Abstract
G.K. Chesterton in his biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas shows a remarkable ability to tell the story of these two saints and set their stories in the wider historical context in which they lived. Neel Roberts has a similar ability. His description of the work of the China Inland Mission in the Upper Mekong Region covering the “century from the time Hudson Taylor first arrived in China in 1854 until 1951 when the CIM found it necessary to withdraw its workers from the country” (xii) is set against the backdrop of significant historical events—the two World Wars, the Chinese Revolution of 1911, the Welsh revivals, the Great Depression, and the rise of Mao Zedong.
The title of the book, influenced by a quote from Robert Morrison (1782–1834) “who was at one time the solitary representative of the Protestant missions in China” (ix), suggests that the work of the CIM was ‘no solitary effort.’ Certainly it included the work of luminaries like James Hudson Taylor, D.E. Hoste, J.R. Adam, Samuel Pollard, and J.O. Fraser. However, it also included the close partnership between the missionaries and the church composed of Miao and other indigenous groups. The story of the movement from the missionary to the self-sustaining Chinese church is told in four periods: First Period: 1865–95; Second Period: The Tribes Begin to Respond 1895–1915; Third Period: The Emergence of Indigenous Methods 1916–38; and The Final Period: The Mission Is Succeeded by the Church 1938–51. Along the way, Neel poses the questions, When is a missionary endeavor considered complete? If the work was carried on properly, should it have taken so long? And, How do missionaries know that it is time to move on? His answers, sometimes tentative, are provided.
Roberts, an OMF missionary, tells the story from an insider perspective. It is not the sentimental recording that sometimes is associated with this type of writing. He is, at times, critical of the CIM even though it never goes as far as Alvin Austin’s China’s Millions. It is, however, very much a CIM account and is not always sympathetic to other Christian traditions. As an example, Neel claims that Roman Catholic “priests and bishops…dress in garb that portrayed them in the eyes of the populace as government officials,” which caused “a negative attitude toward Christianity as a whole and Chinese Christians in particular” (39). Yet to be fair, he does praise Jesuits for their diplomatic skills: “Most Protestant missionaries lack the training in politics and diplomacy which marked the Jesuits of yesteryear” (55). Due to the increase in modernist views, mainline Protestants were suspicious and doctrinal positions of the mission were carefully articulated in response as a result in 1922 (97). The meetings of Pentecostals were “unhealthy and not held along scriptural lines” and so “it was felt necessary to keep the CIM from close involvement with the movement as a whole” (85). Like Chesterton, there is a concern to differentiate Orthodoxy from Heretics.