The History of Religion in Yunnan

by Tony Lambert

A large number of academic books on religion and the minority peoples are being published in China. As these are in Chinese they are large inaccessible to most Western Christians, even though some of them are extremely informative. One of the most interesting is The History of Religion in Yunnan edited by Yang Xuezheng and published in 1999 by the Religious Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences.

This is a massive paperback tome of 695 pages. It deals with Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Daoism and is illustrated with color photographs. Due to limitations of space I will concentrate on what is related in the substantial sections dealing with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

Roman Catholicism in Yunnan

The author believes it quite possible that Nestorian Christianity penetrated south-west China in the 8th or 9th centuries A.D. but admits the evidence is sparse. Nestorianism again came to China during the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty in the 13th century and reached Yunnan. "The register of Zhenjiang" (a region of Yunnan) reports that there were 238 in that area alone. Marco Polo who visited Yunnan reported that Kunming also had Nestorian believers. Roman Catholicism arrived in China in 1294 and flourished in the Beijing area for some time before being eradicated when the nationalistic Ming dynasty ousted the Mongols. It seems very doubtful whether the Catholics penetrated Yunnan at this time.

Matteo Ricci, the famous Jesuit, pioneered the next wave of Catholic missionary endeavor, arriving in Beijing in 1601. Within a few decades, the Jesuits had converted several tens of thousands including more than 540 at the Ming court itself.

By the mid-17th century, the Ming dynasty was collapsing under pressure from the invading Manchus. In 1644 there was turmoil in Sichuan province and a number of Catholic converts fled to neighboring Yunnan. Some of the Jesuits accompanied the remnants of the Ming court as it fled south. In 1648 about fifty high-ranking members of the Ming court including the Empress and the heir-apparent were baptized by the Jesuit Xavier Koffler at Guilin. They hoped to gain foreign support for their vain effort to stem the Manchu tide. In 1658 this court-in-exile arrived in Kunming and, when it moved on, most of the Catholics stayed. However, they lacked any priests and their numbers, if anything, declined.

Catholic missionary endeavor in Yunnan only really began in the 19th century. By 1888 the province had 11,207 Catholics (2.3% of the total number of Catholics in China) and 21 foreign missionaries (4% of the total in China.) In 1893 there were 48 Catholic churches in Yunnan. But progress was slow. In the twelve year period from 1888 to 1900 only a further 180 converts were made. By 1908 the number of churches had risen slightly to 59. During the twilight years of the Qing dynasty when the foreign powers were riding rough-shod over China, there were at least fourteen major riots and disturbances involving Catholic missionaries in Yunnan.

The establishment of the Republic in 1911 saw a major wave of Catholic expansion in Yunnan. By 1920 converts had increased to 16,489 and the number of churches was greatly increased to 136. The 1920s saw major outreach to minorities, including Tibetans and the Yi. By 1950, in the far northwest of Yunnan where the Tibetans live, by 1950 converts had increased to 2,300 in 15 churches. In the south, in the Lancang region, about 7,000 converts were made among the Lahu and Wa peoples and 50 churches built. By 1949 there were 26,000 Catholics in Yunnan as a whole (including some 10,000 tribal converts) and 136 churches. The Kunming diocese in 1950 had 40 churches with 15,000 Catholics.

Today the Kunming diocese has about 20,000 Catholics and there are estimated to be 30,000 Catholics in the entire province, or slightly more than in 1950. However, there are only twenty churches reopened in Yunnan of the 136 churches active on the eve of the revolution in 1949.

Protestantism in Yunnan

The book gives great detail on the work of the China Inland Mission and all the other missions which worked in Yunnan. In 1875 J. W. Stevenson and Henry Saltau of the CIM set up a base in Burma to begin work in Yunnan and in 1876 Cameron passed through Dali and Baoshan. However it was not until 1881 that George Clark of the CIM set up the first evangelistic base in Yunnan at Dali.

Progress in the early days was very slow. Twenty years later in 1900 there were under 10 churches open in Yunnan and no more than one hundred converts.

However, thereafter growth was rapid, and according to Mr. Yang came in three waves. The first wave was between 1911-1920. By the latter date over 100 churches had been established in sixty counties and the converts had increased from less than one hundred to 30,000. Christianity was strongest in the following areas:

Kunming - 5,000 believers

Northeast Yunnan - 4,000 believers

Wuding/Luquan - 2,000 believers

Wenshan/Luxi - 2,500 believers

Jiangcheng/Mojiang - 2,000 believers

The CIM had pioneered work among the Yi and other minorities and the Methodists had been successful among the Miao in Zhaotong.

The second great advance took place before and after the Second World War. In Miao areas in the northern part of the province growth soared from 7,000 in the early twenties to about 50,000 by 1950. In 1923 the CIM set up a united church committee at Sapushan overseeing outreach to six different tribal groups including the Yi, Miao, Lisu etc. By 1950 this vigorous outreach had established a well-run network of 239 churches and preaching-stations ministering to 20,000 Christians. They had also set up seven clinics, thirty primary schools, two middle-schools and two Bible schools. In the Lisu area growth was also spectacular from 200 believers to over 15,000 and from ten churches to over 200. Among the Jingpo over the same thirty year period converts increased from about 200 to 5,000. Growth among the Lahu in the south also saw converts increase from a few hundred to 13,000 meeting in over 200 churches. The book also gives details of the romanized scripts developed by the missionaries for ten different tribal groups, some of which are still in use today (sometimes with modifications.)

Vital information about the church in Yunnan is also given concerning the period of post-1949 up to the present day which is not easily obtainable elsewhere. In 1952, during the Land Reform Campaign, all religious activities were suspended throughout the province, and when they were resumed it was on a smaller scale. Despite growing restriction some areas saw growth well into the fifties. The Baptist work among the Jingpo saw substantial growth. Also, the Lisu church in Fugong between 1951-52 grew from 3,437 to 4,384 — growth of a thousand converts in a single year. Interesting statistics are given for the entire province for the year 1954, as follows:

Lijiang region (including Nujiang Lisu area) - 149 churches 14,449 Christians

Baoshan (inc. Dehong) - 78 churches 6,843 Christians

Dali prefecture - 8 churches 1,781 Christians

Simao area (Wa, Lahu, Dai etc.) - 70 churches 13,813 Christians

Zhaotong (Miao) - 58 churches 11,889 Christians

Mengzi (now Honghe- Lahu area) - 3 churches 346 Christians

Chuxiong (inc. Luquan- Yi area) - 294 churches 50,000 Christians

Yuxi (only includes those still attending church) - 26 churches 149 Christians

Yiliang area - 12 churches 918 Christians

Qujing - 41 churches 3,993 Christians

Mianning area (the present Lincang) - 132 churches 7,747 Christians

Wenshan prefecture – no data –

Gejiu City - 1 church 30 Christians

Kunming City (central area only) - 29 churches 878 Christians

According to official government statistics in 1954 there were a total of 133,357 Protestant Christians in Yunnan and about 867 churches including preaching-stations.

As left-wing political extremism took control, many believers fled into Burma. The book states frankly that from the end of 1958 to the end of 1960 20-30,000 Christians escaped over the frontier into Burma. Although the religious policy was relaxed again in the early sixties and some returned, from 1966 until 1978 the extremism of the Cultural Revolution reigned supreme and all religious activity was prohibited.

By 1982 Christian activity in Yunnan had ‘largely come into the open again’ and the number of Christians increased greatly. By that year they had increased to about 200,000. The most spectacular growth over the last two decades has been among the Miao and Yi of Wuding and Luquan, north of Kunming and among the Lisu in Nujiang. We are given the following interesting statistics for church growth in Nujiang:

1950 about 30,000

1984 35,877

1986 58,266

1988 63,614

1990 75,869

Similarly, there has been dramatic growth among the Yi and Miao churches in Wuding and Luquan:

1950 about 30,000

1985 50,000

(Wuding 26,000; Luquan 24,700)

1989 about 70,000

(Wuding 28,000; Luquan 42,000)

Mr. Yang estimates the total number of Christians in Yunnan to be about 300,000, of which the Yi and Miao churches total 80,000 believers, the Lisu and Nu believers 90,000, the Jingpo nearly 10,000 and the Lahu, Wa and Hani Christians about 90,000. The total figure of 300,000 is very conservative; a leading TSPM pastor in Kunming told me several years ago that the total number of believers in Yunnan was about 800,000. However, even if the figures in this book are conservative (not including young people and house-church adherents) nevertheless they give reliable base figures for the reality of the church growth that has taken place in Yunnan in recent years.

Copyright OMF International