and supplies difficult to get,” as a missionary reported (Duncan, 1999, p. 174). In 1929–1930, they were also able to make short trips and hold fixed preaching in six Tibetan villages around Batang. In 1930–1931, however, when the circumstances changed and local security was in question, they were only able to preach in two villages, with only 12 and 22 listeners respectively, and were never able to travel to places far away to preach. The situation then improved and the local officials re-sanctified them to travel in the Kham area (康区), so the Church sent 2 teams to Mangkang /Gartok (芒康) for evangelistic work (The UCMS, 1925, p. 80; 1930a; 1931, p. 40; 1932, p. 30). However, the war made the work of the Mission in Batang come to an end in 1932.

2.2.1 Preaching as shown in monthly reports and statistics

Despite the huge barriers between the two languages, there were also differences in Tibetan and Chinese cultures and customs. In order to effectively carry out evangelistic work, Ba’an Jiduhui organized Tibetans and Hans into separate groups, each with its own person in charge. Missionaries responsible for this work were required to submit monthly and annual work reports to the UCMS headquarter in the U. S. as required. As far as monthly reports were concerned, in January 1920, for instance, the statistics were given in the mission reports by MacLeod in charge of evangelistic work as follows. First, evangelistic work to Hans: the average attendance at services was 45; the average attendance at enquirers’ classes was 16; available funds were $55 (All the sums in this paragraph are Mexican dollars); contribution of $197 from local fellow Christians; expenditure of $45; and balance of $207. Second, evangelistic work to Tibetans: Sunday school attendance averaged 165; about $15 was donated by local Christians and other people; expenses $5; accounting $9.86 (MacLeod, n.d.). While most missionaries in charge of the evangelistic work had only basic monthly statistics, the monthly statistics in 1928, when Mr. Peterson was in charge of the work, were more detailed and thus are analyzed below (Table 3).

As can be seen from the above table, there were 6 Tibetan adult services in the two villages with a total of 162 participants; five Han adult services with a total of 131 participants; three special services for children with a total of 292 participants, which was about the total number of Han and Tibetan adult participants; children’s interest in Christianity was significantly higher than that of Hans and Tibetans outside the town. The total number of services and preaching attended during the month was 591 when all three were combined. Thus, the distribution and worship statuses of the Disciples’ Christians and quasi-Christians outside the town in the late 1920s can be seen from the monthly reports.

2.2.2 Preaching as shown in annual reports with statistics

Disciples’ annual reports were also required to include a textual summary and statistics. Again, in the case of MacLeod, his 1920 annual report for evangelistic work done during the year was reported in detail as follows: A Tibetan Communion Service was held at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday; “the members received a short message, suited to the occasion, at each service.” Tibetan Sunday School met at 10 a.m. every Sunday. The lessons for the year were about the life and teachings of Jesus. Each Sunday, the school memorized one choice passage from the New Testaments; an average of 250 participants attended the exercises in the assembly room. A preaching service to the Han Christians was held each Sunday at 11 a.m. with an average of 50 participants. On Sunday afternoons, the Han Christians “held cottage-prayer-meetings” with an average of 18 attending each time. Tibetan prayer meetings were held each Monday evening with an average of 10 participants. Every Tuesday evening the Han Inquirers’ Class met. Eleven of them had called for baptized. Each Wednesday evening, Han Christians “met and prayed for the advancement of the work,” and for specific people and specific needs. Every Thursday evening, Tibetan enquirers met with an average of seven attending each time. Each Friday evening, the Han and Tibetan Christians were trained in religious work; members were taught to sing 30 new hymns, 30 people to read scriptures, and four people to play the organ. On each Saturday, preparation was made for the special services of the following Sunday; a great deal of visiting and personal work had been done. Services were held on the street when an occasion called for such a service. The church gave a Christmas dinner to 200 of the poorest people in Batang. During the year, there were 50 new members of the church, of whom 10 left Batang, one died, and 39 remained; 30 were baptized; and 112 were registered as enquirers, of whom 20 left Batang and 90 remained. Most of the work during the year was undertaken by local Christians. As soon as a sufficient number of people had been baptized, “They were instructed in the meaning of church organization.” When this instruction was fully underway, a pastor, elders and deacons were ordained. “All were then set to work.”^[10] In fact, the table showed the specific circumstances and the daily routine evangelistic work from Monday to Sunday each week, providing us with primitive historical information on how the Disciples of Christ conducted its evangelistic work among the local Hans and Tibetans, and on how it developed and organized the enquirers into Christians. As an example, the complete statistics for the whole year of 1928 showed the specific and general situations of the annual target number, locations, festivals, etc. of the Disciples’ evangelistic work in Batang (Table 4).

The above table shows that the total number of people who participated in various activities and ceremonies of the Mission in the whole year was more than 16,000 (If a person took part in 5 activities in the year, the total number was recorded as five people); the total number of people in the second half of the year was 1000 more than that in the first half of the year due to Christmas ceremonies. As far as various activities are concerned, the number of Han and Tibetan participants in one activity with the least number ranged from 6 to 78, while the number of Han and Tibetan participants in one activity with the most number ranged from 15 to 269. The week with the least number of participants was 149, while the week with the most attendance was 1,363. In addition, the ceremonies over the Christmas season saw far more participants than usual.

In 1928, Mr. Peterson also made a separate registration of the local male and female Christians who attended services in the year as follows (Tables 5 and 6).

From the above table, it can be seen that in 1928, there were 46 local male Christians in the Batang Church, of whom 29 were living locally and 10 were off, while the situations for the remaining six were unknown. Li Qichang from northern Sichuan was formerly a member of the Episcopal Church and was baptized at Xindianzi 高店子, Baoning 保宁 of Sichuan in the 24th year of Guangxu’s reign 光绪二十四年 (1898). Between 1922 and 1928, 36 men joined the Church while figures between 1920 and 1921 were not shown in the table. It is impossible to identify Tibetans as more information is to yet be found. According to the name list and other archival records, it is certain that there were at least eight Tibetans including the Lee brothers in the Church.

The profile of local women Christians in 1928 is as follows (Table 6).

The table above shows that in 1928, there were 43 national or native female Christians, of whom 37 were local residents while an alien moved in; the statuses of the rest were unknown. One from Yunnan was originally a Christian in the Episcopal Church. Judging from their names, there were at least 29 Tibetan women. 37 women joined the Church after 1920, among whom there were at least 23 Tibetans.

In sum, with a total of 89 male and female believers registered in 1928, Table 5 and 6 showed that, in the late 1920s, the Disciples’ Church at Batang was still small in size. The situation is supposed to be directly related to the local situation of wars and isolation in and around Batang during the period.

2.2.3 An overview of the Bible Schools in 1921–1932

According to Disciples’ annual reports, statistics on the number of Bible Schools and the number of students enrolled in the evangelistic work from 1919 to 1932 are summarized as follows (Table 7).^[11]

As can be seen from the table above, Ba’an Jiduhui organized Chinese and Tibetan Bible Schools for Han and Tibetan residents during this period with the total number of students over 200 annually in 8 years. There were only one Bible School (or Sunday school) between 1919 and 1922, which was located at the Mission Compound at Jia Paoding out of the southern gate of the town. In 1923, one more Bible School was open to the children living on the street; as reported in the Year Book, “The Tibetan Bible School was in two divisions – one which meets in the graded classes in the new school building, and the other which meets in the street chapel and is composed of children from the street.” (The UCMS, 1923a, p. 81) This situation lasted till 1932, which showed that the missionaries took full account of the distribution of local residents and the actual language and cultural situations facing them. There were surprisingly 2000 students in the Bible School, which probably resulted from the temporary peaceful environment in Batang and its vicinity due to the end of the severe armed conflicts in the Border Region of Sichuan from 1917 to 1919 (Zhao, 2008). In most years, the total number of students at all the Bible Schools exceeded 200.

In addition, Ba’an Jiduhui combined its evangelistic work with charity, school, orphanage, hospital and other work. For instance, the Mission raised 28 orphans, half male and half female in 1923. Not only did they receive a school education, but they also studied in the Bible School on each Sunday. In May of that year, the three oldest boys and three girls were baptized at the same time (The UCMS, 1923a, p. 81). After the DOC hospital was opened in 1917, preaching, done to different patients, was held each morning before the dispensary was opened (The UCMS, 1923a, p. 81). This practice lasted till 1932. Nonetheless, based on years of experience and surveys, the missionaries in the Mission made it clear in a 1919 report that, undoubtedly, at least 95 percent of local residents who had interest in Christianity were interested in direct evangelistic work (TCM Secretary’s Book, 1919). In other words, preaching conducted to patients had little effect. So the missionaries adjusted some of their evangelistic work to local needs, while at the same time keeping local characteristics in preaching by emphasizing the ideas of 公义待人 [treating people with justice] and 安分守己 [keeping one’s nose clean] in hymns that were conducive to social stability and harmony in the face of the unrest and complex social situations at Batang in the 1920s.

2.3.1 The role of local pastors and Bible men and women

Ba’an Jiduhui paid attention to the cultivation of local pastors and preaching workers among its orphans and students in schools. One of the “powerful” native pastors was Lee Gway Gwang, an orphan adopted during Tachienlu. After the breakout of the 1911 Revolution, the missionaries were forced to leave Batang, and most of them returned to the United States. During the three years since they left, Lee Gway Gwang undertook the mission work in Batang for the first time on his own, so that the missionary work was maintained (TCM Secretary’s Book, 1919). In 1914 when the missionaries returned, Lee became one of the capable local pastors. In the Church organized by MacLeod in 1919, Lee was the first ordained minister, and could preach in both Chinese and Tibetan (Duncan, 1999, p. 51). The missionary Ogden thought highly of him: “The oldest Lee Gway Gwang is a powerful preacher. No foreigner can equal him.” He also exclaimed that he saw the oldest orphan, brought up by the missionaries, growing up to be powerful “Timothy.” Besides, Ogden recorded that MacLeod was in tears when seeing those local people being baptized by Lee with MacLeod’s assistance (Ogden, n.d., p. 2). The missionaries believed that local pastors had advantages over foreign missionaries, for it was not only easier for them to work with other local church members, but also easier for them to influence the missionary target. For example, before Baker left Batang in 1919, he had trained Lee to be a diligent and supportive pastor, and “his expertise in drawing pictures and making charts to illustrate his sermons on the Gospel were excellent.” His preach was vivid, attracting a large number of people to go to listen (Duncan, 1999, p. 49). He used evocative graphics to list “Sixteen Big Thoughts for A Christian,” asking the question “How to Be a Disciple of Christ.”^[12] He preached in simple terms with illustrations, urging people to quit drinking, smoking, gambling, and other vices and misdeeds (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Pastor Lee Gway Gwang with His Drawings about the Three Vices (Photo by Albert Shelton before 1922)^a. Note. The image and its copyright: © The Disciples of Christ (The Christian Church). ^aFor the image, see Zhao & Zhu, 2014. Far, Far Away in Remote Eastern Tibet: The Story of the American Doctor Albert Shelton and His Colleagues from the Disciples of Christ 1903–1950. Lucas Park Books, St. Louis, p. 197.

In 1919, MacLeod stated in his monthly report that Lee Gway Gwang did an excellent job with the help of other church members. He spoke highly of him again that Lee was well trained (Macleod, 1919). Lee’s characteristic of “being local” and his power at work were fully reflected by his devotion to the development of the work. From 1922 to 1923, he organized a Young Men’s Club, “composed of young men who are interested in religious problems.” They met each week “with an average attendance of eight young men.” (The UCMS, 1923b, p. 81) As a minister of the Church, Lee often played an important role as the moderator of the ceremonies on holidays such as Christmas (Peterson, n.d.). “Being local” was also reflected in that Lee Gway Gwang voluntarily and “eagerly” requested to be dispatched to Yan Jin, about 290 km away from Batang, in 1930. He later reported from Yan Jin that the progress was “promising” and requested to open a clinic, hoping to preach through providing medical care (The UCMS, 1923a, p. 81; 1931, p. 40). In short, The Disciples of Christ in East China didn’t begin to hand over the leadership of the church to local pastors until in the 1940s, while the Batang Church did it much earlier than other Disciples’ Churches in China.

In addition to the preacher Lee, the Church also trained and hired a number of Bible men and women from time to time. For instance, the missionary Baker adopted a poor local Tibetan kid Fu Tsung-ru (胡/傅崇儒) and gave him training in the project of Rug Industrial in 1918, and then MacLeod sent him to school. Fu later became a Bible man and was employed by the Mission in July 1919 (Duncan, 1999, p. 51).^[13] From 1919 to 1920, Ogden trained a youth as a pastor (Report of Evangelistic Work in January 1920, 1920). In 1921, the Mission hired Whang Tien-Lien (王天林) and the Tibetan Bible woman Tsering Lhashi (次仁拉喜) (Reports of Evangelistic Work in 1921, 1920).^[14] From 1924 to 1926, there were two Bible men who preached 5 days a week. There was also a Tibetan Bible woman Lhatsu (拉措).^[15] In 1931 a part-time Bible woman was hired to preach (The UCMS, 1925, p. 80; 1926; 1931, p. 41).

2.3.2 Sources and conditions of income for the local preachers and other workers

In 1919, Article 12 of “The Constitution of the Batang Church”, formulated collectively by the missionaries in Batang, stipulated that all the payments salaried by Ba’an Jiduhui to its personnel were limited to 50 rupees per month till they found a more competent employee. In 1925, “The Constitution of the Batang Church” was expanded with the Article 10 maintaining the same bylaw.^[16] This bylaw was inherited in 1928 and the following years. There were two sources of income for local ministers and Bible men and women. One is the annual grant from the UCMS headquarter in the U. S. to the Batang Mission. For instance, the Mission’s annual expenditure budget or “estimate” from 1920 to 1921 was approximately $29,664 (Mexican dollars). The payroll showed that local ministers and Bible men and women were paid in a different way. Three employees were engaged in mission work that year. Minister Lee Gway Gwang had an annual salary of $300 while the Bible man Whang Tien-Lien and the Bible woman Tsering Lhashi had an annual salary of $120 respectively.^[17] The other source was donations by local Christians and other parties. These donations were used mainly for three types of purposes: for mission work and charity, for education (excluding the tuition paid by students), and for self-support. According to statistics, the total funds raised in Batang in 1920–1921 was about $395 (Mexican dollars—“$” shows the same unit for the following sums of money in this paragraph), including the personal donations by members of the Church to local mission, clinic, school and other mission work (The UCMS, 1922, p. 10). In 1926–1927, the total donation from the locals was $942, to which the local Christians donated a total of $56; the missionaries in Batang donated $600, and others donated $342 (The UCMS, 1927, p. 38). The 1931–1932 annual report stated that missionaries had always followed the Mission’s bylaws on salary. Namely, the Mission paid each local minister and Bible man/woman 50 rupees out of local Christians’ donation, and the rest went to charity (The UCMS, 1932, p. 30). Generally speaking, the amount of donation the Mission received from the locals was quite small, which was uncertain. Most of the funding for salaries came from the grant, mainly based on the Mission’s annual budget, allocated by the national office in the U. S.

In 1932, before they evacuated Batang, the Disciples’ missionaries passed a motion to end their employment with local employees on July 31 of that year, and then paid each local employee a sum of “bonus” according to the length of time he or she had been employed by the Mission. There were altogether 15 local employees on the name list, including Lee Gway Gwang (李国光), Yan Jen Tien (杨青天), Trauming (胡国忠), Norje Tsering (洛吉泽仁), Shao Ge Sen (肖格桑), Shaumchu (松曲), Tsamden (查登), Tseden (泽登), Ge Ge Tse Den (格格泽登), Ge Ge Ah lay (格格阿来), Lhashe (拉什或拉喜), Ge Ge Ah Tring (格格阿称), Shado (夏多), Sha Je Ru (谢吉儒), and Lhatso. In total, 1465 Rupees were paid to them (Duncan, n.d.).^[18] The fact with statistics typically shows that the Mission tried to adapt itself to local situations and communities by hiring local Han and Tibetan workers.