Abstract
It was a normal night in the spring of 1924 for Liao Shuirong , a deacon of the small Haicang Church , as he lay fast asleep in his room above the family bakery just a stone’s throw from the local church. Suddenly, Liao was awakened by a strange voice calling his name.
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Notes
- 1.
Not only was Chen a pastor , at his ordination, he also became a part-time “LMS superintendent,” which meant he helped in the oversight of many churches in the Xiamen district.
- 2.
- 3.
One source explains that Chen had returned 50 dollars that he said Liangduan (who was 25 at the time of her death) had asked him to keep, but Liao suspected there may have been more. Xu (2009) is the only author who tries to clarify the corruption accusation. He claims that Liangduan was basically apprenticed under Chen to learn how to preach. During these two years, Liangduan would often take gifts (from the bakery) or even a bit of money and gave this to the Chen house in lieu of tuition.
- 4.
- 5.
Again, this paper with the signatures has not, as far as I am aware, been preserved. However, I have talked to family members of Xu who claimed to have seen this document decades ago.
- 6.
The one instance when Chen Dexiu and other church members witnessed children dressed in white dancing was not an apparition of the voice (which was also present), but these were claimed to be angels sent from God .
- 7.
Christians were expected to make clean breaks with “idolatrous” acts, such as offering incense to ancestors or gods . In this case, though, the convert shared a home with family members who were not Christian and they continued to burn incense to deities.
- 8.
Interestingly, contemporary scholars of South Fujian religion have also reported on instances when spirit mediums , likewise, acknowledge the spiritual battle that is waged. For example, Erin Cline (2010: 524) reports of a spirit medium suggesting that residual Christianity caused from the scholar’s Western background affected the efficacy of a spirit medium .
- 9.
- 10.
Xu (2009) mentions that the report was sent to periodicals throughout China (and even Southeast Asia ).
- 11.
The following information is gleaned from the Minnan jidujiao dayihui nianlu for 1927, 1928, 1929, and 1930. These reports have been painstakingly compiled and informally reproduced by local scholar Ye Kehao .
- 12.
These dates are given according to the solar calendar.
- 13.
It is interesting to note that both missionary reports cited here are from female missionaries and are part of the “Report of Women’s Work” sections of the annual LMS reports. This suggests such spiritual phenomenon were female-oriented and thus marginalized.
- 14.
The lack of mention of the Haicang voice in LMS reports, despite the fact the voice lasted many years and greatly influenced the Christian population around Xiamen, suggests that there were probably many supernatural occurrences in Chinese churches that went unreported in missionary writings. As Inouye (2017: 32) surmises, “Christian institutions large enough and bureaucratic enough to maintain archives tended to preserve a corpus of primary sources that demonstrated relatively rationalized forms of Christian practice.”
- 15.
Henrietta Harrison (2012) provides an interesting case study of the complexities of science and Christianity from the perspective of Catholic medical missions . As Harrison shows, many European Catholic missionaries , while acknowledging miraculous supernaturalism, sought to utilize science to legitimize the medical miracles they witnessed.
- 16.
Zhang Shengcai , another member involved in this case, was also very outspoken in his nationalistic feelings.
- 17.
There are numerous articles that are conspicuous in their nationalistic sentiments in Shisheng zazhi and Jiuguo zhoukan, both periodicals started by Xu.
- 18.
While the state was clearly interested in creating a new framework devoid of wasteful or harmful practices that it felt were not suited for a “modern” nation, we should remember that it also allowed a certain amount of traditional Chinese religious practices to continue in a more organized way. Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank (2009: 9) explain that this seeming contradiction “shows a fluidity and contextuality of the boundary between superstition and religion.”
- 19.
John Sung , “Lingli jiguang” chapter 3. Available online, http://cclw.net/soul/linglijiguang/index.htm. Accessed February 22, 2017.
- 20.
My thanks to John Xu for sharing this calligraphy with me.
- 21.
Interview with Xu Yangsan , July 4–5, 2010.
- 22.
This volume, however, has not yet been printed.
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White, C. (2019). The Haicang Voice: Modernity, Cultural Continuity and the Spirit World in a 1920s Chinese Church. In: White, C. (eds) Protestantism in Xiamen. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89471-3_5
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