| This study, based mainly on archival sources, examines how the social gospel, an indigenous American reform ideology, trademarked by its American religious, social and cultural characteristics, was exported to the turbulent Chinese situation in the early twentieth century by the Young Men's Christian Association. Employing Antonio Gramsci's rediscovered theory of cultural hegemony, it argues that the process of implanting the American social gospel onto the Chinese setting involved a constant struggle of resistance, negotiations, and synthesis among multiple ideologies and cultural forces, including the old Protestant evangelicalism, the indigenous Neo-Confucianism, Chinese nationalism and international communism.; The social gospel experience in China formed a perplexing but significant chapter in the history of Sino-US cultural relations. The present study is organized around three major themes of the social gospel as reflected in the Chinese YMCA's work. (1) In contrast to the evangelists, the YMCA secretaries, as the Y officers were called, sought to interpret the Christian message in terms of China's cultural heritage. In the process, they challenged the missionary enterprise itself. Their efforts represented a pioneering, if limited, pluralistic vision in cross-cultural communications. (2) With a new sense of cosmopolitanism, the Association intellectuals developed a social reform ideology embodied in the concept of Kingdom of God. Through an analogy with the Confucian idea of Ta Tung Shih chieh, the Y men literally removed the religious overtones of this Kingdom concept, while emphasizing its social and ethical meanings. To broaden the appeals of the social gospel, they even identified a limited philosophical synthesis between communism and Christianity. (3) Christian pacifist ideals formed another important part of the social gospel. As a voluntary agency, the YMCA cultivated a spirit of internationalism in a time of war and violence by sponsoring the ill-fated Institute of Pacific Relations. The Sino-Japanese conflict created an excruciating moral dilemma for the Association men between Christian pacifism and good citizenship. As a result, the YMCA was split into three ideological camps in the mid-1930s. |
