Allen Yeh
July 2006
Paper presented for the Fourth International Conference on Baptist Studies (ICOBS),
Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
Timothy Richard and Accommodating Mission in China
(with special reference to Robert Morrison, James Legge, and Hudson Taylor)
Note: Wherever possible, this paper will use the pinyin spelling of Chinese words and names,
rather than the traditional Wade-Giles system, both for accuracy and for consistency. This is especially
true of geographical names like Shandong, Shanxi, and Beijing, rather than the older spellings of
Shantung, Shansi, and Peking. However, some names will remain as they are classically known, such
as Hong Kong, as opposed to the more accurate but unfamiliar (at least to Western ears) Xiang Gang.
At the very first International Conference on Baptist Studies in 1997, which was
held at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, the eminent Professor Andrew Walls of
Edinburgh presented a paper about Timothy Richard, the British missionary to China.1
The reason for this follow-up to that paper is because Timothy Richard deserves
another look from a different perspective, as the heir to the mantle of British
Protestant missions in China.
Professor Walls’ paper was entitled ‘The Multiple Conversions of Timothy
Richard’ and was a study of the way Richard’s theology and missions methodology
changed over the course of his lifetime. In other words, it was an examination of the
how, the process by which Richard became what he was, and the reasons behind his
arriving at his missiological conclusions. In contrast, this paper will be focusing on
the what, the results, where he ends up, and how this compares with Richard’s British
Protestant missionary predecessors in China. While Timothy Richard may not be a
1
There is no need to retrace information that Andrew Walls has already provided. His paper can be
found as a chapter in the book The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2002).
name familiar to the average layperson, certainly Robert Morrison, James Legge, and
Hudson Taylor are names which spring more readily to mind. A comparative study
with these men is enlightening.
Timothy Richard: Early Life
Timothy Richard was born in Wales on 10 October 1845, the youngest child of
Timothy and Eleanor Richard.2 He had a standard Baptist upbringing, typical of
Welsh Dissenter churches in those days. In his hometown, Nonconformist churches
were as prevalent as their Anglican counterparts.3 Richard became a Christian as a
result of the Second Evangelical Awakening of 1858–60 that swept across the US and
the UK, and he was subsequently baptized in the local river in 1859. Ten years later,
at the age of 24, he heard an address by Mrs H. Grattan Guinness about Hudson
Taylor’s China Inland Mission (CIM), and he was sufficiently stirred by this to
consider missionary service himself.4 He said, ‘[I] felt as if a voice had been
commanding me to go abroad as a missionary.’5 For a young European Protestant at
the time, China was still a relatively new mission field, with Africa or India being the
usual destinations of choice.6 Richard, however, decided to go to China because, in
2
E.W. Price Evans, Timothy Richard: A Narrative of Christian Enterprise and Statesmanship in China
(London: The Carey Press, 1945), p. 10.
3
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, p. 17.
4
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, pp. 18-19.
5
Paul Richard Bohr, Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator
and Advocate of National Reform 1876-1884 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 1.
6
Robert Morrison initially felt called to Africa, while James Legge at first was interested in India.
Hudson Taylor, however, like Richard was determined from a young age to go to China. See J. Barton
Starr, ‘The Legacy of Robert Morrison’ in International Bulletin of Missionary Research (April 1998),
p. 73; Lauren F. Pfister, ‘The Legacy of James Legge’ in International Bulletin of Missionary Research
his estimation, ‘the Chinese were the most civilized of non-Christian nations and,
when converted, they would therefore help to carry the Gospel to less advanced
nations.’7 His plan to apply through the CIM was changed when they recommended
he apply through the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) instead, due to his
denominational background. Years later, Hudson Taylor must have been relieved over
this fortuitous circumstance, because he and Timothy Richard would prove to have
major methodological and philosophical differences over missions strategies in China.
Timothy Richard was ordained in 1869, and set sail for China on 17 November of
that year aboard the S. S. Achilles, reaching Shanghai a few months later on 12
February 1870. He immediately moved to the province of Shandong where he would
be stationed for much of his missionary service, along with the neighboring province
of Shanxi.8 (Richard made his headquarters in Shandong, and later moved to Shanxi.)
Timothy Richard quickly mastered the Chinese language and, obsessed with the idea
of evangelizing not just part but the entire Chinese empire, he theologized and
strategized, often coming up with some controversial and progressive methods,
earning him both widespread praise and negative criticism. Before looking at his
missions strategies, it is instructive to examine his British Protestant forebears in
China.
(April 1998), p. 77); J. Herbert Kane, ‘The Legacy of J. Hudson Taylor’ in International Bulletin of
Missionary Research (April 1984), p. 74.
7
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, p. 9. This reasoning foreshadowed much of the foundation behind his
later top-down missiological strategies.
8
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, pp. 19-20. In Chinese, Hebei and Henan mean ‘Northern River’ and
‘Southern River’, respectively, while Shanxi and Shandong mean ‘Western mountain’ and ‘Eastern
mountain’.
Early British Protestant Missionaries in China
Christianity has appeared in China three times prior to the modern era: the Tang
(618–907 AD), the Yuan (1206–1368 AD), and the Ming (1368–1644) dynasties.
Protestant missionaries did not arrive until the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) which was
also the last dynasty in China’s history and roughly coincided with the advent of the
modern missions movement.
Timothy Richard was part of the fourth generation of British Protestant
missionaries to China, with Robert Morrison, James Legge, and Hudson Taylor being
examples par excellence of the first three generations.9
These four men were, beyond their British citizenship and interest in China as a
mission field, quite different in many respects. Morrison and Legge were Scottish,
Taylor was English, and Richard was Welsh. Morrison was Presbyterian, Legge was
Congregational, Hudson was Methodist, and Richard was Baptist. However, these
superficial differences were not all that distinguished them from each other. They
could not have been more different in the way they approached missions and have
served as paradigms of missiology for subsequent generations. A bit of history on
each is necessary to see the progression of British Protestant missions in China.
Robert Morrison
9
It may not be proper to call them second-, third-, and fourth-generation missionaries, as there was
significant overlap among consecutive missionaries, but nevertheless they can be differentiated by the
times they arrived in China.
Robert Morrison was an English-born Scot from Northumberland.10 Born in
1782, he was brought up in the established Scottish Presbyterian Church. Morrison
received his ministerial education at Hoxton Academy in London and applied to be a
missionary with the London Missionary Society (LMS). At first, Morrison was
headed to Timbuktu in Africa, but circumstances redirected him to China.11 The
portent of this was surely not lost on him, as this made him the very first Protestant
missionary to China ever in history. Of course, the first missionaries to China were the
Nestorians, and many Roman Catholic missionaries came after them, but Morrison
paved the way for Protestant missions in China.
Robert Morrison is well-known for his verbal exchange with a skeptical merchant
shipowner who asked him prior to departure, ‘And so, Mr Morrison, you really expect
that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the great Chinese Empire?’ To
which Morrison replied, ‘No, Sir, I expect God will.’12
Upon arrival in Canton in 1807, Morrison was preoccupied with one monumental
task: translating the Bible into Chinese. The Nestorians had translated at least the
entire New Testament into Chinese, but as they did not have the advantage of a
printing press and other modern technologies, nothing of their work remained. Roman
Catholic missionaries had translated portions of Scripture into Chinese, but they
deemed that sufficient for their work for the time.13 Morrison built upon the existing
10
Marshall Broomhall, Robert Morrison: A Master-Builder (London: Student Christian Movement,
1924), p. 8-9.
11
M. Broomhall, Robert Morrison, pp. 25-26.
12
M. Broomhall, Robert Morrison, p. 39.
13
M. Broomhall, Robert Morrison, p. 116.
Catholic translations as a foundation for one of his life projects, namely, a complete
Chinese Bible.14 He also worked on a Chinese grammar and dictionary as
supplements to this project. The other great contribution he left behind was the
establishment of the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca. He believed that Scripture
translation and Christian education were two of the most important and lasting
legacies he could leave for the future of Protestant missions. However, he was
plagued with some burning questions: Was he really a missionary? After all, he was
not primarily engaged with evangelism and in fact saw very few converts in his
lifetime. Do translation and education count as real missions? Or does one have to be
an evangelist?15 Though struggling with these issues in his own life as well as dealing
with external criticism from others, Robert Morrison is still remembered today as
‘The Father of Protestant Missions in China’.16
James Legge
James Legge, also a Scot, was born in 1815. Unlike Morrison who was a good
14
Contrary to popular belief, Morrison’s was not the first complete translation of the Chinese Bible.
Joshua Marshman, of the famed Serampore Trio, was working on a Chinese Bible at the same time as
Morrison. In fact, Marshman completed his translation before Morrison did, but the former’s
translation was less accurate than the latter’s. Plus, it was subject to the double criticism that: 1)
Marshman’s translation was mainly the product of his Chinese assistant whereas Morrison and his
British colleague William Milne carried out the translation themselves; and 2) Marshman finished his
in India whereas Morrison was actually in the context of China where the translation was most relevant.
Morrison himself said about his pet project, ‘If Morrison and Milne’s Bible shall, in China, at some
subsequent period, hold such a place in reference to a better translation, as Wickliff’s or Tyndale’s now
hold in reference to our present English version, many will for ever bless God for the attempt; and
neither the Missionary Society, nor the Bible Society, will ever regret the funds they have, or shall yet
expend, in aid of the object.’ From M. Broomhall, Robert Morrison, p. 119.
15
Starr, ‘Robert Morrison’, p. 75.
16
Starr, ‘Robert Morrison’, p. 75.
Scottish Presbyterian, Legge came from a Nonconformist tradition as a Scottish
Congregationalist.17 However, Legge was truly Morrison’s successor in spirit if not in
denominational tradition. In keeping with Morrison’s twin mission strategies of
translation and education, Legge not only revised and updated Morrison’s translation
of the Bible into Chinese (with New Testament commentary), but took over as the
Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College, moving it from Malacca to Hong Kong.
Originally slated for service in India, James Legge arrived in China in 1840 as an
LMS missionary and, in addition to translation and education, added his own unique
contribution to missions in China. These contributions were: social justice, indigenous
collaboration, and Confucian accommodationism.
In terms of social justice, James Legge vigorously opposed the opium trade and,
like William Wilberforce, brought a social conscience to British Christianity. He also
criticized British capitalism and became a prophetic voice among his own
countrymen.18 With regard to indigenous collaboration, Robert Morrison did work
with local Chinese, most notably a man named Liang Gongfa,19 but he did the
majority of his translation of the Chinese Bible with the help of fellow Scot William
Milne. However, most of Legge’s work was carried out with the assistance of a local
Chinese named Ho Tsun-sheen,20 an invaluable partnership that would last a lifetime.
17
Lauren Pfister, Striving for ‘The Whole Duty of Man’: James Legge and the Scottish Protestant
Encounter with China: Assessing Confluences in Scottish Nonconformism, Chinese Missionary
Scholarship, Victorian Sinology, and Chinese Protestantism (2 vols; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang,
2004), I, p. 7.
18
Pfister, James Legge, I, p. 177.
19
Pfister, James Legge, I, p. 141.
20
Pfister, James Legge, I, p. 133.
Finally, and most importantly, Legge accommodated to Confucian tradition. This
earned him the most amount of criticism but also was his greatest triumph.
His massive eight-volume Chinese Classics, first published between 1861–72,
was a translation of every major Confucian work. This eventually earned Legge the
first Chair of Chinese language and literature at Oxford University, a post he took
upon his retirement from missionary life in 1876.21 Legge saw scholarship as a
missiological strategy, because he believed that Confucianism (unlike Buddhism or
Taoism) was redeemable in a Christian worldview because it was a philosophy, not a
religion, and much of that philosophy was compatible with Christianity. In Legge’s
revision of Morrison’s Chinese Bible, one of the crucial translation issues was,
ironically, the word for God. It seems so basic, but how does one translate ‘God’ into
Chinese? Does one import a foreign word, or use an existing word? A foreign word
would make Christianity seem like a foreign religion imposed upon the Chinese,
whereas an existing word can lead to syncretism and confusion with local religions.
Legge took the latter approach, arguing for the word shàngdì, which is taken from
Confucianism, as the word for ‘God’. (‘shàngdì’ means ‘Lord on high’.)22 He
believed that the Chinese already had the idea of the one true monotheistic God, much
as the Apostle Paul said at the Areopagus in Acts 17, ‘I even found an altar with this
21
Pfister, ‘James Legge’, p. 79.
22
Other Chinese words for God include zhu (Lord), Yehehua (Yahweh), and shén (God). Legge’s main
opponent on this issue was an American missionary named William Boone. Boone argued for shén as
the word for God because he believed shàngdì implied that the Christian God was the greatest of a
pantheon of gods, rather than the one and only God. He criticized Legge for ‘promoting idolatry’ with
shàngdì. Eventually both Boone’s and Legge’s Bibles were published, with shén and shàngdì as the
translations for ‘God’, respectively. See Pfister, James Legge, I, pp. 190-93.
inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am
going to proclaim to you.’ Legge made it his life’s goal to proclaim shàngdì to the
Chinese.
James Legge expanded upon the work which Robert Morrison had started, but
had to grapple with some unique questions of his own: How does one translate certain
Christian terms into Chinese without compromising their meaning? Can Christians
affirm Confucian doctrines? Or is Confucianism antithetical to Christianity? From
Robert Morrison to James Legge, already the flavor of missions in China had changed
dramatically within only one generation.
J. Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor was an English Methodist, born in 1832. He took Chinese
missions in a drastically different direction than his British Protestant predecessors
did. Originally sent with the Chinese Evangelization Society in 1853, Taylor soon
broke with them in order to ‘live by faith’.23 He founded his own organization called
the China Inland Mission (today it is known as OMF, the Overseas Mission
Fellowship) in 1865.24 This does not seem particularly spectacular until one realizes
that up until Taylor’s time, the interior of China had not yet been penetrated. All other
missionaries had remained in the coastal regions, but Taylor brought the gospel to
previously untouched territory. Another distinction is that Taylor was the first pure
Protestant evangelist in China. Unlike Morrison or Legge, he was not concerned with
23
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 74.
24
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 75
translation, education, or Confucianism, but devoted himself fully to evangelism and
preaching. Morrison and Legge also kept their Western dress and customs, whereas
Taylor decided to fully accommodate by shaving his head, growing a queue, and
wearing Chinese clothing. This shocked many Westerners but Taylor was insistent on
this point of contextualization.25 The CIM was largely a grassroots movement,
reaching out mainly to the peasants and lower classes,26 rather than a top-down
approach which was more favored by James Legge and later Timothy Richard. Taylor
also avoided conflict and denominationalism, allowing each CIM church to choose
their own denominational polity.27 One area in which Taylor did agree with Legge
was in speaking out publicly against the evils of the opium trade.28 However, his
greatest contribution was the concept of faith missions. This was particularly true in
the area of finances: he trusted in God for financial support and would refuse to go
into debt. Prayer was therefore a hallmark of faith missions, both for money and for
the necessary and right people. Even today, the organization has a ‘twofold
policy—no indebtedness and no solicitation of funds.’29
The questions he faced were different from those of Morrison and Legge,
precisely because his method of missions was so different. Not content to remain on
the coastal regions, he founded the CIM and forged inland, breaking from precedent
and denominational ties in order to go about the ‘pure’ business of preaching the Word.
25
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 74.
26
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 76.
27
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 6.
28
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 76.
29
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 77.
He had to decide, who is the target group—upper or lower classes, coastal or interior?
How is the interior to be penetrated? How does one raise the necessary money apart
from denominational mission boards? And can one have a unified missions movement
without forming a national body? 30 Against all odds, and against the nay-sayers that
were waiting for the CIM to fail, Taylor instead trusted in God and saw faith missions
become standard practice for many contemporary evangelical missions organizations.
Today it is taken for granted that this is how one ‘ought to do mission’, but before
Hudson Taylor’s time, nobody had ever dared to do missions like this. J. Hudson
Taylor is rightly known today as the ‘Father of the Faith Mission Movement’.31
Timothy Richard’s Legacy
This brings us back to the original subject of this paper, Timothy Richard, or Li
T’i-mo’T’ai,32 as he came to be known among the Chinese. It is necessary to
understand Robert Morrison, James Legge, and Hudson Taylor in order to have a
perspective on the missions context into which Timothy Richard arrived, and to
appreciate the mantle which he inherited. It was not a direct inheritance—as has
already been said, for example, Richard and Taylor did not get along. However, as the
most prominent member of the fourth generation of British Protestant missionaries in
China, Richard was well aware of his predecessors and was faced with the choice to
either follow in their footsteps or blaze his own trail. Richard often opted for the latter
30
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 76.
31
Kane, ‘J. Hudson Taylor’, p. 75.
32
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, p. 103.
without hesitation.
Part of Richard’s missions strategy was dictated by the circumstances of his time,
namely the Great Famine of 1876-79. This was widely considered the worst famine of
modern Chinese history, afflicting five provinces of northern China and killing 9.5
million people.33 Richard’s dreams of preaching and evangelism were curbed for the
moment to deal with disaster relief. This was to have a profound effect on the way he
did missions.
One effect is that it caused him to move inland to Shanxi province because it was
even worse afflicted than Shandong. Hudson Taylor had, just a few years earlier, been
the first to evangelize China’s interior, and now Timothy Richard moved inland as
well. However, his method of missions was not merely straight evangelism; it was an
appeal to the Chinese people to turn to the Christian God, combined with disaster
relief—in essence, holistic mission. He taught the local Chinese how to pray to the
Christian God for rain,34 and then he proceeded to enlist foreign aid in order to
distribute food. This Great Famine was the first Chinese natural disaster to elicit such
attention and aid from the West, much of it coordinated by Richard himself.35 He also
sought out high-ranking Chinese government officials in order to teach them how to
manage disasters, and, more importantly, how to prevent them. This won him many
friends among the upper strata of Chinese society but also many critics from among
his fellow missionaries.
33
Bohr, Famine, p. xv.
34
Bohr, Famine, pp. 83-84.
35
Bohr, Famine, p. 115.
Timothy Richard’s missiological method derived from his favorite verse in the
Bible, Matthew 10:11—‘In whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is
worthy; and there abide till ye go thence.’ This begs the question of who is worthy.
Richard believed that it is anybody of any class (not necessarily the rich or influential)
‘whose character has won the respect of their fellows, and who have shown
themselves to be aware of and responsive to spiritual issues’.36 However, they often
were the upper class and powerful of society, and as a result Richard initiated a
top-down approach which seemed very un-Baptistic! Curiously, this resembled more
of a Lutheran approach, this belief that if the heads of society are converted, the
effects will trickle down to the rest of society.
Richard raised even more ire when he sought to reach the Chinese through the
avenue of Buddhism. It was controversial enough that Legge had chosen to use
Confucianism to reach the Chinese masses, but as Confucianism was a philosophy
and not a religion, it was tolerable; however, Buddhism could not be mistake for
anything but an idolatrous religion. Yet Richard translated many Buddhist sutras into
English and attempted to engage the Chinese through this means. He regarded many
Buddhist monks as among the ‘worthy’ among which he ought to spread the gospel.
Knowledge was another very important component to Richard’s methodology.
He sought both to communicate and impress the Chinese with Western science. His
thinking was holistic and he did not see a conflict between science and faith; in fact,
he used scientific knowledge to try to corroborate the claims of Christianity.
36
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, p. 27.
Like Morrison and Legge, Richard saw education as a necessary component of
missions. While they established and ran the Anglo-Chinese College, Richard’s vision
was broader: the establishment of a Western-style university in every provincial
capital in China. He helped to form the Oxford and Cambridge (later the United
Universities’) Scheme for a university in China.37 His belief was that these
universities would help to disseminate not Western values but Western knowledge,
and thus impress upon the Chinese the superiority of the Christian God through the
top echelons of society.
Like Hudson Taylor, Richard decided to don Chinese dress, shave his head and
sport a queue. In similar fashion, he printed off tracts and catechisms in Chinese and
‘clothed Christian truths in Chinese dress.’38
London 1905 and Edinburgh 1910
Timothy Richard was asked to give two significant addresses in the early 20th
century. The first was at the inaugural Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Congress held in
London in 1905. The second was at the famous World Missionary Conference in
Edinburgh, 1910, the ‘birthplace of the modern ecumenical movement’.
Richard’s gave the keynote address at the BWA Congress in 1905 entitled ‘The
Awakening of China and the Duty of the Home Church’. He warned of this ‘giant
among the nations waking up from its sleep of ages… the leaders of progress in the
37
William E. Soothill, Timothy Richard of China: Seer, Statesman, Missionary & the Most
Disinterested Adviser the Chinese Ever Had (London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1924), p. 289.
38
Price Evans, Timothy Richard, pp. 41, 45-46.
future will be from the East, as well as from the West.’39 He used this great platform
to urge both ecumenism and immediate action:
Our World Congress comes rather late in the day. Most other denominations
have had theirs. Still, there is an advantage in coming late. We should
endeavour to do all the good they did—and something more. We should
organize for Christian work throughout all the world… Cannot this Baptist
World Congress decide now to take an advanced step in this direction, and
begin a federation of the six great denominations at work
there—Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Lutherans, and Baptists—into one cooperating force as far as possible; for
God will not judge us by our creeds so much as by our fruit.40
In addition to this, Richard continued his campaign for holistic mission: ‘There is a
method by which you can save the whole man, body and soul, now and hereafter,
from hell in this world as well as in the next… Follow the method of complete
salvation!’41
Richard found a mentor and kindred spirit in the great John Mott. He regarded
Mott as ‘a master mind, able like himself to think not in parishes but nationally and
internationally. He watched Dr Mott’s work with deep interest and sympathy,
recognizing in him a genius of statesmanship and business method…’42 As such, he
was more than happy to be invited to participate and speak at Edinburgh 1910.
At that Conference, Richard made an appeal for greater Christian literature
distribution. He asked how one man can reach a million people with the gospel. His
answer was not through preaching but through the distribution of literature: tracts,
39
Timothy Richard, ‘The Awakening of China and the Duty of the Home Church’, J.H. Shakespeare
(ed.), The Baptist World Congress: London, July 11-19, 1905: Authorised Record of Proceedings
(London: Baptist Union Publication Department, 1905), p. 113. Also see Richard V. Pierard (ed.),
Baptists Together in Christ, 1905-2005 (Falls Church, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 2005), pp. 29-30.
40
Richard, ‘Awakening of China’, p. 115.
41
Richard, ‘Awakening of China’, p. 114.
42
Soothill, Timothy Richard, p. 290.
catechisms, books, and Bibles. But he believed that ‘Christian literature was the
weakest link of the Church’s chain in China.’43 He lamented that ‘the national [soul]
is still too much subordinated to the individual soul—which is both right and wrong.
Richard never undervalued the individual soul, but he sought to impress on the
Conference the ideas he advocated in his Conversion by the Million.’44 In that
significant book, he explained his reasoning thus:
I would not disparage the inestimable blessings conferred on the Chinese by
medical work, by personal intercourse, by public preaching, by schools, or by
any other means. All of them are doing immense service for the advancement
of the Kingdom of God. But it seems to me that we have not been sufficiently
alive to the enormous effect that would be produced by a fuller development
of the resources, of the Tract Society. After considering carefully what
message we have to tell the Chinese before standing up to preach to them, then
the next course would be to print that message, so that instead of having made
it known to 50 or 100 we might put it within reach of thousands, hundreds of
thousands and even millions.45
Richard was both a loyal Baptist and a staunch ecumenist. His participation in
both the 1905 London BWA Congress and the 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary
Conference revealed his convictions both ways, and he used both platforms in order to
spread what he believed was the most effective ways of accommodating missions.
Accommodating Missions in China
Timothy Richard often elicited strong responses for the way he chose to do
missions in China. Probably the best adjective to describe his style of missions is
accommodationist. Of course, even Robert Morrison, James Legge, and Hudson
43
Soothill, Timothy Richard, p. 291.
44
Soothill, Timothy Richard, p. 291.
45
Timothy Richard, Conversion by the Million (Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1907), p. 198.
Taylor had degrees of accommodationism. Yet Richard perhaps was the most easily
adaptable to the Chinese context of these four.
Morrison and Legge saw it unnecessary to wear Chinese dress, whereas Taylor
and Richard used it to their full advantage to become more integrated into Chinese
society. James Legge used route of Confucianism to reach the Chinese, whereas
Richard used Buddhism as his means of engagement. Although the Great Famine was
an unexpected disaster, Richard’s flexibility allowed him to engage holistically with
this crisis and used it to not only save people’s souls but also their bodies, while
befriending the Chinese upper and ruling classes at the same time.
Richard himself presciently wrote,
The problem before the missionary in China… was not only how to save the
souls of a fourth of the human race, but also how to save their bodies from
perishing at the rate of four millions per annum, and to free their minds, more
crippled than the feet of their women, from a philosophy and custom which
had lasted for many centuries and left them at the mercy of any nation which
might attack their country. But, if the nation were liberated from the bonds of
ignorance and harmful custom, and were to receive the light of
education—scientific, industrial, religious—it might become one of the most
powerful nations on earth…46
He bought books of Romanism and Protestantism—German, American, British,
High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, and Nonconformist—in order ‘to guard
myself against becoming a one-sided Christian’, as well as scientific equipment,
history books, the Buddhist Tripitaka, medicine, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and
botanical slides.47
Timothy Richard’s ideas were not always met with favor. One of his greatest
46
Timothy Richard, Forty-Five Years in China: Reminiscences by Timothy Richard, D. D., Litt.D.
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1916), p. 7.
47
Price Evans, p. 81.
critics was Hudson Taylor, who refused to work with Richard because he believed the
latter to be unorthodox in theology. Taylor wrote at one point about ‘the vanity of
hoping to convert China thro’ its literati, and by means of books alone’.48 Obviously
this was aimed at Richard, especially his ideas that were propounded at the BWA
1905 Congress, and others like him. However, Richard, like Taylor, shared the aim to
convert the whole of the great empire of China.
The Baptist historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, in his book History of Christian
Missions in China, said that Taylor and Richard
were outstanding exponents of different and in time conflicting conceptions of
the missionary’s function. They had much in common… Both dared to think
in terms of all China and to attempt to formulate methods for reaching the
whole of the nation much more expeditiously and effectively than was being
done by their contemporaries. They were unlike in that Richard dreamed of
seeing all phases of China’s life transformed by the introduction of every
wholesome feature of Western civilization, while Taylor confined his efforts to
the proclamation of the Gospel as understood by Evangelicals of the time.
Richard’s theology was more flexible and he was quicker to recognize all that
was good in the non-Christian faiths of China. Each was a great missionary,
and it witnesses to the inclusiveness of Protestantism that both were usually
recognized as in good and regular standing in missionary circles.49
Latourette also regarded Richard as ‘one of the greatest missionaries whom any
branch of the Church, whether Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox or Protestant, has
ever sent to China.’50 Andrew Walls called Richard a denominational patriarch and
claims that his name is associated with China in the same way that Carey’s is with
India and Grenfell’s is with the Congo.51 Just as Robert Morrison was known as the
48
A.J. Broomhall, The Shaping of Modern China: Hudson Taylor’s Life and Legacy (2 vols; Pasadena,
CA: William Carey Library, 2005), p. 587.
49
As quoted in Price Evans, Timothy Richard, p. 387.
50
As quoted in Price Evans, Timothy Richard, pp. 9-10.
51
Andrew Walls, ‘Multiple Conversions’, p. 240.
‘Father of Protestant Missions in China,’ and Hudson Taylor was called the ‘Father of
the Faith Missions Movement,’ Timothy Richard was known as the ‘Founder of
Famine Relief in China.’52 His nonconformity was extreme even among the
Nonconformist Baptists, but he accommodated himself to China, becoming all things
to all men, so that by all possible means he might save some.
Bibliography
Bohr, Paul Richard, Famine in China and the Missionary: Timothy Richard as Relief
Administrator and Advocate of National Reform 1876-1884 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1972).
Broomhall, A.J., The Shaping of Modern China: Hudson Taylor’s Life and Legacy (2
vols; Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2005).
Broomhall, Marshall, Robert Morrison: A Master-Builder (London: Student Christian
Movement, 1924).
Kane, J. Herbert, ‘The Legacy of J. Hudson Taylor’, International Bulletin of
Missionary Research (April 1984).
Pfister, Lauren F., ‘The Legacy of James Legge’, International Bulletin of Missionary
Research (April 1998).
Pfister, Lauren, Striving for ‘The Whole Duty of Man’: James Legge and the Scottish
Protestant Encounter with China: Assessing Confluences in Scottish
Nonconformism, Chinese Missionary Scholarship, Victorian Sinology, and
Chinese Protestantism (2 vols; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004).
Pierard, Richard V. (ed.), Baptists Together in Christ, 1905-2005 (Falls Church, VA:
Baptist World Alliance, 2005).
52
Interestingly, the other two had religious-sounding titles, whereas Richard’s title could very well
have been applied to a secular person. Richard probably would not have objected, as his holistic
theology saw no room for differentiation between the secular world and the sacred; all, including
science and disaster relief, was God’s domain.
Price Evans, E.W., Timothy Richard: A Narrative of Christian Enterprise and
Statesmanship in China (London: The Carey Press, 1945).
Richard, Timothy, ‘The Awakening of China and the Duty of the Home Church’, J.H.
Shakespeare (ed.), The Baptist World Congress: London, July 11-19, 1905:
Authorised Record of Proceedings (London: Baptist Union Publication
Department, 1905).
Richard, Timothy, Conversion by the Million (Shanghai: Christian Literature Society,
1907).
Richard, Timothy, Forty-Five Years in China: Reminiscences by Timothy Richard, D.
D., Litt.D. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1916).
Soothill, William E., Timothy Richard of China: Seer, Statesman, Missionary & the
Most Disinterested Adviser the Chinese Ever Had (London: Seeley, Service & Co.,
1924).
Starr, J. Barton, ‘The Legacy of Robert Morrison’, International Bulletin of
Missionary Research (April 1998).
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Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002).