"His Dominion" and the "Yellow Peril": Protestant Missions to Chinese Immigrants in Canada, 1859–1967

A.J. Pell is editor of the Canadian Evangelical Review, an instructor of
Liturgy in the Anglican Studies Program at Regent College, Vancouver,
and pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Hope, B.C.

Canadian history to most people is the narrative of the political and
military development of the country, and that make it an Anglo-Saxon
and/or francophone narrative. But there have always been other
narratives, and in “His Dominion” and the “Yellow Peril” Jiwu
Wang brings out two of them—the Chinese immigrant and Protestant
religious stories—in a volume rooted in his doctoral dissertation.

Wang adopts a methodical approach. After a brief introduction comes a
chapter giving an overview of the Chinese immigrant experience from 1859
to 1967, providing a valuable context for the reader. The next chapter
traces the efforts of individual and localized Protestant groups to
evangelize Chinese in their areas. Then two chapters deal with organized
Protestant missions, on the regional and national levels, that reached
out to the Chinese before and after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923.
The final two chapters present Wang’s analysis of the historic data he
has compiled: Chapter 5 examines the motives and methods of the
Protestant missionary effort, while Chapter 6 looks at the response of
Chinese immigrants to these Protestant missions. Wang closes with his
own conclusions.

What Wang reveals is a clash of cultural views on the place of religion
in life. The Chinese immigrants were Confusian in culture, placing a
high value on family, filial obligation, and the continuity of
tradition. Their approach to religion was pragmatic: offer worship to
deities who could do something for them and abandon those who proved
useless. The Protestant churches and missionaries were monotheistic in
religion and Anglo-Saxon imperialists in culture. They regarded
Anglo-Saxon culture and political systems as the pinnacle of human
achievement and Protestant Christianity as their necessary foundation.
For the missionaries, to Christianize the Chinese was to Canadianize
them. But to the Chinese, to become a Christian was to become a Canadian
and thereby lose their Chinese roots in an alien culture. Thus the
Chinese and Protestants remained two solitudes.

Wang’s study ends at 1967. It would be interesting to learn his
analysis of the last 40 years.