China wants to make its Christians more Chinese
“Sinification” involves a five-year plan, of course
IN 1867 AN English missionary, James Hudson Taylor, wrote a letter home defending his policy of encouraging fellow preachers in China to wear Chinese robes and the Manchu-style pigtail. By dressing in Western garb, he argued, they risked giving the impression that becoming a Christian meant becoming a foreigner. Taylor’s concern was justified. Such was the scorn for those who embraced the faith that, long before the Communist Party seized power in 1949, people used to say, “One more Christian, one fewer Chinese.” Officials in China still mutter this phrase today.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Clearing out the foreign”
From the March 31st 2021 edition
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