The new attention to the missionary and his or her efforts in modern China is reflected in James Culp's new film,
The China Call. This film, in spite of certain problems, is a vivid and useful introduction to the American missionary enterprise in China that can be used in the college or high school classroom in courses in Chinese history and American History.
Culp's film begins with a prelude that gives the viewer an understanding of the meaning of the title. It also makes theare of the fact that it was both a Protestant and Catholic effort. The prelude also shows that this religious and benevolent enterprise was an element in the larger Western imperialist effort. The main part of this documentary proceeds more or less chronologically, and is broken down into specific time periods. The first spans the years from 1860 to 1900. The second covers the period from 1900 to 1920. The third, and core period of the film, deals with the Revolution of the 1920s and the Nanjing Decade, from 1920 until 1937. The fourth covers the Sino-Japanese War and the next, the Civil War. A segment that takes place in the 1980s ends the film in a quiet, but dramatic, fashion.
The decision to present a picture of the mission enterprise over time is a wise one: It allows Culp to capture the distinctive rhythms of each period. He also gives the viewer a feeling for the people involved through interviews with the children and grandchildren of missionaries and such wes and such well-known missionaries as Walter Judd. Thus we see and hear Grace Sydenstricker, the sister of Pearl Buck, describe her parents and their work, hear Isable Hemingway talk about her parents and grandparents--missionaries all--and hear Walter Judd describe his own efforts.
I am, however, critical of Culp's choice of the moment he begins his narrative. He omits coverage of the years from 1830 to 1860. In these thirty years, the missionary movement took shape. Many of the patterns that would characterize the post-1860 movement were established by missionaries in South and Central China during these years. I feel that Culp loses the opportunity to introduce his audience to a host of fascinating figures, to effectively set the missionary movement within the context of Western imperialism, and finally to introduce sets of important major themes.
What Culp does do well is place each stage of China mission development squarely within its larger historical context. This careful framing of the movement within the larger development of China makes the film a valuable teaching tool.
He is also effective when dealing with paradigm shifts within the mission enterprise. For example, one is made aware of the shift from the strategy of evangelism--to preach the Gospel to many who did not care to listen--to the strategy of secular benevolence--of using schools and hospitals and printing presses--as a means of meeting the physical and intellectual needs of the Chinese to make the case for Christianity. What Culp shows to be such strategic shifts were not the monopoly of only one form of Christianity, for Catholics as well as Protestants took up these approaches.
The only caveat I have is that the presentation of this paradigm shift is exaggerated. While the mainstream or "liberal" denominations did follow this course, others did not. Using materials from China Inland Mission and Assemblies of God archives, Culp might have demonstrated that Evangelical and Pentecostal groups remained determined to spread the Gospel and to win souls, rejecting the strategies of the Social Gospel.
Questions of missionary impact and Chinese response are dealt with in the segment that covers the Revolution of the 1920s and the Nanjing decade. Culp's balanced approach is seen here. The missionaries are presented as agents of social change and their efforts at Yenjing University and the Peking Medical Union, and Nanjing University are examined. The impact of such efforts upon a newly Westernized Chinese intellectual community is then suggested.
Culp also shows the downside of this influence, demonstrating that missionaries were often viewed as cultural imperialists. When the Northern Expedition unfolded, the missionaries were targets of both the Communist and the Nationalist troops, victimized because they were seen as imperialists. I have a problem with this aspect of the presentation. The Chinese opposition to the missionaries did not appear overnight. There existed a widespread anti-Christian movement, led by intellectuals and students, in the early 1920s. As this movement developed, it produced the turmoil that prepared for the outburst of anti-missionary activity in 1926 and 1927. This movement should have been examined. Not to do so oversimplifies a complex and difficult stage in missionary and Chinese history.
Culp also does well in showing how the missionaries became pawns in the deadly games played by the Nationalists and the Communists. He makes use of such participant observers as John King Fairbank to drive home this point. Culp also shows how individuals within the American church community became critical of the missionary movement. Pearl Buck, the daughter of missionaries, became the most famous critic of the enterprise, writing a stinging essay that excoriated it. The painful moments of naïveté and in-the-ranks turmoil are presented clearly and dramatically to counterbalance the picture presented of the missionary as a benevolent and wise educator or as an effective agent of social change.
The section on the Sino-Japanese War gives the viewer insight into this difficult period. By presenting powerful sets of images that show the missionaries working with millions of refugees streaming out of the coastal regions of eastern China, Culp makes the period come alive. From those missionaries interviewed, one senses that many believed that these years of travail were the movement's finest hour.
The Civil War and the missionaries' experiences of it, as well as the immediate and painful post-Civil War Period are also brought to life. It might have been useful for Culp to show what the modern missionary community on Taiwan is like. This community is the successor to that which was forced to leave the Chinese Mainland. The conclusion is an epilogue in which individuals discuss the state of Christianity in the People's Republic of China and try to reassess the movement in which they each played a part.
As human drama and as history, this is an engaging and affecting film. It is balanced, perhaps more so than a mission board or member of a mission family might be willing to accept. The movement is presented as having effects that were positive and negative. Of greater significance, it demonstrates a powerful truth: that China will absorb its would-be conquerors, however benevolent they might be, and continues to frustrate outsider's attempts to radically transform its people and culture. Today, in the 1990s--as socialist China clings to life and a more traditional China reemerges--we are more aware of this truth than ever before.
This, then, is a pioneering piece of filmmaking that serves as an introduction to and a reassessment of the role of the missionary in twentieth-century China. Mission history becomes visible, comprehensible, and exciting in The China Call.
