Beyond the Wall: Mapping Christian Fundamentalism in Hunan During the 1920s

Abstract

The Hunan Bible Institute (HBI) was a prominent missionary organization based out of the city of Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan province, located far in China’s interior. By the 1920’s the HBI built a large compound located outside the eastern gate of the city, which mainly functioned as a training school for Chinese converts and missionaries. Despite Hunan’s reputation as one of the most radically anti-foreign regions of China, early efforts of evangelistic outreach were mainly achieved through the efforts of small “colporteur teams,” who were sent out on small boats along Hunan’s complex network of rivers and canals. At the same time, archival evidence has shown how the story of how HBI acquired the property to build its spacious campus initially proved controversial and was indicative of how wealthy foreign institutions maintained a complex relationship with local interests during a very turbulent decade in China’s modern history..