The Rural Reconstruction Models of American Christianity in China: A Perspective of Sino-American Transnational Cultural Exchange, 1907–1950

Abstract

In the context of global modernization, both the United States and China faced major challenges in rural social development. In the early twentieth century, the American federal government launched the Country Life Movement, during which Christianity addressed the rural crisis through rural church reforms. Meanwhile, influenced by the American-led World Agricultural Mission Movement, the Christian churches applied the experiences and insights gained from the U.S. rural church reforms to China’s rural reconstruction movement. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Christian rural reconstruction models in China evolved to become increasingly comprehensive and targeted. In the early decades, Christian missions promoted the establishment of an agricultural education system to cultivate rural talents. By the 1920s, churches in China had developed a comprehensive rural social reform program. After the 1928 Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council (IMC), the concept of “Rural Community Parish” emerged as the guiding principle for the comprehensive rural reconstruction program in China. The Christian church further clarified its ultimate goal: to build a “Christian rural civilization in China.” Based on this, Christian rural work in China developed steadily until 1950, when the withdrawal of Christian forces brought an end to their rural influence in China.

1. Introduction

In the 20th century, the concept of “modernization” had a significant impact on international relations. It provided a framework for global development during this era and played a crucial role in shaping transformative processes. The United States, having undergone two industrial revolutions, emerged as the leading proponent of this paradigm. Much of the critical thinking on modernization and many key operational innovations were worked out in China before the war by American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Espy 1950, pp. 10–14). During the early twentieth century, these groups took the lead in applying preexisting reform ideas to Chinese problems (Ekbladh 2000, pp. 169–96). Throughout the twentieth century, agricultural modernization became a central goal of governments and societies worldwide, which derived from two broad historical processes in the rural sector: the early-twentieth-century economic and political crises, and the later-twentieth-century competition for economic development (Tauger 2011, p. 106). In the first half of the 20th century, numerous American organizations and individuals aimed to contribute to the modernization of agriculture in China. Through informal exchanges, religious and charitable assistance, and individual initiatives, these efforts eventually culminated in establishing organized, large-scale transnational agricultural cooperation programs between China and the United States (Zhang 2025, p. 3).

Since the modern period, China’s economic development has increasingly shown a pattern of urban dominance over the countryside. This shift in the economic order has gradually dismantled the traditional agrarian foundation of the state (Wang 1936, pp. 81–83), which was historically based on an autonomous peasant economy and the principle of “building the nation on agriculture.” Following industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, a persistent trend of urban–rural divergence has emerged (Wang 2021, p. 6). Since the early twentieth century, as China’s rural economy collapsed and rural society deteriorated, a nationwide Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement emerged to revitalize the Chinese rural society. Chinese rural reconstruction efforts developed in dialogue with a broader global discussion about rural reconstruction, the remaking of the countryside, and efforts to bolster rural communities in the face of stronger states and more intrusive markets (Merkel-Hess 2016, p. 14). However, while the Chinese term “乡村建设 (xiangcun jianshe)” corresponds to “rural reconstruction” in most scholarly literature, it is translated literally as “rural construction” in this context. In the decades after 1877, Reconstruction was maligned by American politicians and historians who dismissed it as a misguided enterprise of the American government, and regained currency following World War I when it was applied to the daunting task of rebuilding war-torn Europe (Ekbladh 2000, pp. 169–96). Similarly, when addressing China’s rural society, which had suffered from war, natural disasters, and foreign capital encroachment, etc, “rural reconstruction” can not only alleviate these adverse effects but also revitalize the countryside through modern economic development.

In the first half of the twentieth century, over 600 social groups, organizations, and institutions participated in China’s Rural Reconstruction Movement, establishing more than 1000 experimental zones in China (Wang 2021, p. 2). Participants in the initiative included government agencies at various levels, scientists, educators, sociologists, agronomists, and Christian missions, among others. The foreign involvement in rural reconstruction, primarily represented by American participants, fell into two primary categories: first, Christian missionary societies, and second, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and think tanks. And the Christian missionary societies emerged as the earliest organized actors in China’s rural reconstruction movement, predating both governmental and secular NGOs’ involvement.

During the Progressive Era in the early twentieth-century the United States, Christianity, particularly Protestantism, played a pivotal role in launching the agricultural mission (broadly known as the rural mission) movement. Originating in the U.S. rural areas, this new approach to missionary work was later expanded to Asian and African countries through the American-led World Agricultural Mission Movement. Given American Protestantism’s dominant position in agricultural expertise, technology, and resources, the world agricultural mission’s history can be seen as fundamentally intertwined with American overseas missionary agricultural history. Throughout the first half of the century, American Christian missions in China concentrated their agricultural missionary work on supporting this rural reconstruction movement, becoming one of the earliest and most influential social forces involved.

In the history of World Agricultural Mission, the earliest initiatives in the early nineteenth century were relatively isolated. For example, William Carey of the Baptist Missionary Society established the Agri-Horticultural Society, marking one of the first such efforts during this period; while James Stewart, an assistant to David Livingstone of the London Missionary Society, founded the Lovedale Missionary Institute in South Africa and carried out agricultural training, both representing significant but disconnected early endeavors. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, missionaries introduced crops such as peanuts, cotton, and apples to provinces in China, including Shanghai (上海), Shandong (山东), Hebei (河北), and Shanxi (山西), which boosted Chinese local agricultural output (Reisner 1924, p. 790). However, it was not until the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century that agricultural missions transformed into an organized movement. During this period, agriculture played a central role in a series of economic and political crises, which often inspired dramatic efforts by governments, businesses, and public organizations to transform agricultural practices and even whole agrarian societies (Tauger 2011, p. 106). Influenced by the Social Gospel Movement, Christian overseas missions shifted their focus from evangelism to social service, and the United States began deploying professionally trained agricultural missionaries overseas. Most agricultural missionaries received their professional training at American land-grant universities. These institutions were established under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, which allowed states to sell federally allocated land to fund higher education in agriculture and the mechanical arts, while also promoting public service. Prominent examples include Pennsylvania State University, Cornell University, and Michigan State University. The arrival of college-trained agriculturalists in mission positions around the world marked an important change in the missionaries’ approach (Stross 1986, p. 92). The year 1907 marked a significant acceleration in the development of the American World Agricultural Mission. At that time, the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church (USA) sent its first agricultural missionary, Benjamin H. Hunnicutt, to Lavras, Brazil. Meanwhile, the Methodist Episcopal Church dispatched H. Erne Taylor to Old Umtali in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Also that year, George Weidman Groff, a Pennsylvania State University graduate, became the first agricultural missionary designated to China. He taught agronomy at the affiliated middle school of Lingnan School in Guangzhou (广州岭南学院) (which later developed into Lingnan University 岭南大学), marking the beginning of Christian agricultural missions in China (Hunnicutt and Reid 1931, pp. 12–18). The emphasis on American Christian agricultural missions and their subsequent involvement in China’s rural reconstruction movement was closely tied to the rural social reform imperatives emerging from rural society development crises in both the United States and China.

Many scholars situate the emergence of “modernization” in the post-1945 period, viewing it both as a strategic response to the demands of the Cold War and as an ideological reaction to the accelerating wave of decolonization (Ekbladh 2000, p. 169). The U.S. government’s engagement with modernization discourse and practice became most visible in President Harry S. Truman’s 1949 “Point Four Program” (officially titled the “Program for the Development of Underdeveloped Areas”). Framed as a pledge of technical and economic assistance to developing countries, the program also aimed to extend American political influence. Its consequences for shaping global political and economic structures have been profound and remain significant today. Yet debates over modernization and experimental efforts to translate it into practice had already appeared in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite their limited financial and institutional resources, missionary groups played a formative role in this early stage (Hess 1968, p. 25). Seeking to adapt American models of rural reconstruction to the conditions of Chinese villages, and working in partnership with governmental and non-governmental actors, they devised flexible rural development strategies. These initiatives strengthened the social basis of China’s rural reconstruction movement. They provided precedents that later informed U.S. modernization projects in China and, more broadly, across Asia after the Second World War. Despite the significance of the American Christian rural reconstruction models in China, no existing research has systematically explored their evolution within the context of the American Agricultural Mission Movement in World Christian History. To address this gap, this paper begins by outlining the domestic and international contexts that shaped the origins and growth of the American Agricultural Mission Movement. Then it analyzes the transition of American missionary efforts in China from urban to rural areas, and their subsequent engagement in the Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement. Additionally, the paper delves into the phased characters of the “rural reconstruction” models implemented by American agricultural missionaries in China between 1907 and 1950. The study is structured around three key periods: the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s–1940s, each highlighting the distinctive features of the Christian rural reconstruction models adopted for China’s rural development needs during these periods. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of the intellectual currents and institutional models that shaped the rural reconstruction movement in modern China. It also explores how the American World Christian Agricultural Mission evolved within the Chinese context, situating this experience within the broader framework of transnational interactions. By examining the topic through the lens of Sino-American cultural exchange, the article emphasizes how the United States influenced—and at times redirected—the path of China’s modernization in the twentieth century.

2. The Origins of the American Agricultural Mission Movement: Church Engagement in American Rural Development Crises

Rural social reform was a crucial part of the Progressive Movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States. Following the Civil War in the 1860s, the United States entered the Second Industrial Revolution, marked by a unified and efficient federal government. During the Gold Rush Era, American industrial productivity soared, surpassing other countries and propelling the United States to become the world’s leading industrial power. This period witnessed a significant economic shift from rural to urban areas and from agriculture to manufacturing, signaling the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. However, rapid industrialization severely strained traditional American rural society, resulting in economic decline, depopulation, environmental degradation, and critical infrastructural shortages. The deterioration of American rural society caught the widespread attention of government officials, religious organizations, and scholars. The Progressive Movement, emerging amid intensifying capitalist contradictions, epitomized the American political and social movement of the era. Led mainly by the middle class, with participation from other classes, it sought to sustain and advance capitalism through systematic reforms (Li 1991, pp. 50–57). As urban social reforms progressed during the Progressive Era, agrarian populists increasingly called for rural revitalization, making rural reconstruction a significant national issue. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, drawing on its tradition of scientific professionalism, further facilitated rural social reforms by strengthening cooperation among government agencies, agricultural colleges, experiment stations, and other research institutions (Yuan 2023, p. 372). President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the agricultural scientific progress and the political significance of farmers. He advocated for closer government–farmer cooperation, promoting access to technical training and modern farming methods (Roosevelt 1906). With the federal government’s support, the Country Life Movement started during America’s Progressive Era.

Rural church reform was pivotal in the American Country Life Movement. Its significance stemmed from the view that “the country life problem is not only a moral problem, or that in the best development of the individual, the great motives and results are religious and spiritual, but because from the pure sociological point of view, the church is fundamentally a necessary institution in country life.” In August 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt announced the Commission on Country Life, which marked the beginning of the Country Life Movement in the United States. After thorough research and consultation, the Commission submitted the Report of the Country Life Commission and Special Message to President Roosevelt in 1909, which was then approved by the U.S. Congress. The report was a landmark in American agricultural history, as it was the first organized and high-level effort to outline a vision for sustainable rural development in the United States (Peters and Morgan 2024, pp. 289–316). The report analyzed the causes of rural social decline and identified four key areas for reform: agricultural knowledge, rural education, rural social organizations, and the moral–spiritual renewal of rural communities. It put forward four major recommendations: 1. Encouraging cross-denominational cooperation among rural churches, promoting interchurch collaboration while respecting theological and institutional differences, and strengthening the church’s influence on rural communities. 2. Focusing more on the role of young people in rural society and enriching the rural activities of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). 3. Bolstering the leadership of rural pastors, who should not only possess in-depth knowledge of local challenges and enthusiasm for rural work but also demonstrate enthusiasm and compassion for rural work. 4. Enhancing cooperation between divinity schools and agricultural colleges to ensure that rural church workers would receive both theological education and agricultural science training. However, rural churches faced substantial hurdles at that time, such as the rural residents’ conservatism, insufficient funding, denominational divisions, and a lack of resident pastors. Consequently, their influence was largely confined to church-affiliated families, limiting their impact on broader rural communities (United States. Country Life Commission 1909, pp. 25–26, 16–17, 57–59).

After nearly a decade, rural social reforms in the United States persisted, with rural churches steadily expanding their influence in these initiatives. The Establishment of the National Country Life Association marked the climax of the Country Life Movement, which was founded in January 1919 at the first National Country Life Conference. The association appointed Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield, a former member of the Commission on Country Life, as its president. The conference, themed “The Reconstruction of Country Life”, addressed a wide range of issues including rural families, rural health, rural education, local governance, rural planning, as well as rural morality and religion. Warren Wilson, chair of the Committee on Morals and Religion, once again underscored the significance of cooperation among rural churches and Christian organizations to boost their service capabilities for Christian rural communities. Notably, the association not only continued to call for rural churches to lead the moral reconstruction of rural society but also expected them to actively engage in promoting rural economic growth and safeguarding public health (National Country Life Association 1919, pp. 83–88, 15–22).

Rural churches’ involvement in rural society reconstruction was not only a response to heightened political focus on rural issues but also deeply intertwined with the Social Gospel movement in American Christianity. The Social Gospel movement emerged in response to the urgent need for social reform since the Gold Rush Era, when severe social problems emerged. According to Evans, a professor of Boston University theology, the Social Gospel “integrated evangelical and liberal theological strands in ways that advocated for systemic, structural changes in American institutions” (Evans 2017, pp. 2–3). By the early twentieth century, it was widely acknowledged that American Protestant denominations had started to engage in social action consciously and intentionally (Ward 1912, p. 7). In 1908, 32 major Protestant denominations founded the Federal Council of the Churches of the United States. Upon its establishment, the Council introduced the concept of Social Creed of the Churches, a pivotal moment for the Social Gospel movement within American Protestantism. Comprising twenty key points, the Social Creed emphasized the renewal of industry and commerce while addressing broader issues like international church cooperation, quickly garnering recognition and support from numerous church organizations (Butterfield 1923, p. 17). The rural church reform movement was the Social Gospel’s rural manifestation. While sharing similar goals with the urban social movement of the Social Gospel, it also emphasized the importance of rural church reforms, advocating for churches to serve as community centers, disseminate modern agricultural knowledge and techniques, and improve rural cultural and health standards, in this way, to enhance overall rural life quality. At the 1915 annual meeting of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, President Woodrow Wilson proposed that “rural pastors should assume leadership roles in implementing rural reforms, and that rural schools and churches should serve as social centers within their communities” (Wilson 1915, pp. 263–65).

Driven by political and religious factors, American Christian churches embarked on rural church reforms. In 1910, Warren Wilson helped the Presbyterian Church set up the first national rural life department. In 1912, the Moravian Brethren formed a Rural Church Committee to “centralize every church within the rural community.” In the same year, the Methodist Church established a Rural Life Department, which conducted a series of surveys on Methodist rural work. From 1919 to 1920, over 1200 Methodist rural missionaries received leadership training for rural development (Swanson 1977, pp. 358–73). In 1916, the rural work programs of the Northern Baptist Convention came under the direct supervision of the Executive Secretary of the Home Mission Society. In 1929, the Convention appointed a dedicated Rural Work Secretary to oversee its rural church reform agenda (Stone 1988, p. 20). The rural church reforms initiated by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America were of nationwide significance. In 1913, the Council launched its first rural reform project in Ohio, opening a Rural Work Office in the state capital, Columbus. Partnering with numerous Protestant churches throughout Ohio and Ohio State University, it promoted a church-led community model across the state. At its 1915 national conference, the Council gathered prominent rural work leaders nationwide. The conference reached a consensus on strengthening cooperation among interdenominational rural churches, and formulated a detailed rural work plan, providing theoretical and personnel foundations for the establishment of the National Country Life Association in 1919 (Swanson 1977, pp. 358–73).

The U.S. rural church reform movement thrived during the Progressive Era, but declined in the 1920s, only regaining partial attention in the 1940s without reaching its former heights. Scholars generally attribute this decline to several factors: rural communities’ resistance to the Social Gospel movement; opposition from Christian universalism and modernism; fundamentalists’ objections to overemphasizing the church’s social and economic functions over evangelism; and the difficulties in interdenominational rural church cooperation (Danbom 1979, pp. 82–83). In contrast, the American World Agricultural Mission Movement, sharing similar domestic origins with the rural church reforms in the United States, did not experience a decline after World War I. Instead, it rapidly expanded from the 1920s and exerted global influence (Swanson 1972, pp. 325–27). This growth was closely linked to agricultural crises in Asian and African colonies or semi-colonies, where rural social reform was urgently needed. In the second half of the nineteenth century, agriculture in Europe and the United States revealed as the foundation of industrial society. Agricultural reforms advanced steadily, shifting away from reliance on slave-based labor to scientific agricultural technological progress, large-scale agricultural cultivation, and the global market system. Meanwhile, under colonial rule, many Asian and African countries were forced into the global market system, causing the collapse of their traditional agricultural economies. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the global climate shifted from the Little Ice Age to a worldwide warming trend, which triggered widespread environmental challenges and famines. Notably, the El Niño phenomenon, exacerbated by this climatic shift, disrupted monsoon patterns in East and South Asia, linking them to warm currents off Peru’s coast in the eastern Pacific. Severe droughts and floods ravaged vast areas of India and China, resulting in millions of famine-related deaths. East Africa and northeastern Brazil also suffered from irregular monsoons. Facing economic, social, and political crises in agricultural societies, governments, merchants, and public organizations in Asia and Africa pursued agricultural reforms in the first half of the twentieth century to address food shortages and boost rural economies (Tauger 2011, pp. 81–82, 104, 111). Influenced by the Social Gospel movement, American agricultural missionaries actively participated in rural social reforms in Asian and African rural communities. Consequently, the American World Agricultural Mission Movement expanded in scope and impact in the early twentieth century. At this time, China emerged as the most significant mission field for American Protestantism, with agricultural missions joining evangelism, education, and medical missions as the four key components of missionary work in China. From the arrival of the first American agricultural missionary in 1907 to the gradual withdrawal of all church organizations from China by 1950, American agricultural missions’ work was mainly rural reconstruction under the influence of China’s own rural reconstruction movement. The development of this mission model unfolded in three distinct stages.

3. From Urban to Rural Areas: American Protestant Pioneering of Agricultural Education in Early 20th-Century China

From 1905 to 1920, the American missionary movement in China thrived in its “Golden Age.” In 1905, British missionaries, including those from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, constituted half of all foreign missionaries in China, while American missionaries accounted for one-third. By 1920, however, American missionaries made up half of the foreign missionary force in China, (Fairbank 1993, p. 189) surpassing Britain in both personnel and financial contributions, and establishing the United States as a leader of the missionary work in China. China’s status as the most important mission field for American Protestantism was closely linked to the large-scale overseas missionary movement launched by American Christian churches in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since the 1880s, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions has gained momentum in American education, which primarily engaged university students. From 1886 to 1918, it sent 8140 student missionaries abroad, with 2524 assigned to China (Phillips 1974, p. 105). Since 1906, prominent American Laymen, including merchants, political leaders, and social elites, organized the Layman’s Missionary Movement, which provided substantial financial support and leadership for overseas missions, gradually overshadowing the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. By 1917, foreign missions had become a core focus of American Protestant churches, with 48% of churches establishing overseas missionary associations and 42% offering missionary training programs for overseas missions (Pierson 1916, p. 419). The emphasis on missionary work in China also coincided with the American government’s foreign expansion policies. By the late nineteenth century, the Civil War and the Westward Movement had exhausted domestic territorial expansion opportunities. As John K. Fairbank noted, “The potential riches of trade with China have been part of our westward-facing dreamworld for two hundred years” (Fairbank 1987, p. vii). The ambition to expand into the world’s vast territories intertwined China’s destiny with America’s imperial aspirations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American missionaries in China not only engaged in religious and humanitarian work but also significantly influenced diplomacy (Neils 1991, p. 11), as “missionaries provided determinative information in the molding of the United States-China policies” (Denning 1990, p. 219). Christianity sought to transform China by introducing Western Christian culture and promoting its peaceful Westernization, an idealistic vision that infused American foreign policies with a pronounced idealistic tone (Wang 1997, p. 19). Consequently, the overseas missionary movement received support from successive American governments, from President Benjamin Harrison to Woodrow Wilson.

In the early twentieth century, Christianity in China expanded rapidly; however, its missionary efforts were starkly imbalanced between urban and rural areas. The China Continuation Committee estimated that in 1920, China’s population stood at approximately 400 million, with only 25 million (about 5%) living in cities of over 50,000 people. Despite this, 66% of foreign missionaries and 34% of salaried Chinese Christian workers were concentrated in these urban centers, with nearly every major city hosting resident missionaries. Conversely, over 300 million people, or roughly 88% of the population, resided in small towns and rural areas. In inland provinces such as Shanxi (山西), Yunnan (云南), and Guizhou (贵州), over 95% of Christian communicants came from these smaller locales (Committee on the Investigation of the Continuation Committee of the China Christian Council 2007, p. 744). While central missionary stations and personnel were predominantly situated in urban areas, the majority of converts came from rural areas, indicating that the Christian churches largely overlooked Chinese rural communities, farmers, and village missions during the early twentieth century (Liu 2008, p. 31). This disparity stemmed from two primary factors: 1. Modern China’s political and economic conditions played a role. Missionaries initially arrived and settled in treaty ports and major cities along the coast and rivers, where Western access was allowed, while inland and rural areas suffered from poor transportation infrastructure, weak economies, and conservative social norms that hindered missionary work. 2. Missionary strategies contributed to the issue. With limited personnel and financial resources, many missionaries believed that urban churches could exert a strong radiating influence on the surrounding rural areas (Felton 1940, p. 18). Thus, mission boards prioritized urban-focused evangelism, education, and medical ministries, relying on inadequate and unsustainable itinerant preaching in rural regions.

As missionary work expanded, Christian churches increasingly recognized the strategic significance of rural areas in the overall evangelization efforts. The “China for Christ” (Zhonghua guizhu 中华归主) movement significantly advanced the rural missionary movement, for Churches should emphasize the necessity of reaching China’s vast countryside, the home to tens of thousands of rural communities and over 300 million inhabitants, to achieve the goal of a fully Christianized China (Zhu 1927, pp. 5–6). Proponents asserted that rural populations were more receptive to the Gospel than urban dwellers, and that the countryside provided an ideal environment for establishing self-governing and self-supporting churches (Groff 1924, p. 778). At a global missionary conference organized by the Interchurch World Movement of North America, investigators noted that China was predominantly a nation of small towns and villages, with only approximately 1 in 1100 rural communities having regular Christian access via home meetings or primary schools. Meanwhile, many of China’s socially influential gentry resided in or near villages and towns. The churches, therefore, were advised to prioritize evangelism among this group to enhance Christianity’s social influence 1. Regarding missionary strategies in rural areas, some missionaries advocated for designating central locations, typically market towns, for detailed geographical and social investigations. Based on this research, they proposed partnerships between churches and universities to deploy missionaries with both theological and general higher education. These missionaries would then engage with the local gentry, leveraging their leadership roles within rural communities to amplify the churches’ influence and foster the growth of rural Christianity (Price 1914, p. 477).

Meanwhile, churches emphasized the connection between the agricultural economy and missionary endeavors. As a traditional agrarian nation, China represented approximately one-fifth of the world’s population at the time, with over 85% being peasants. China held significant potential as a supplier of affordable raw materials to global markets. This importance grew during and after World War I, when global agricultural production disruptions and postwar reconstruction demands amplified China’s role in the global food economy. Moreover, the frequent natural disasters and fragile agricultural development in modern China further drove missionaries to focus on rural economies. Since the Great North China Famine of 1876–1879 (Dingwu qihuang 丁戊奇荒), missionaries have played a pivotal role in international relief efforts during major disasters, including the 1900 North China drought, the catastrophic 1910 Yangtze River floods, and the 1920 North China drought, etc. By the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, Western missionary relief strategies shifted from short-term relief to long-term agriculture promotion. Christian universities such as Lingnan University (岭南大学) and the University of Ginling (金陵大学) began introducing scientific agricultural techniques to increase crop yields and mitigate famine risks. Missionary Joseph Bailie (former dean of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and the first dean of the College of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Ginling 金陵大学农林科) argued that “rather than relying on prolonged disaster relief, cultivating China’s agricultural technical talents and advancing scientific agricultural methods are essential to withstanding the impacts of natural disasters on Chinese rural economy” (Bao et al. 2015, p. 6). Meanwhile, within the broader movement advocating for the indigenous church (Bense jiaohui 本色教会), there was a growing recognition of the interdependence between the self-supporting of rural churches and the establishment of Chinese indigenous churches. Thus, assuming responsibility for rural economic development became imperative for the churches (Reisner 1918, p. 371). Promoting agriculture to boost the rural economy and achieve self-supporting village churches became a critical step in establishing indigenous rural churches.

Since the early twentieth century, although rural society drew greater attention from churches, constrained by a shortage of rural ministry personnel, churches primarily engaged with rural areas through Christian education, prioritizing agricultural education at various educational levels to cultivate talents in rural education and agricultural extension. A major institutional barrier to the establishment of Western-style education in China for missionaries was the traditional imperial examination system, which was known as the Keju system (科举制). The abolition of the Keju system by the Qing dynasty (清朝) in 1905 created a pivotal opening for promoting Western education, presenting both a societal need and an opportunity for missionaries to expand their influence. Most missionaries who arrived in China during this period were highly educated, typically with at least four years of completed undergraduate education. Those engaged in China’s Christian educational work at least held master’s degrees, and the proportion of missionaries with doctoral qualifications steadily increased. Beyond theological training, they were expected to study fields critical to China’s development, such as agriculture, commerce, and industry (Latourette 1918, pp. 446–48). In 1909, the Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada approved the establishment of the Commission on Christian Education in China. This commission collaborated with the China Christian Educational Association (established by the 1890 General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China) and the China General Education Committee (founded by the 1907 Centenary Missionary Conference in China). These organizations devised a comprehensive plan to advance Christian education, advocating for deploying specialized missionary teachers to build a systematic primary education network, as well as consolidating and expanding existing secondary schools and colleges. Furthermore, they encouraged interdenominational cooperation to establish comprehensive Christian universities (Grant 1910, pp. 45–54). At the 24th Annual Meeting of the Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada in 1917, the conference emphasized that the future development of Christian education in China must align more closely with China’s broader social and economic needs. Advancing vocational education, particularly in industry and agriculture, emerged as a critical priority requiring guidance from highly specialized personnel (Sailer 1917, pp. 117–20).

John L. Buck, chair of the Agricultural Committee of the Henan-Shandong (河南–山东) Union Educational Association and a North American Presbyterian missionary, proposed a two-stage approach for churches to engage in China’s rural mission: first, schools should launch agricultural education to strengthen the agricultural education system; second, the churches’ evangelistic departments should integrate agricultural knowledge into daily rural extension activities, drawing inspiration from the U.S. rural church reform practices (Buck 1919, pp. 310–20). Undoubtedly, the success of agricultural education in the first stage was crucial for supplying professional personnel for the second stage of rural extension activities. At the time, two Christian universities in China offered agricultural education: the College of Agriculture at Lingnan University and the Department of Agriculture and Forestry at Ginling University. These institutions were founded by George Weidman Groff and Joseph Bailie separately, with personnel and technical assistance from the Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. The agricultural program at Lingnan University began around 1910, while Ginling University’s program started in 1914. By 1918, the Department of Agriculture and Forestry at Ginling University had six full-time and nine part-time faculty members, offering a five-year general training program supported by the Beijing Central Government and 14 provincial governments that sent students for agricultural training (Reisner 1918, p. 371). While Christian higher education successfully produced some agricultural professionals, most of these university graduates were considered overqualified for grassroots rural missionary work, and their limited numbers fell far short of the personnel needed for church-led rural programs. Consequently, some missionaries advocated expanding agricultural education in Christian primary and secondary schools to address the shortage of trained agricultural and rural extension workers.

In 1919, John L. Buck and John H. Reisner (the second dean of the College of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Ginling) separately proposed agricultural education plans for Christian primary and secondary schools at the meetings of the Henan-Shandong Christian Educational Union and the East China Christian Educational Association. Their recommendations included the following: 1. For lower grades in Christian primary schools, the teaching objectives should focus on horticultural education in school gardens and natural science studies to cultivate students’ interest in nature and agriculture. For higher grades, specialized agricultural courses should be introduced, covering comprehensive agricultural knowledge and weekly extracurricular practical training. 2. Christian middle schools should provide professional agricultural education with intensive fieldwork training. In addition, they should offer normal education programs for students who aspire to work in agricultural education and rural extension services. Agricultural education in Christian middle schools was deemed the core of the entire Christian agricultural education system, with graduates qualified to serve as agricultural instructors in primary schools, church rural extension workers, or staff members at agricultural experiment stations (Buck 1919, pp. 310–20; Reisner 1919, pp. 2–3). 3. Theological education in divinity schools should also train rural work methodologies for church clergies. In 1920, the quadrennial conference of the Central China Methodist Mission recommended that the Committee on Bible and Theological Education implement specialized training programs in divinity schools, including how to promote agricultural production, rural economic development, and rural sociology, to distinguish rural missionary training from urban-focused models (Reisner 1920, pp. 696–700).

In 1920, the China Christian Educational Association established the Agricultural Education Committee, which proposed an All-China Program to integrate agricultural education into missionary schools through provincial teacher-training centers. The committee approved a five-year project to establish four provincial agricultural training and extension centers across China (Reisner 1920, pp. 696–700), launching a nationwide comprehensive Christian agricultural education and extension program. After the 1920s, missionary organizations developed comprehensive rural improvement programs of rural social reform, shifting their focus from agricultural education to holistic rural reconstruction.

4. From Agricultural Education to Rural Reconstruction: The Evolution of the Comprehensive Rural Improvement Program

In the early 1920s, the United States became a dominant force in overseas missionary work, with American Protestantism gradually placing more emphasis on world agricultural mission. International missionary organizations established agricultural mission departments, while specialized agricultural mission organizations started to emerge. In 1920, the World Student Volunteer Missionary Convention established a subcommittee on agricultural mission (Butterfield 1922, pp. 2–3). That same year, John H. Reisner delivered a keynote address titled The Relationship of Agriculture to Missionary Activities at the 28th Conference of Foreign Missions Boards in the United States and Canada. He urged existing missionary societies to strengthen support for agricultural missions, arguing such efforts would not only broaden the scale and influence of the churches but also represent the most effective means of serving the converts (Reisner 1921, pp. 93–99). Also in 1920, the International Association of Agricultural Missions was founded, with Warren Wilson, chair of the Committee on Moral and Religious of the American Country Life Association, as its president. The association’s members were primarily composed of American home-based churches and overseas missionary societies interested in agricultural missions. The association’s official publication, World Agriculture, drew widespread attention to global agricultural and rural life issues. In 1921, it invited Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield to organize a university student conference on agricultural missions in the Amherst region of New England, the United States, aiming to integrate agricultural mission with the World Student Volunteer Missionary Movement (Buck 1921, pp. 511–14).

The rural reconstruction in China had already attracted attention during the early Republican period. As early as 1911, the Xinhai Revolution (辛亥革命) and the establishment of the Republic of China (中华民国) prompted Sun Yat-sen’s (孙中山) reflections on national reconstruction and led him to develop his ideas systematically. At the core of this intellectual framework was the Three Principles of the People (三民主义), within which the Principle of People’s Livelihood (minsheng zhuyi 民生主义) focuses on addressing the “people’s livelihood problem.” This principle served as the fundamental objective of his vision for reconstruction (Wang 2013, pp. 131–42). Since the early 1920s, the severe deterioration of rural China sparked widespread concern among Chinese intellectuals, who actively engaged in rural reconstruction to alleviate rural distress and foster economic revitalization. This concern gradually solidified into a broad social consensus. After the establishment of the Nanjing National Government (南京国民政府), social reconstruction became an increasingly important issue. There was a growing public interest in determining how to advance this reconstruction and in which pattern it should follow. During this period, economic scarcity and fiscal constraints emerged as the most pressing challenges to rural revitalization (Wang 2014, pp. 78–91). During this period, global missionary organizations—primarily led by the United States—formed close partnerships with Chinese Christian communities to support rural reconstruction initiatives. Christian educational institutions at all levels continued to offer agricultural education, while missionary societies advocated for rural church reforms. They focused on promoting agricultural and forestry education and transforming rural churches from worship-centric churches into churches that served the needs of rural communities (Liu 2008, p. 40). These efforts were integrated into a comprehensive rural development program, enhancing their impact on local revitalization.

In 1921, the Foreign Missions Boards in the United States and Canada dispatched the Burton Commission on Christian Education in China to conduct a comprehensive survey of Christian educational institutions across China. Edward W. Wallace, General Secretary of the West China Christian Educational Union, considered the commission’s work a landmark contribution to Christian education in China (McCracken 1925, p. 337). Regarding agricultural education, the survey found four Christian universities offering agricultural and forestry programs, with 35 agricultural experts—including 13 foreign agronomists and 12 Chinese agricultural students returning from overseas—supported by missionary societies for rural initiatives. Additionally, numerous church-affiliated secondary schools also actively engaged in agricultural education and initiatives. The commission put forward four core recommendations to advance Christian agricultural education in China: 1. Identifying practical solutions to rural challenges through field investigations and rural experimental practices. 2. Promoting educational equity between rural and urban children. 3. Training multi-level rural leaders committed to serving their communities. 4. Teaching modern agricultural techniques, improving rural living standards, and cultivating civic responsibilities in rural areas. To develop the agricultural education system, China was divided into five regions (North China, East China, South China, West China, and Central China), each region requiring a regional agricultural education institution aligned with a national “All-China Program”. Specific recommendations for each region included the following: 1. Establishing one Christian university responsible for (a) collaborating with government departments to investigate rural issues, (b) partnering with local normal schools and divinity schools to train rural specialists, and (c) promoting agricultural education through lectures, experimental stations, and agricultural exhibitions. 2. Integrating agricultural education into all Christian secondary schools to cultivate missionaries and educators for rural work. 3. Establishing a Christian primary school in each village to provide at least one year of agricultural education. 4. Founding one vocational agricultural training school in each province to inspire young people to pursue professional agricultural careers. The Christian village primary schools and vocational schools aimed to cultivate a new generation of farmers with technical expertise in agriculture, while they were supposed to serve as social centers for rural surveys and knowledge dissemination, particularly emphasizing the integration of rural industry and agricultural economics. Additionally, the commission highlighted the importance of rural investigation and agricultural extension work, especially in cooperation between the Christian agricultural education system and government agencies, in order to enhance the effectiveness of their efforts (China Educational Commission 1922, pp. 1–4, 207–18).

The commission focused not only on agricultural education within the Christian educational system but also proposed a comprehensive rural reconstruction program. The rural areas mentioned by the commission were primarily situated between villages and the urban regions, typically in county-level market towns where the missionaries were most active. These semi-urban centers featured shops, schools, local government offices, and inns while still retaining rural characteristics (Yang 1998, pp. 273–74). The commission identified these market towns as China’s natural minimal social units, acknowledging that Chinese civilization was deeply rooted in rural society. Thus, evangelizing rural areas was a crucial action for enhancing a Christianized Chinese society. The commission outlined three primary objectives for rural reconstruction: 1. The All-China Program, which aimed to enhance agricultural practices and rural living standards while monitoring international relations and strengthening merchant partnerships to ensure the program proceeds smoothly. 2. The Best-Village Movement, which was dedicated to a holistic rural society improvement to advance agricultural techniques, rural commerce, and living standards. 3. Christian Rural Leadership Development, which could fulfill personnel demands for rural development and support national agricultural promotion campaigns by training Christian rural leaders (China Educational Commission 1922, pp. 207, 217–18). However, the commission’s initial report lacked feasible plans to achieve these three objectives. In 1922, the commission member Dr. Butterfield, who was also an influential agricultural expert associated with the American Country Life Movement and president of Massachusetts Agricultural College, addressed this gap with a detailed proposal to the China Christian Educational Association. Drawing on his 1921–1922 field research and the U.S. rural reform working experience, he proposed the following: 1. For the All-China Program: churches in China should conduct systematic research to identify the challenges of rural development, designing improvement plans that incorporate both Western methodologies and Chinese field experience. On this basis, churches are supposed to assess resource needs, seek government collaboration, and organize annual national and provincial agriculture conferences on agriculture and rural life. A National Agricultural Committee should be formed to coordinate cross-sectoral efforts of government, education, commerce, and churches. 2. For the Best-Village Movement: churches should select some special rural areas, which were usually county-level market towns (50–500 households) as demonstration centers. Then, churches should transform these market towns into regional models by improving their agricultural, economic, and social development standards. Meanwhile, churches should integrate the concept of Christianizing the rural community2 into the rural missionary work to achieve the ultimate missionary goal of Christianizing the villages, which represented the most fundamental social organization in China, and finally establish the Kingdom of God within China. 3. For leadership training: Christian universities, colleges, and divinity schools should focus on nurturing agricultural specialists, teacher-preachers (who combined educational and evangelistic roles), and pastor-agriculturists (who integrated theological knowledge with agricultural expertise). Furthermore, these professionals should collaborate with educated young farmers and the local gentry to drive Christian rural reconstruction (Butterfield 1922, pp. 25–30, 51–53).

The rise of radical nationalism led to a shift in perception regarding the Christian missionary activities that had been relatively peaceful during the first two decades of the twentieth century. After the May Fourth Movement (Wusi yundong 五四运动) of 1919, patriotic critics began to associate these activities with imperialist interests. Consequently, between 1922 and 1927, two nationwide anti-Christian campaigns, commonly known as the Non-Christian Movements (Feijidujiao yundong 非基督教运动), erupted across China. Missionaries responded to these upheavals with attempts to “naturalize” the Gospel, typically through devolution and a recasting of Christianity in the molds of character, moral ideals, and social service (Lian 1997, p. 153). Notable manifestations of this trend included the establishment of indigenous churches and the Social Gospel movement. The National Christian Council of China (NCC) served as a typical example of an indigenous church, with its membership mainly composed of liberal missionaries committed to providing social services. In the field of rural work, the establishment of the Committee on Rural Problems and the Country, which was affiliated with the NCC significantly amplified the nationwide impact of Christian-led rural reconstruction initiatives in China. In 1922, just one year after the Burton Commission’s visit, the Second National Christian Conference convened in Shanghai. This conference addressed the relationship between churches, agriculture, and rural life, urging churches to effectively investigate rural technology, education, economic conditions, and social life to effectively address rural challenges (China National Christian Council 1923, pp. 147–49). This conference also led to the establishment of the NCC, a national Christian organization open to all Protestant churches, with key affiliates including the China Christian Educational Association and the China Christian Medical Association. In 1923, during the NCC’s first annual meeting, the Committee on Rural Problems and the Country was established. Its mission was to investigate rural economic, educational, missionary, and medical issues, and to explore practical improvement strategies through rural experiments (The National Christian Council 1923, p. 8). In 1924, the committee adopted a rural reform program covering various aspects of rural life, including religion, morality, amusement, education, public health, and transportation (The National Christian Council 1924, pp. 15–17). Following this conference, the National Christian Rural Leadership Conference was held at Ginling University in 1926. The conference defined its two primary objectives for rural work: 1. Promoting the Ruralizing the Rural Church Program, and 2. Boosting the collaboration between churches’ rural programs and educational institutions, especially with the Department of Agriculture and Forestry at Ginling University. With 216 delegates in attendance, this conference marked the most significant gathering focused on Christian rural work in China up to that point (The National Christian Council 1926, pp. 23–26). In 1928, the Committee on Rural Problems and the Country was reorganized as the Committee on Christianizing Rural Life, dedicated to comprehensive rural living condition improvement. During this period, Chinese Christian churches’ interest in engaging in rural work reached unprecedented heights, characterized by growing collaboration between churches and Christian educational institutions and the widespread adoption of service-oriented rural church programs nationwide.

5. From Rural Communities to Rural Community Parish: Contextualizing Integrated Rural Development Models in Chinese Settings

In the early 1930s, Protestant rural reconstruction churches emphasized broad cooperation with the government, social organizations, and different denominations to enhance the scale and influence of their rural reconstruction efforts. The two anti-Christian movements significantly impacted missionary work in China, leading to considerable setbacks. To revive evangelistic efforts, the NCC launched the “Five-Year Movement of Evangelism (Wunian fenjin budao yundong 五年奋进布道运动)” from 1930 to 1934. Key initiatives included religious education, expanding preaching, developing Christian families, literacy campaigns, youth programs, and stewardship. Churches nationwide actively participated, and the Movement’s impact spread nationwide. Although the Five-Year Movement did not strictly distinguish between urban and rural areas, two key organizers, Zhang Fuliang (张福良) and Sun Ensan (孙恩三), were major proponents of Protestant rural reconstruction. Consequently, in rural areas, Christian rural reconstruction efforts closely collaborated with the Five-Year Movement, and the Movement’s objectives became integral to rural development goals. Against this backdrop, church-led rural reconstruction efforts expanded considerably throughout the 1930s, with the Congregationalist mission in Baoding standing out for its rural work. In 1930 and 1933, churches organized two conferences in Dingxian, Hebei (河北定县). The main topics discussed included launching literacy campaigns, establishing a national Christian literacy research association, and planning rural reconstruction programs. James Yen (晏阳初) participated in both conferences and shared the rural work experience of the Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement (The National Christian Council 1933, p. 10). His contributions elicited significant responses from Protestant reconstruction churches.

Since the 1930s, the churches began to pay attention to cooperation with the Nationalist government. In the 1930s, the Kuomintang Nationalist government began demonstrating greater concern for rural challenges. Starting in 1933, it set up twenty County Government Reform Experimental Zones (县政建设实验县), such as those in Tinghsien, Hebei (河北定县); Zouping and Heze, Shandong (山东邹平、菏泽); Jiangning, Jiangsu (江苏江宁); and Lanxi, Zhejiang (浙江兰溪). These efforts began at the intersection between rural reconstruction and political reform. At the Third National Conference on Rural Work in 1935, rural reconstruction of the Kuomintang started to shift from a social movement to part of a government-led agricultural development program. The transition accelerated after 1937 when the movement evolved into a government-led rural governance agenda (Wang 2016, pp. 106–20). In the 1930s, as the political landscape evolved, Christian churches in China sought to collaborate with the Kuomintang. The Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry proposed that churches should partner with government agencies to train rural workers who were both familiar with national policies and adept at working effectively alongside government experts. In 1931, the National Christian Council of China formed the Committee on Relations with the Government to manage politico-church affairs. One of the most notable examples of cooperation was the establishment of the Lichuan Experimental Zone in Jiangxi Province (江西黎川试验区) in 1933, a successful joint project between Christian institutions and the Kuomintang Nationalist government.

In terms of rural reconstruction models, Chinese rural reconstruction organizations, under the guidance and support of foreign actors such as Dr. Butterfield, studied and developed a comprehensive rural reconstruction program adapted to Chinese society’s specific characteristics. The 1928 Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council (IMC) officially recognized rural missions as a core component of global Christian missionary work. In China, the concept of “Rural Community Parish”, which evolved from the broader idea of the “Rural Community”, began to function as a guiding principle for Christian rural mission, aiming to foster a Christian rural civilization, representing a significant advancement in the churches’ approach to rural service. The IMC was founded in 1921 in New York City. Its chair was John R. Mott, the General Secretary of the World’s Young Men’s Christian Association and Chair of the Continuation Committee of the 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference. Its core objective was to unite national Christian organizations globally to advance the collective Christian missionary movement (Albright 1946, pp. 5–6), with the China Continuation Committee (later reorganized as the National Christian Council of China) serving as a key member. In 1928, Mott organized a gathering with 38 agricultural missionaries in India, advocating for the launch of a global agricultural mission movement. That same year, the IMC’s Jerusalem meeting included a dedicated session on rural missionary work. During this meeting, Dr. Butterfield delivered a keynote address titled The Rural Problem From the Point of View of Christian Missions, analyzing the significance of rural missions and outlining principles, methodologies, and objectives for Christian involvement in rural development. Dr. Butterfield particularly highlighted the concept of the “rural community” in the context of rural work. This concept had been introduced and practiced during the early twentieth-century American Country Life Movement. It was reaffirmed by the International Country Life Commission between 1926 and 1927, which advocated integrating the concept of Rural Community into a broader global rural reform movement. According to Dr. Butterfield, improving four foundational units of rural society: families, schools, churches, and voluntary farmers’ organizations, would foster holistic rural community improvement. By reconstructing and revitalizing these core social units, he contended, meaningful and sustainable rural reforms could be achieved (International Missionary Council 1928, pp. 16–23).

The Jerusalem Conference, after extensive deliberation, established a church rural work program focused on rural community improvement. It was agreed that “in many Asia and African countries, the entire needs of the rural population can by no means be reached by missionary endeavor alone. The only practicable way is to select suitable rural centers and demonstrate in them an intensive form of work that may eventually spread over wide areas as the church grows in power and influence. The rural world can be made Christian only as these small communities are made Christian.” The objectives of the rural community improvement program included the following: enhancing rural economic conditions, cultivating a rural Christian civilization, creating favorable living environments, fostering strong neighborly relations, addressing the issues affecting women and children to improve family dynamics, and enhancing individuals’ health and spiritual well-being. To achieve these goals, the conference emphasized the collaborative efforts led by church rural workers, involving multiple stakeholders, including local governments, educational institutions, churches, social organizations, and even individual households. The conference especially emphasized the critical role of education in this improvement process. It was recommended that the IMC and NCC of the worldwide countries should provide methodological guidance and professional support for rural work. In addition, specialized rural work departments with full-time experts should be established within these councils to assist various churches in their rural mission (International Missionary Council 1928, pp. 287–99).

Following the Jerusalem Meeting, Dr. Butterfield, serving as the Rural Work Consultant for the IMC, conducted an extensive survey of Christian rural initiatives across the Far East. During Dr. Butterfield’s research, he was invited by Zhang Fuliang, Director of the Committee on Christianizing Rural Life at the National Christian Council of China, to make a second visit to China from November 1930 to January 1931, examining rural programs implemented by churches and universities in North China, Shanghai, Guangdong (广东), and Hong Kong. During this visit, Dr. Butterfield introduced the innovative concept of “Country Community Serving Church,” which was also known as the “Rural Community Parish.” This idea was derived from the rural community development program at the Jerusalem conference. The term “Rural Community Parish” referred to a self-supporting church within a rural community, guided by a resident pastor. Typically, these parishes in China were centered around a market town, covering a radius of approximately 2.5 to 3 miles, with an area of 25 to 35 square miles. They served a population of roughly 10,000 to 15,000 residents across 10 to 15 villages. The churches in the central towns would establish religious, educational, and social service facilities designed to be accessible to all members of the rural community parish within a day’s walk (Butterfield 1931b, pp. 47–48). The Rural Community Parish model integrated seven core functions: evangelism and worship, religious education, general education, medical care and public health, amusement, economic development, and the enhancement of family environments (Butterfield 1943, pp. 417–18). Dr. Butterfield viewed the Rural Community Parish as a pivotal solution to China’s rural challenges. He argued that a well-organized Christian rural community parish required self-supporting churches led by experienced resident pastors, with support from rural workers and institutions, would ultimately foster a Christian rural civilization in China (Butterfield 1931a, p. 344). To promote this vision, Dr. Butterfield delivered a series of lectures and participated in conferences nationwide. In March 1931, he participated in the Christian University Representatives Conference in Nanjing and rural work conferences at Yenching University (燕京大学) and Cheeloo University (齐鲁大学). In April, he attended the Eighth Annual Conference of the National Christian Council in Hangzhou (杭州), where he reiterated his vision for the Rural Community Parish model. He stressed that the goal of the Christian rural mission should be to comprehensively improve rural society, elevate residents’ living standards, and build a united Christian community (The National Christian Council 1931, p. 7). The Hangzhou Conference adopted multiple resolutions on developing rural community parishes, such as establishing churches serving rural communities, forming rural service guiding groups, training rural pastors, and cultivating rural leadership (Tittle 1931, pp. 11–12). After the conference, several churches, especially those in North China, started to implement the Rural Community Parish model. Prominent cases included the Longshan (龙山) Rural Service Department of Cheeloo University, the Luhe (潞河) Rural Service Department of the Tongxian (通县), Hebei Congregational Church, and the Chunhua (淳化) Town Rural Church Experimental Zone run by the Nanjing District of the Church of Christ in China, etc.

Concurrent with Dr. Butterfield’s second visit to China, from November 1930 to June 1931, the American Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry toured China to evaluate the effectiveness of Christian missionary work in China. This inquiry sought to assess past efforts and formulate future plans for the international missions of diverse Christian denominations. Triggered by reduced donations to overseas missions, this kind of visit arose accordingly. After World War I, donations to American overseas missions reached their peak between 1920 and 1921. However, the economic crisis of the late 1920s led to tightened fiscal policies and diminished American optimism regarding overseas missionary endeavors. From 1926 to 1931, mission donations decreased by 16% compared to 1921 to 1925. Against this backdrop, the Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry concentrated on two key investigations: first, assessing the overseas missionary work of the American YMCA and YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association); and second, evaluating the missionary efforts of seven major American denominations in China, India, and Japan (Paton 1932, p. 353). According to the Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry’s survey, among 137 questionnaires about the opinions of the Jerusalem Conference, 64% of respondents fully endorsed its resolutions, 28% partially agreed; notably, none disagreed. In another separate survey of 280 questionnaires about the relative proportion of foreigners in agricultural missions, 81% of respondents called for increased support from foreign missionaries in the agricultural sector (Petty 1933, pp. 28, 96–97). In response to the status quo of rural church work in China, the Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry put forward two core reform proposals: 1. Enhancing the rural work and workforce training: this involved promoting agricultural research within universities to complement the Chinese government’s agricultural research efforts; additionally, it advocated for the development of agricultural secondary schools, establishing agricultural extension zones and strengthening cooperation between governments and church institutions. 2. Driving administrative reforms in rural work: the Inquiry recommended the establishment of a unified administrative body for rural work, which enabled missions not only to benefit from centralized planning and management by agricultural experts but also to facilitate the sharing of experiences and best practices (American Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry et al. 1934, pp. 204–6). Furthermore, the Layman’s Foreign Missions Inquiry emphasized three critical aspects: 1. It was imperative to boost self-supporting standards, increase funding standards for rural churches, and raise workers’ salaries to attract pastors and missionaries for long-term rural service. Additionally, divinity schools should incorporate agricultural education into their curricula, enabling preachers to gain both evangelistic and practical rural working experience. Rather than merely preachers, pastors should actively engage in rural work, as they possessed greater supervisory and guiding capabilities within these communities. 2. Rural work should be organized under a “large rural community parish” program, as many rural churches were too small and weak to carry out work that served the whole life of the community. Focusing efforts on fewer, more stable centers within such parishes would ensure continuous and productive work. Initial implementation could involve designating several rural communities as demonstration or extension zones, modeled after Dr. Butterfield’s Rural Community Parish framework. 3. Learning from three special rural work experiences: the Mass Education Movement in Tinghsien, Hebei; the rural cooperative work of the China International Famine Relief Association near Peiping; and the rural industrial work of the YMCA at Weiting, in Jiangsu Province (江苏唯亭) (Petty 1933, pp. 207–8, 219–24).

In the two years following Dr. Butterfield’s visit to China, many churches established one or two experimental sites to implement the “Rural Community Parish” program and achieved specific results. However, Zhang Fuliang argued that although the program represented the most promising model for rural work at the time, it still required several years of experimentation to accumulate sufficient practical experience (Zhang 1933, pp. 275–78). The North China Christian Rural Service Union (NCCRSU) was the first and most influential Chinese Christian interdenominational organization dedicated to rural reconstruction. Based on practical experience and field research, the NCCRSU concluded that the “Rural Community Parish” program needed further adjustments to better align with the developmental needs of Chinese rural areas. In 1935, the NCCRSU organized the Conference for Supervisors of Rural Work in Luhe, Tongxian County, Hebei Province, where two significant adjustments to the program were proposed: 1. rural churches should replace market town churches as the central basic units of rural work; and 2. parishes should no longer be centered on market towns but cover larger areas, such as an entire county3. In 1937, the NCCRSU held another conference in Anyang, Henan Province (河南安阳). Building on the decisions made at the Tongxian meeting, the Anyang conference recommended the establishment of rural church associations to form larger parishes. It emphasized the need to strengthen cooperation with nearby governmental institutions (Liu 2001, pp. 22–23). These two conferences effectively overturned Dr. Butterfield’s market-town-centered rural parish model, shifting the focus of work to the village level, which reflected the reality that villages were the fundamental units of Chinese society.

Although the “Rural Community Parish” model underwent adaptive modifications, it continued to be implemented across China and, more broadly, throughout the Far East. In 1938, triggered by the full-scale outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in China, the IMC moved its planned annual conference from Hangzhou to Madras, India (now Chennai, India). Sun En-san, the Rural Church Secretary of the National Christian Council of China, served as the chair of the Church and Rural Problems subcommittee of the Madras Conference. This subcommittee recognized the accomplishments of rural church work in the decade following the Jerusalem Conference and reaffirmed the post-Jerusalem strategies for rural mission efforts in the Far East. It recommended that future rural projects persist with comprehensive rural improvement programs based on the Rural Community Parish model, strengthen collaboration with various Christian organizations, cultivate local clergy committed to rural ministry, and ultimately achieve a thriving Christian rural civilization4. During the 1930s and 1940s, Christian rural reconstruction in China experienced a similar pattern. However, the Sino-Japanese War’s devastation shifted these efforts from North China to Southwestern China. After the war, the church-led rural reconstruction projects gradually resumed. Moreover, in 1947, John H. Reisner, Secretary of the Agricultural Missions Foundation, proposed that the United States should dispatch more agricultural missionaries to assist China’s rural reconstruction. He suggested deploying at least 1000 agricultural missionaries—300 each to India, China, and Japan, and 50 each to the Philippines and Korea—and even drafted a ten-year budget of $3.5 million specifically for China5. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, socialist rural reconstruction replaced Christian efforts, ending church-led rural initiatives in China.

6. Conclusions

From 1907 to 1950, Christian rural reconstruction models in China evolved through three distinct phases over nearly half a century:

Early twentieth Century: The focus of Christian missionary work transformed from urban to rural areas. During this period, churches took the initiative to provide agricultural education to train personnel for rural development.

1920s: Christian missions gradually developed comprehensive rural social reform programs, integrating evangelism with a broader scope of initiatives in rural areas, including education, healthcare, amusement, economic development, and other areas.

1930s–1950: The “Rural Community Parish” model emerged as the guiding framework for rural reconstruction in China. Churches further articulated the ultimate aim of their rural efforts as “Reconstructing a Christian Rural Civilization,” highlighting self-supporting communities with integrated spiritual and material growth.

Despite their efforts, Christian rural reconstruction models in China had notable limitations. In the early twentieth century, although China’s Christian Rural Reconstruction Movement was influenced by the American Social Gospel movement, it confronted distinctly local challenges that differed significantly from those encountered by the U.S. Social Gospel movement. While the American Social Gospel Movement addressed the social issues during mature industrial capitalism, China’s Christian rural reformers operated under the combined pressures of nationalism and radical social revolution. They were tasked with addressing intertwined crises of cultural identity, social belonging, and political legitimacy (Yang 1998, pp. 273–74). The disadvantages included the following: the population and political and social influence of local Christian communities in China were limited; the nationalist and anti-colonial atmosphere in Asia went often hand-in-hand with anti-Christian sentiments and the question of how to integrate Christianity into national culture; Protestant internationalists wanted to get a universal formula to rural progress at home in America as well as in China or India, which had little to do with the reality of life in rural China and proved a rather idealistic or even utopian approach eventually (Brunner 2025, pp. 1–24; Zanasi 2023, pp. 359–87), and weakened the influence of Christian rural reconstruction in China.

Moreover, unlike the rural church reforms within the American Country Life Movement, which enjoyed the U.S. federal government’s support, Christian rural reconstruction in China struggled to fully align with governmental authorities. This condition was largely owing to the lack of a completely unified and stable central government in China during the first half of the twentieth century, which left the churches without a reliable partner in governance. Additionally, in the early stages of China’s rural reconstruction movement, the Kuomintang Nationalist regime was relatively slow and passive in addressing rural problems. It was not until the 1930s that the Kuomintang Nationalist government began demonstrating greater concern for rural challenges. In addition, the collaboration between churches and the government remained restricted. Christian rural initiatives mainly centered on social reforms and seldom ventured into political realms. This limitation became increasingly evident following the global economic crisis of the 1930s, sharply cutting American financial support for Christian overseas missions. Combined with the church’s insufficient cooperation with the government, this decline weakened the international and domestic support for Christian rural work in China, ultimately rendering it highly vulnerable and prone to eventual failure.

Christian rural mission in China was typically seen as a form of reformism or gradualism. However, these approaches overlooked the core contradiction in Chinese rural society: the land ownership issue. The root cause of Chinese rural poverty lay in the feudal land ownership system and exploitative social relations, which severely hindered the development of productive forces. As a result, Christian rural reformist initiatives gradually lost ground as the Communist-led rural revolution gained momentum. American historian J.C. Thomson pointed out that the failure of the Kuomintang Nationalist government’s social reform based on the ideology of the Three People’s Principles contributed to the failure of the Christian social gradualist approach to rural reconstruction, which had relied on the Kuomintang Nationalist regime’s efforts for rural reform. The reform endeavors of the Kuomintang Nationalist government and the Christian churches, aimed at connecting intellectuals with rural communities, were gradually overshadowed by the more radical and comprehensive Communist social revolution. This transition ultimately eroded and terminated American Christian influence in China (Thomson 1969, p. 234).

Despite facing formidable obstacles such as the inherent limitations of Christian rural work models, the ravages of war, and the rise of the communist rural revolution, China’s Christian rural reconstruction movement ultimately fell short of its overarching goal of “establishing a Christianized Chinese rural civilization”. Nevertheless, it played a pivotal role in advancing Christian rural mission in China, fostering the growth of rural communities, and introducing Western-influenced social development concepts. As a pioneering force in modern China’s rural reconstruction movement, it served as a testing ground for various rural development strategies. Moreover, this shift critically examined the contemporary “urban–rural divergence” issue in development priorities. Rural reconstruction organizations began to redefine modernization by emphasizing the significance of rural society and framing rural reconstruction as the foundation for urban development. By focusing social reconstruction on rural society rather than urban society, they provided valuable insights and inspiration for later initiatives aimed at building a new socialist countryside during the era of the People’s Republic of China (Wang 2021, pp. 6–7). In the end, as a vital part of the World Agricultural Mission Movement, China’s Christian rural reconstruction models broadened their scope and diversified their approaches. This historical chapter provides a novel academic perspective for examining the Sino-American cross-cultural exchanges, especially in the realm of rural society reform.