John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man by Daryl R. Ireland

Abstract

Reviewed by: John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man by Daryl R. Ireland T. H. Barrett Daryl R. Ireland, John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2020. xix, 248 pp. US$49.95 (hb). ISBN 978-1-4813-1270-1 To most readers interested in Chinese Christianity, John Sung (to give the historically more usual form of his name; September 27, 1901–August 18, 1944) will be little more than a brief entry in reference works; to a smaller number he will be fondly remembered as the fountainhead of a rich stream of Chinese Protestant revivalism that flows strongly to this day. To Daryl Ireland, this man has been initially and perhaps is even now something of a puzzle, but he also proved the starting point for a narrative that cannot but grip the attention of anyone capable of responding imaginatively to the turbulent world of a Republican China yearning for something new, and something better. Ireland clearly shows how these yearnings in Sung’s case prompted a sequence of reinventions by himself and by others that subverts any easy expectations of definitive biography. Instead, we are treated to a fine characterization of the period followed by a startling sequence of vignettes, taking us from a young student beset by mental health issues in a strange land, through journeys hither and yon within China and overseas, and finally on to the tragedy of a successful spiritual physician unable to heal himself, succumbing to illness well before his time, and yet once more far from his native place. In some respects, the author has foreshortened the narrative of Sung’s life in a way that is not entirely helpful. We learn little of his Fujian childhood with his pastor father, whereas by contrast the first English-language biography of his subject, by Leslie T. Lyall,1 follows a more predictable trajectory, including an intriguing photograph of Sung senior using visual aids on an easel to preach to a crowd. Lyall also appends a provisional chronology of his life, covering his departure for Ohio Wesleyan University in 1920 (BA 1923), his graduate work at Ohio State University (Ph.D. in Chemistry, 1926), the mental crisis he experienced at Union Theological Seminary in 1927 (given by Lyall, in accordance with the narrative formerly prevailing, a rather bland spiritual interpretation), his 1928 marriage and then meeting with the Shanghainese preacher Andrew Gih (though Sung eventually mastered some Mandarin, one suspects their common language was English), followed from 1930 by frenetic evangelistic activity. By 1931 he had reached as far as Manchuria, followed in 1932 by Canton and Hong Kong, and Shandong, Shanxi, Guangdong, and back north to Inner Mongolia in 1933. After splitting from Gih and his fellows in 1934, he branched out in 1935 not only through the provinces of China but also to the Philippines and Malaya, including Singapore, with 1936 seeing him return to the Nanyang, after first spending a week or so in Japanese-controlled Taiwan. Though for 1937 he confined his activities to China, in 1938 he was off again to Thailand, back to Yunnan, and then in October once more in Singapore, plus Kuala Lumpur and Penang, In 1939 two trips to Java were followed by excursions to Makassar and Ambon, combined with further visits to Singapore; from 1940 onwards his declining health kept him in Beijing.2 Ireland is probably right in abandoning Lyall’s solely China Inland Mission view of China and the Chinese diaspora and, cutting to the chase, trying to read the key aspects of Sung’s life against the tides of early twentieth century Chinese history taken as a whole. But an update of Lyall’s appendix at least might have helped the reader to navigate the largely implied rather than clearly signalled chronology. [End Page 328] There is, in any case, much to be gained from reading this book. First, the author does not disguise the way in which he has crafted a compelling narrative from very disparate materials. In the United States he has found records that give us access to the mind of...