Competing Loyalties in a Contested Space: The Lutheran Middle School in Hunan Province, 1907–1914

Abstract

This study explores the complexities of mission-state and church-state relations from a micro-level perspective, asking how the missionaries, teachers, and pupils at the Lutheran Middle School in Hunan Province negotiated conflicting claims on church membership and national citizenship. However, Hunan is not a microcosm of modern China. When dealing with nationalism in a Hunanese context, it is sometimes more accurate to speak of Hunanese nationalism rather than Chinese nationalism. This micro-level case study sheds light on the general trends of changing mission-state and church-state encounters, but it also emphasizes unexpected expressions of local Christianity in a context that has not so far been given much scholarly attention.