National Reformism in China by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 25, 1913

National Reformism in China

By C. M. S.

THERE is a strong and persistent movement now on foot in China to have Confucianism declared the national religion of the new republic. A great Confucian society has been organized by Dr. Chen Huan Chang and other distinguished Chinese scholars, and this society has recently held a national convention at the birthplace of Confucius. The members of this organization are putting forth strong efforts to influence the members of the Chinese parliament to insert Confucianism in the national constitution as the state religion.

A league of foreign missionaries, native Christians, and representatives of other religions has been formed for the purpose of opposing this state-and-religion movement, and if possible causing the Chinese legislators to see the inconsistency and iniquity of establishing religion by law.

The constitution as adopted by the Chinese republic made no provision for any state religion, but a presidential mandate published on November 27 seems to anticipate the selection of Confucianism as the national religion.

Strangely enough, the chief promoter of this project uses the same argument to accomplish his purpose that National Reformers use in their institutes and before legislative committees to prove the necessity of a union of religion and the state in America. Dr. Chen Huan Chang declares that “if China is to be saved from political ruin and moral anarchy, reverence for China’s sages must be restored.” This has a very familiar sound. The argument is as old as the first advocate of church-and-state union. The nation can be saved only by selecting some religion and compelling the people to practise it; and by “saving the nation” in that way, freedom of conscience has been taken away, individual

hypocrisy has been fostered, and the ground drenched with the blood of the most conscientious and stalwart Christians. Under such a régime it is always the most substantial and best-principled who suffer, while those without conscientious scruples bow to the mandate, save their lives, and live on to beget a conscienceless posterity.

Another peculiarity of the undertaking is that the leader in this movement received his degree of doctor of philosophy from an American educational institution, Columbia University. We cannot dispel the thought that Dr. Chen must have absorbed National Reform ideas while pursuing his studies in America. If this is the case, and he succeeds in his undertaking, the Christian world will have National Reformism to thank for the most fearful blow that China has ever struck at Christian progress and evangelism in that great republic. It is to be hoped that, for her own sake, China will refuse to take this backward step.

C. M. S.