page_title: China Centenary Missionary Conference
section_title: Debate and Decisions
hierarchical_section_title: China Centenary Missionary Conference / Debate and Decisions
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of William Scott Ament, ca. 1905
context_page_description: The China Centenary Missionary Conference, held in 1907 in Shanghai, China commemorated 100 years of Protestant missionary work in China and debated future courses of action. Among other actions, the conference approved a resolution endorsing the exclusion from Chinese law given Chinese Christians in the "unequal treaties" imposed on China by European countries, the United States, and Japan.
context_section_description: The tenor of the Conference was optimistic.  The martyrdom of 189 Protestant missionaries – men, women, and children—during the Boxer Rebellion seven years before was hardly mentioned.  Since the Boxer Rebellion, the Chinese government had undertaken a large number of internal reforms and missionaries perceived a much greater openness by the Chinese to Western influences, including Christianity.
  The missionaries celebrated their success in converting about 180,000 Chinese to Christianity during the previous 100 years.  However, a negative note was interjected into the conference by J.W. Lowrie who said that “the far larger part of this century’s sowing [i.e. spreading Christianity]... has been on fallow ground,”  an acknowledgement that the missionaries had often been disappointed at the pace of their progress and their results.
  A major objective of many at the Conference was to unite Protestant efforts into a single coordinated body rather than the diverse and often competitive efforts of many different missionary organizations.  William Scott Ament chaired the Committee of Federation and Comity which established a framework for united action.  The Conference also called for an expansion of resources devoted to education and medical work – to the discomfort of evangelical missionaries who said that “education is not...a substitute for preaching."
  The most divisive and controversial issue at the Conference was the  privileges and exemptions from Chinese law given Chinese Christians under the unequal treaties.  Some missionaries wanted to forgo the protections of Chinese Christians as “a hated yoke upon the [Chinese] government” and an encouragement for unscrupulous Chinese to become Christians for personal advantage.  But the majority disagreed and the resolution adopted by the Conference stated that “the time has not come when all the protection to Christian converts provided in the treaties can safely be withdrawn.”
caption: Missionary William Scott Ament, famous for his clash with Mark Twain, headed a Committee at the Conference.
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