David Kohl, Lutherans on the Yangtze: A Centenary Account of the Missouri Synod in China Volume 1: 1912-1952, Portland : One Spirit Press, 2013, ISBN 9781893075429.

Update: The review of the second volume of this book can be found at http://bennickodemus.blogspot.com/2014/10/david-kohl-with-consultation-with-hank.html
It is recommended one read this post first before one reads the review of the second volume as I have elaborated on many of the same themes.


[Proviso – I write this review with little knowledge of the history of missions in the LCMS, the History of China, and certainly not the history of the LCMS missionaries in China. I am a historian of the ancient world and I will, therefore, provide absolutely no critique of the content of the material for its accuracy. I, rather, will provide this merely insofar as it is a history of a religious movement. I will consider how it presents its case as a history and what elements are laudable and what lead the reader to ask further questions. I leave it to those more knowledgeable than me in these areas to verify/challenge the content presented in this book]

David Kohl’s Lutherans on the Yangtze is a valuable, timely, and important book for the modern history of global missions. As a history it does a very good job presenting the events of the LCMS missionary movement in China and showing how those events were predicated upon by external circumstances (most notably China’s tenuous political history and the developing relationship between the missionaries in China with the governing bodies of the LCMS in St. Louis). Further, Kohl’s book does more than merely narrate events, but the author has clearly taken pains by use of a variety of visual depictions (photographs, illustrations, and maps) to create a visual as well as written history of the period. The book admits not to attempt to judge the history of the church, only to report. This is the books greatest strength and simultaneously its greatest limitation.

Kohl writes this book in a timely manner for two primary reasons. The first is that this book is written after one hundred years of the mission in China (with its beginnings being, give or take – depending upon what one counts as a beginning) in 1912. This then provides a rich history of continuity and change that can display how a missionary movement adapts to radically different circumstances. The second reason this book is timely is quoted in the first printed line of the book – a preface by Mel Kieschnick, “Lutherans on the Yangtze needs to be written now because the number of those who are still alive to tell and weave the details is shrinking.”[1] This harsh reality is something that has encouraged a variety of different missionary movements to write their history before it is lost from memory.[2] The information preserved here would have been much harder to obtain at much later of a date and as such it is a valuable resource. The history of modern world missions is of vital importance to the understanding of the development of religious movements, cultural interaction over time and tradition, and an important element in modern globalization. As such, this book is apropos in both scholarly and devotional circles.

Kohl, like any good historian, shows his principles from which he will present his monograph. He presents the heuristic plan of non-judgment in presentation of the history of the missionary movement:

My goal is to present balanced information on internal issues, set into the context of local and world history and cultural trends. I hope to act as a reporter, no judge. I’ve found myself more interested in origins than developments – how programs and projects began. Perspective and hindsight are usually 20-20. I’m not about discrediting anyone or judging philosophies, programs or institutions. My goal is to record objectively how well-intentioned (but sometimes ill-founded or inexperienced) individuals and institutions sought to carry out their understanding of God’s will. Directors, commissions, boards, auxiliary organizations, and lay people all played their roles.[3]

Kohl displays his primary interests – in reporting on the events of the mission without judgment so that the book would be of interest to the widest possible readership. He presents a hermeneutic of respect and holds true to that hermeneutic throughout his text.

The values of the text are many. First, Kohl shows advanced research from the founding of the society to its major shift in 1949 at the close of the book (setting up therefore, the second volume). His bibliography is lengthy and he clearly has referenced a variety of primary texts in order to inform this history. The result then is less of a story of the memory of a handful of those still alive, but rather a far more complete history considering all of the information available.

The second value is that Kohl does a good job not only narrating the events, but historiographically explaining the circumstances that led to the events. For instance, rather than simply beginning the text with the founding of the mission by Edward Arndt, it begins with the circumstances that caused Arndt to create the mission. It does a good job showing why Arndt personally was inspired (some of which was the great missionary opportunity to a country where 99 percent of the people had never heard the gospel message – according to a report he read) and part due to his dissatisfaction with his current teaching post at Concordia St. Paul involving a personal conflict with a student and the handling of that conflict by CSP.[4] Further, it discusses the reasons why the LCMS[5] did not originally fund Arndt’s mission proposal and how Arndt raised public awareness and created a society larger than the Missouri Synod that actually funded his mission to China.[6] Kohl does a good job of causally explaining the circumstances that led to this conclusion rather than simply providing the data, making this a true work of history rather than simply a timeline.

To provide causal links once the mission was begun in China, it is important for the reader to understand the tumultuous political climate in China during the time period the book covers. Kohl does a good job presenting enough of the political history for readers to understand the new crisis facing the mission, but not so much that the book becomes a history of China that presents so much information that the very small Lutheran mission is lost in the macro-scale discussions of political turmoil of the largest country on earth.[7]

The book shows how the mission adapted to political and cultural change over time. However, Kohl shows a type of continuity within that cultural change by presenting the entire narrative as the narrative of a family.[8] This analogy is rather helpful as it shows how the long duree of Edward Arndt (until his death in 1929) set the precedent for the type of work done and through some of his literal family (as many of his children continued the work) as well as his legacy, there was essential continuity in the midst of necessitating change. The text does a good job showing the interconnections between the various missionaries and the way in which the values and principles were simultaneously adaptable as well as inalienable principles that could never be changed.[9]

What sets Kohl’s book off from many histories of different religious movements is the number of photographs which he presents in the text. Kohl has dedicated nearly every other page to photographs of relevant figures, cultural artifacts, and geographical locations. Usually histories of time periods have a few short sections of photos, but this book exceeds them all in the sheer number of visible displays. This allows the reader not only to read and consider the development of the figures and places in the book, but it also allows them to see it. This makes it a robust text that has feeling.

Finally, the book does a good job of using its hermeneutic of respect. It would have been very easy to paint the Board of Foreign Missions or the Synod in St. Louis as distant figures who caused more problems than they solved (particularly in a few cases); however, Kohl does a good job remaining balanced and simply explaining what happened, why it happened and moving one without judgment.

The challenges to the book are precisely found in its values – its nonjudgmental attitude using the hermeneutic of respect did not allow for as much of a hermeneutic of suspicion to accompany it.[10] At many points, one wonders what the conflicting viewpoints of the history might have been that could have led to a more robust explanation of what occurred. Kohl attempts to present “both sides” of the story, but in so doing, he does not make that critical judgment that a historically robust work is bold to do.

The second major challenge is the relative paucity of dialogue with primary sources in the text. It is obvious that the book is well researched and built upon the primary sources, but in the actual narrative presented, the quoting of them is infrequent. The text is lauded for creating such complete pictures of the missionaries (particularly Edward Arndt), but it loses something when we cannot hear from Arndt himself. For example, Kohl describes Arndt’s letters and newsletter which he used to promote his mission to China,[11] further, there is even a photograph of one of the issues;[12] however, there is no quotation of the newsletter itself to let the reader see the type of argument Arndt made to the larger audience.

The reasons for Kohl’s reticence to quote are probably twofold and more than likely forgivable – the first is brevity. There was an obvious interest in keeping this volume brief as Kohl points out that each chapter deserves its own book[13] and recognizes that the book could have easily been twice as long. The second reason is that this book is not written as a scholarly exhaustive account.[14] This indicates that the book was not primarily interested in citing sources in text throughout the history (primarily – it is done on some occasions) and as such, direct quotations would also be of secondary interest.

The more significant challenge lies in the book’s interest in the events of what happened through cause and effect, but sometimes it lacked the discussion of how things occurred on the ground. This is precisely the goal Kohl presents as depicting “how programs and projects began.” However, the reader has very serious questions about what was exactly happening in many places. For instance, the development of the mission field and how it finally came about, where the developments was located (down to the very buildings), the development of those particular buildings to other ones in the decades that followed, the local culture and associations, and even the cuisine are carefully depicted. However, the central gospel message that was presented is not particularly developed (except when it came into conflict such as the model of Baptism[15]). For instance, how key were Lutheran doctrines in the process? Was Law and Gospel primarily preached? Were sacraments presented in the same way in China as in America? How much was this message dependent upon accepting Western values and how much was refigured for the local culture?[16] This key point was missing and considering the adaptation/continuity presented throughout the book, it might have been interesting to see if this was primarily changed – were there key differences in the emphasis of the Christian gospel at different times that happens so often in Christian churches?[17] I should point out that when this was in crisis – most notably with the controversy concerning the name of God in China – that Kohl does a fantastic job explaining this.[18] It is only the “day to day” theological message that is not discussed as deeply.

The final challenge to Kohl would have been helpful but perhaps not possible – statistical growth patterns of involvement in the church. It would have been helpful to get a sense for how large the congregations were over time, how many congregations there were, and their sociological elements. It is quite possible that there are simply not records for this type of analysis, but it is certainly something that would be helpful and perhaps with the second volume coming where data might be more available, this kind of analysis could be valued.

The final critique is not to Kohl but to the forward written by Rev. Paul Kreyling. Kohl’s text does a wonderful job explaining the history of the mission in China without diminutizing it for his readers nor presenting it as a narrative apologetic to recruit missionaries. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Kreyling’s forward.  

It presents an appeal that those who are “able” will go to a mission:

Missionaries, single, or married, have gone because they have received that precious gift of God we call faith, and the Christ-like love which is engendered in them by that faith. Actually, all of us who have received that gift of faith have also received that command of Jesus to “Go!” Not necessarily go overseas, or even to remote parts of our own country. It is obvious that not all of us are able to heed that call by journeying and living abroad.[19]

This is troubling on a few levels. First, it is probably true that some are not able to handle overseas mission; however, the way that Kreyling has described it, it sets the call of the missionary over and above all other calls. The only good reason, seemingly, for someone not to travel and become a missionary is that they “are not able to heed that call.” This implies that everyone has that same call. Consequently, it is therefore only those who have the call and do not answer it who are “allowed” not to travel overseas. This is troubling Lutheran theology – which should hold that there is no value judgment of holiness upon calls from God in the priesthood of believers (and certainly no idea that all are called to specifically do mission work overseas). While this was probably a well meaning passage trying to honor those who have worked overseas, it does not set the fair tone of the book. This discussion would be appropriate for a book that is trying to encourage readers to consider overseas mission work. However, Kohl’s book is not about that – it is a history of a mission that has an appeal to a wide variety of readers without value judgment. The concern is that such a forward could “turn off” the reader who is interested in the text for a variety of reasons that might not have to do with consideration of entering foreign missions oneself.

In all, this book is very much worth the read. It presents an account of the missionary endeavors into China by the LCMS. It is work that has not been done before and Kohl’s historical narrative paired with his abundant photographic and documentary supplements create an engaging book that ought to be read as a good history of a hitherto untold story of the Lutheran

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[1] Mel Kieschnick, “Preface” in Lutherans on the Yangtze, (Portland: One Spirit Press, 2013), vi.

[2] See for instance, John Eggert’s S.T.M. Thesis, Fifty Years of Theological Education in the Gutnius Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea 1948-1998 (Concordia Seminary St. Louis, 2003).

[3] Kohl, Lutherans on the Yangtze, xvii.

[4] Ibid., 3-7.

[5] I will use that term even though at the time the name of the synod was the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States.

[6] Ibid., 9-11.

[7] See particularly Ibid., 13-27, 91-101, 133-143.

[8] Ibid., xvi.

[9] To borrow a concept most compellingly displayed by Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Developments in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 1-4.

[10] For the dynamics of this balance, see Hugh Urban, The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).  

[11] Kohl, Lutherans on the Yangtze, 11.

[12] Ibid., 4.

[13] Ibid., xvii.

[14] Ibid., 185.

[15] Ibid., 31-33.

[16] The reader is left to assume that at least some implantation of LCMS customs were adopted as a key development was the translation of German hymns into Chinese – however, there is no real reason to think that indicated that all of life was to change to a Western one – it probably did not.

[17] See for a very different situation, James K. Wellman Jr. From the Gold Coast Church to the Ghetto: Christ and Culture in Mainline Protestantism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999) for how a church in Chicago changed its primary emphasis in the gospel over a time period approximating the same for the mission in China.

[18] Kohl, Lutherans on the Yangtze, 85-103.

[19] Paul Kreyling “Forward” Lutherans on the Yangtze, xii, emphasis mine.