The Golden Age of Protestantism
1900 30,000 Chinese Christians and 200 missionaries are killed during the Boxer Uprising; Wang Mingdao is born
1901 Watchman Nee and John Sung are born
1904 Samuel Pollard begins missionary work among the Miao
1905 Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM), dies
1908 Revival breaks out in Manchuria under the ministry of Canadian missionary Jonathan Goforth
1911 Revolution overthrows Qing dynasty; Sun Yat-sen becomes provisional president of new Republic of China; James Fraser arrives in Yunnan province and begins missionary work among the Lisu
1912 Sun Yat-sen founds Kuomintang (Nationalist Party)
1914-1918 World War I
1917 Paul Wei founds True Jesus Church in Beijing
1919 Treaty of Versailles awards German properties in Shantung, China, to Japan; China feels betrayed and refuses to sign; May Fourth student protest in Tiananmen Square marks new surge of nationalism and cultural reform in China
1920 Mary Stone launches Shanghai Bethel Mission
1921 Chinese Communist Party is founded in Shanghai
1922 Communists and anarchists protest Conference of World Student Christian Federations in Beijing
1923 James Yen founds Mass Education Movement; starts rural reconstruction in Dingxian three years later
1926 First two Chinese Catholic bishops are consecrated; Jing Dianying starts Christian community that later becomes known as the Jesus Family
1928 Watchman Nee starts “Little Flock” church in Shanghai; Yifang Wu becomes president of Jinling College for Women
War and Revolution
1930 Norwegian missionary Marie Monsen visits Shandong and sparks Pentecostal-like revival across the province
1931 Japan invades Manchuria
1932 Pearl Buck gives speech, “Is There a Case for Foreign Missions?”; Rethinking Missions: A Laymen’s Inquiry After One Hundred Years is published in U.S.
1934 CIM missionary David Adeney arrives in north central China; John and Betty Stam are beheaded
1937 Wang Mingdao builds Christian Tabernacle in Beijing
1937 Japan invades north and central China; Communists and Nationalists unite in war against Japan; Japanese soldiers commit atrocities during the “Rape of Nanking,” during which American missionary Minnie Vautrin harbors women at Jinling College
1939-1945 World War II
1941 U.S. allies with China after Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
1943 James Yen honored in Carnegie Hall as one of nine “modern revolutionaries”; Eric Liddell is sent to a Japanese internment camp along with other missionaries and foreigners in occupied territory (he dies there in 1945)
1944 John Sung dies
1945 China Inter-Varsity Evangelical Christian Students Fellowship is inaugurated in Chongqing and student revivals begin; Japan surrenders, ending WWII
1946 Civil War breaks out between Nationalists (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and Communists (led by Mao Zedong)
1948 Last Inter-Varsity evangelistic campaign is held in Beijing
1949 People’s Republic of China is established as a Communist state
Isolation and Persecution Under Mao
1950 Protestant leaders led by Y. T. Wu meet with Premier Zhou Enlai and form Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM)
1952 All foreign missionaries are expelled from China; Watchman Nee is arrested
1955 Wang Mingdao is arrested; many churches closed
1956-57 Communist Party invites public criticism in “Hundred Flowers” movement, then suppresses it
1958 TSPM enforces church unity and closes more churches; Catholic Patriotic Association appoints bishops without papal approval, splitting Catholic church in China
1958-62 Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” program of economic development is a disaster, causing a famine that kills 30 million people
1960 James Yen founds International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR)
1966-76 Mao launches Cultural Revolution and instigates Red Guards to eliminate remnants of the old culture from China; all churches and universities are closed; church leaders, students, and elite are sent to work in the countryside
1972 President Nixon visits China; first reports of secret house churches leak out; Watchman Nee dies in labor camp
1973 Miao pastor Wang Zhiming is publicly executed; later he is one of ten 20th-century Christian martyrs commemorated in Westminster Cathedral
1976 Mao Zedong dies; radical leaders of Cultural Revolution are arrested
Reform and Reopening
1978 Deng Xiaoping reverses many of Mao’s policies, pursues economic reforms, and improves relations with West
1978-1979 Churches and universities begin to reopen; church leaders are released from prison; TSPM is reestablished; house churches flourish
1980 China Christian Council is formed; Bishop K. H. Ting becomes leader of CCC and TSPM
1982 Document 19 articulates government religious policies
1983 During the “Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign,” hundreds of house-church leaders are arrested and sent to labor camps, but are released by mid-decade
1988 Billy and Ruth Graham visit China, meet high-level officials, scholars, and leaders of TSPM and house churches
1989 June Fourth Democracy Movement in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere is violently suppressed; many protestors flee to U.S. and some become Christians
1991 Wang Mingdao dies
1997 Hong Kong is returned from British to Chinese authority; K. H. Ting retires
2000s Thousands of campus and young professional groups are meeting in China’s cities
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