| As a Christian intellectual, Timothy Tingfang Lew (1891–1947) was a controversial figure, who was seen by some as harnessing Christianity with contemporary Chinese politics. Since his grandmother's conversion to Christian faith, the three generations that followed were all Christians and devoted themselves to missionary works for more than forty years.; Under this backdrop, Lew critically evaluated both the achievements and problems of the missionary works done in China. Like most of the Chinese intellectuals of that period, Lew could not escape but was to face the challenges of the revolutionary social changes, and eventually adopted the Social Gospel approach that emphasized both the spiritual and political aspects of the Christian faith. During his study in the U.SA., he first established the Fraternity of Cross and Sword in 1917, and then, in 1920, together with six other Chinese Christians, combined the Fraternity with another fraternity known as David and Jonathan, which had a stronger political involvement than the former, to form a new society called Chen Chih Hui (hereafter C.C.H). The goals of the C.C.H are (1) to advance the international status of China and (2) to promote modernization in China. Lew went back to China in 1920, and became the first Chinese Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Yenching University two years later. During his Deanship, he adopted the values of Christian religious education for the purpose of attaining a more favorable international status for China. Many scholars evaluated the works of Christian intellectuals in this period as unsuccessful, and ascribed their failure to the Anti-Christianity Movement and the Movement of Restoration Education in the 1920s. After these movements, Lew lost his position at Yenching University in 1930. Although he could not have important position as before, he never gave up to endeavor to religious education for his life.; This dissertation is to survey how Lew faced these social challenges, who at the same time developed a theological view towards social changes. Through relocating his identity as a Christian intellectual emphasizing on the dual aspect—spiritual and political—of Christian faith, this paper attempts at revaluing his contributions through historical research. In previous studies, Chinese Christian intellectuals in the Republican era were usually seen as either political competitors who would seek acceptance of the mass at the expense of the integrity of their religious faith, or as cultural conservatives who saw Christianity as a modern way for advancing their Confucian concerns. Although Lew was situated in the conflicts of two identities—Chinese and Christian, he took the dual aspect approach to deal with these conflicts. On the one hand, as a Chinese, he endorsed Christian ethical values. On the other hand, as a Christian, he fulfilled his citizen obligations by actively involved in providing solutions, mainly through Christian religious education, to the existing social and political problems of the nation, including that concerning its international status. |
