“Translated” or “Transformed”: The Use of Western Hymns in the Evangelization of the Lisu of Southwest China

Translated western hymns have a bad reputation in missiology. The term “translated” seems to convey a less than authentic expression of Christian faith. However, that was not how it happened when the Lisu of southwest China were evangelized by missionaries from the China Inland Mission in the 1920s and 1930s. The Lisu people exerted much more agency over their translated western hymns than the term “translated” implies. While the kernel of melody and message remained intact, four-part harmonies replaced unison singing. A cappella replaced piano or organ accompaniment. Phrases meaningful in a Victorian context were transformed into phrases meaningful in a Lisu mountain context. Abstract theological terms were replaced by concrete phrases. Western rhyming schemes were laid aside and Lisu poetic couplets were used instead. The end result is that in the everyday arena, in the practical living out of what it means to be a Christian for a communal and still largely oral-preference people such as the Lisu, the Lisu Christian hymns are the centerpiece of worship and devotion, of prayer and penitence. In other words, in the process of cross-cultural transmission, the Lisu hymns were not so much translated, as they were transformed.

Protestant Entrance and Christian Expansion (1840–1950)

Beginning in the 1840s, Anglo-French gunboat diplomacy and “unequal treaties” forcibly opened China to European economic interests and, in so doing, introduced unprecedented opportunities for Christian expansion. Catholic missionaries and priests returned to nurture “Old Catholics” and plant new missions, and for the first time Protestants appeared on the scene with millennial hopes of reaching “China’s millions.” This chapter begins by giving general attention to reasons for the Chinese to reject or accept the Christian message. It then turns to specific discussions of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the China Inland Mission, “Pastor Xi” (Xi Liaozhi), and first-generation Fuzhou Protestants. It concludes with an examination of the views of American theological liberals who, beginning in the late nineteenth century, rejected the traditional Christian emphasis on the necessity of conversion.

From Holy Striving to Wholly Abiding: Mystical Transformation in James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905)

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905), founder of the China Inland Mission in June 1865, was one of the most influential 19th century British Protestant missionaries in China. His writings, sermons and personal letters are suffused with spiritual insights and mystical nuances, notably Union and Communion,1 his short devotional work on the Song of Songs which was published in 1894. This article focuses on his mystical or transformative experience of 1869 which effected a profound experiential union with Christ and a new consciousness of soul rest. Captured here as a transformation ‘from holy striving to wholly abiding’, the significance of this pivotal moment is elucidated in terms of its immediate personal effect and its lasting impact on Taylor’s mission vocation. The relevance of Taylor’s mysticism for contemporary missionary spirituality is briefly delineated.