Missionaries with Attitude: A Women's Mission in Northwestern China

Abstract

Recent research on women in mission service has deepened our understanding of the overall impact of Christian missions in China. At the same time, it has drawn attention to the contributions of thousands of women who, by 1900, comprised some 60 percent of the Protestant missionary presence there. Although women at first played a relatively minor role in the leadership and decision-making processes of most mission societies, their presence was nonetheless vital to the work of all Protestant missions and today is recognized as such. Context Despite this recognition, however, there are still relatively few studies of women who were influential or prominent in mission service in comparison with the number of studies chronicling the lives of their male counterparts. The studies that we do have show us the value of focusing on women: their lives were, and are, an intrinsic part of the Christian missionary presence in China. As such, they help us to examine important processes such as conversion, the impact of the social gospel, and historical changes in gender relations, particularly as they relate to the place of women in the Christian church and the missionary impact on China. For historians of modern China, the examination of Protestant missions also provides perspectives on the process of political change, particularly after China became a republic in 1912. It was my effort to understand the dramatic political shifts in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region during the republican era (1912‐49) that first led me to the books of three British women who served with the China Inland Mission (CIM): Mildred Cable and the sisters Evangeline and Francesca French, all of whom spent years in northwestern China. The women’s publications proved valuable because they provided details not found in other sources on village life, trade, and contemporary political figures. Despite my interest in the women, other writing projects intervened, and it was not until several years ago that I decided the time had come to write about the women themselves, in part to understand why they had chosen to travel to the northwestern provinces of China in the 1920s, but also to understand how they had managed to survive the many dangers inherent in such a venture. Some aspects of the women’s lives were as I had expected, but I also discovered much that I did not anticipate. As missionaries, their purpose in China was to preach the Christian Gospel. But as I soon discovered, these women not only had strong belief in God but also had strong opinions on the issues of their day. As will be seen, their beliefs occasionally placed them at odds with their male colleagues and their mission society. Indeed, as my research on the women progressed, I began to refer to them as “missionaries with attitude,” a rather irreverent way of characterizing the women, who were unwilling to have their views or