The Charismatic Movement in Taiwan

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CHRISTIANITY AND RENEWAL – INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

The Charismatic
Movement in Taiwan
from 1945 to 1995
Clashes, Concord, and Cacophony

Judith C. P. Lin
Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies

Series Editors
Wolfgang Vondey
Department of Theology and Religion
University of Birmingham
Birmingham, UK

Amos Yong
School of Theology & School of Intercultural Studies
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, CA, USA
Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies provides a forum for
scholars from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, various global loca-
tions, and a range of Christian ecumenical and religious traditions to
explore issues at the intersection of the pentecostal, charismatic, and other
renewal movements and related phenomena, including: the transforming
and renewing work of the Holy Spirit in Christian traditions, cultures, and
creation; the traditions, beliefs, interpretation of sacred texts, and scholar-
ship of the renewal movements; the religious life, including the spirituality,
ethics, history, and liturgical and other practices, and spirituality of the
renewal movements; the social, economic, political, transnational, and
global implications of renewal movements; methodological, analytical,
and theoretical concerns at the intersection of Christianity and renewal;
intra-Christian and interreligious comparative studies of renewal and revi-
talization movements; other topics connecting to the theme of Christianity
and renewal. Authors are encouraged to examine the broad scope of reli-
gious phenomena and their interpretation through the methodological,
hermeneutical, and historiographical lens of renewal in contemporary
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Christianity and renewal, the series includes two different kinds of books:
(1) monographs that allow for in-depth pursuit, carefully argued, and
meticulously documented research on a particular topic that explores
issues in Christianity and renewal; and (2) edited collections that allow
scholars from a variety of disciplines to interact under a broad theme
related to Christianity and renewal. In both kinds, the series encourages
discussion of traditional pentecostal and charismatic studies, reexamina-
tion of established religious doctrine and practice, and explorations into
new fields of study related to renewal movements. Interdisciplinarity will
feature in the series both in terms of two or more disciplinary approaches
deployed in any single volume and in terms of a wide range of disciplinary
perspectives found cumulatively in the series.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14894
 Judith C. P. Lin

The Charismatic
Movement in Taiwan
from 1945 to 1995
Clashes, Concord, and Cacophony
Judith C. P. Lin
Montrose, CA, USA

Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies

ISBN 978-3-030-48083-7    ISBN 978-3-030-48084-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48084-4

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 To
Taiwan
 Foreword

The Classical Pentecostal Movement emerged in a variety of locations

around the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. It began as a
movement within various Holiness, Evangelical, and mainline churches
and revival movements, which quickly decided that they did not wish to
embrace the message of these Pentecostals. The earliest Pentecostals held
to the historic doctrines of the faith regarding the Trinity, the Deity of
Christ, the Atonement, the singular importance and inspiration of
Scripture, and the like, but when it came to the Holy Spirit they had
expected more in the churches of which they were part, than what they
saw. In 1929, the Oxford professor, B. H. Streeter, noted that in early
Christianity the disciples had experienced the Holy Spirit in such a way
that it was “definite and observable…as an attack of influenza.”1 These
newly minted Pentecostals had experienced such a life-transforming expe-
rience, one that they believed was identical to what they read about in Acts
1:8 and Acts 2:4. They had received the “Promise of the Father,” the
“Baptism in the Spirit,” and the evidence they gave was that they were
speaking in other tongues just as the apostles had. They regarded these
tongues as evidence that was both definite and observable!
They did not find ready acceptance when they tried to share their testi-
monies. Sometimes they were too judgmental of those who had not yet
received what they had experienced, and that only caused division. On
other occasions, the churches made it clear that they wanted nothing to do

1
B. H. Streeter, The Primitive Church: Studied with Special Reference to the Origins of the
Christian Ministry (London: Macmillan and Co., 1929), 69.

vii
viii FOREWORD

with such “subjective” experiences or fanaticism. Some went so far as to

accuse them of being mentally unbalanced, or being in league with the
devil. As a result, they formed their own churches, and ultimately a num-
ber of newer Pentecostal denominations came into existence. These two
groups, Pentecostal churches and non-Pentecostal, historic churches,
would remain separate for over half a century.
In the late 1950s, things began to change. People in historic churches
began to enjoy the same experience to which Pentecostals had long
pointed. Various healing ministries, organizations such as the Full Gospel
Business Men’s Fellowship International, the “Latter Rain Movement,” as
well as many independent churches facilitated this change. Literature such
as David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade also played a role in
bringing about these changes.
It was in the midst of the Cold War, the high point of existentialist
philosophy, sexual and drug experimentation, and regional wars especially
in Asia, Korea, and Vietnam, for instance, when these changes took place.
It was a time when people were looking for answers that they often did not
find in their churches. They soon found relief and encouragement in a
fresh experience of the Holy Spirit that proved to be life transforming. As
a result, many left their churches and joined various Classical Pentecostal
congregations. However, others stayed where they were, and attempted to
fit their new experiences into their existing theological framework. It was
in such places where the Charismatic Renewal was born.
For over a decade Charismatics referred to themselves as “Neo-­
Pentecostals,” clearly linking them with the experiences of their Pentecostal
forebears. Later, they would take the name “Charismatic Renewal,” which
provided them with sufficient distance from the Classical Pentecostals for
them to forge their own interpretations of what they had experienced that
was in keeping with their particular spiritual Traditions. Today, the
Charismatic Renewal is a global reality that likely surpasses the number of
Classical Pentecostals. The number of Catholic Charismatics alone stands
at 160,000,000 people, which would make it over twice as large as the larg-
est Classical Pentecostal body, the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.2

2
Alessandra Nucci, “The Charismatic Renewal and the Catholic Church,” The Catholic
World Report (May 18, 2013). The International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services
Office has published the number 120,000,000 for over a decade. At least one report claims
that the number may be as high as 200 million. As of December 2019, the World Assemblies
of God Fellowship claims 69,000,000 adherents.
 FOREWORD ix

Unfortunately, the Charismatic Renewal has received very little atten-

tion since Richard Quebedeaux published his much-revised Oxford
University dissertation, The New Charismatics II in 1983.3 That may be
due to the fact that the renewal held large stadium-sized gatherings, espe-
cially during the 1960s and 1970s, that no longer occur. In spite of the
dearth of books on the subject either at the global or at the regional level,
this renewal has never disappeared. It has continued to grow and may be
found today in many historic congregations around the world. Today, its
growth is most notable in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
This volume by Dr. Judith Lin is a welcome addition to our knowledge
and understanding of the Charismatic Renewal, even though it is focused
on one small part of Asia, that is, Taiwan. Charismatic Renewal has had a
significant role in expanding and deepening the spiritual life of many
mainline Christians in Taiwan, most notably in the Presbyterian Church,
but also among other Protestants and among Roman Catholics. It also
brings to light the very significant role that churches and leaders such as
Oral Roberts, Jean Stone, and other Americans, as well as leaders from the
“Latter Rain Movement” played in the birth and nurture of this renewal.
Early Pentecostalism was known first as the Apostolic Faith Movement.
The purpose of the Movement was to restore once again to the Church
“the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), the faith
that the original apostles had taught and lived. A decade later, it also took
the name “Latter Rain Movement,” making clear its commitment to a
restoration view of history. What the original apostles had taught and lived
had been lost somewhere in history through apathy, compromise, and/or
apostasy and the Lord was now restoring it to the Church through this
Pentecostal Movement.
The designation “Latter Rain Movement” came into vogue once again
in the fall of 1947, with a revival meeting in North Battleford, Saskatchewan,
Canada. Classical Pentecostals had been around for nearly half a century at
that point, and they had been developing denominational structures that
some Pentecostals believed were too restrictive. Institutionalization has
always posed challenges to those who wish to leave open the spontaneous
movement of the Holy Spirit. The early Church faced this challenge when
those who claimed to be filled with the Holy Spirit challenged the author-
ity of their bishops. That encounter set the stage for many subsequent

3
Richard Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics II: How a Christian Renewal Movement
Became Part of the American Mainstream (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983).
x FOREWORD

challenges between those who claimed institutional authority, the duly

appointed or elected church leaders, and those who claimed spontaneous
and independent spiritual power demonstrated most commonly through
their prophetic pronouncements. The emergence of this revival in the late
1940s resulted in a split within the Assemblies of God in the USA, which
remains unresolved.
Those who identified with this “Latter Rain Movement” argued that
what they were experiencing in 1947 was a fresh outpouring of the Holy
Spirit that required more freedom for the Holy Spirit to move, much like
the wind (John 3:8) and less institutional control. Today, those connected
to the “Latter Rain” appear most frequently in independent Pentecostal or
Charismatic churches and in networks of loosely affiliated congregations.
Their missionary zeal took them to Asia, where they found, in Taiwan,
many Christians who were hungry for the message of spiritual empower-
ment that they brought at that time. Without such a study as Dr. Lin has
presented in this volume, such a fact would remain largely hidden.
This volume is also important because we are desperately in need of
more regional studies regarding Pentecostal and Charismatic histories. It
is a pity that the work of Paul Tsuchido Shew on the early Pentecostal
Movement in Japan (1907–1945) and the work of Jay Woong Choi on the
Origins of Classical Pentecostalism in Korea (1930–1962) have not yet
found their way into print, for they accomplish similar goals in other Asian
nations.4 What Dr. Lin has provided for us in this volume, however, is a
template for what can and should be done elsewhere in the region. Her
work is the first major study of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan, a
study marked by its focus, her attention to detail, and her personal interac-
tion with her many sources, many of which have become more accessible
in the West solely through her work of translation.
Dr. Lin begins this study by developing the complex historical, cultural,
and ecclesial contexts in Taiwan into which the Renewal came, including
the tensions that arose between churches among the indigenous commu-
nities and the arrival of the newer immigrants and their churches, from

4
Paul Tsuchido Shew, “History of the Early Pentecostal Movement in Japan: The Roots
and Development of the Pre-War Pentecostal Movement in Japan (1907–1945),”
Unpublished PhD dissertation (Pasadena, CA: Fuller Theological Seminary, 2003). Jay
Woong Choi, “The Origins and Development of Korean Classical Pentecostalism
(1930–1962),” Unpublished PhD dissertation (Pasadena, CA: Fuller Theological
Seminary, 2017).
 FOREWORD xi

China. Such a regional study fills an important gap in the history of

Taiwanese Christianity in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Through this work, Judith proved to be very creative in locating first-­
generation primary sources, both written and oral and she doggedly pur-
sued them. Her sources, including many personal interviews with those
who participated in the renewal’s development in Taiwan, enabled her to
construct a comprehensive history of charismatic activities that even pre-
dated the formal rise of the Renewal in Taiwan. In this way, her work is
exhaustive! Her sources also pointed to the role played by certain American
Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders in planting the seeds of renewal, and
the significant role played by Taiwanese students in entering the Renewal,
and then moving into leadership positions where they popularized
Charismatic teaching for the churches. Judith’s re-discovery of the long-­
forgotten Formosa Chapter of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship
International was also a big surprise! Finally, she located and visited a
Catholic Religious, that is, a Sister, who helped provide invaluable infor-
mation that was significant in opening up the Catholic Church to
Charismatic Renewal in Taiwan.
With the very difficult political realities that Taiwan faces today, espe-
cially when confronted by the much larger nation of China with its aggres-
sive stance toward Taiwan, churches in Taiwan need all the spiritual power
they can muster to find their way forward. Perhaps the Charismatic
Renewal came to Taiwan during the period Dr. Lin has studied, precisely
to empower the churches there to develop greater unity between them
and to provide them with the ability to make the godly decisions that will
best lead the people of Taiwan to a productive and hopefully an unre-
stricted future. Who knows what the future holds for Taiwan? We do not.
Yet the people of God who rely upon the Holy Spirit should take hope in
the reality of the charismatic message with its spiritual power that this
volume presents in its look at the spiritual vitality that the Charismatic
Renewal has already brought to thousands of Taiwanese Christians.

Pasadena, CA, USA Cecil M. Robeck Jr.

 Preface

The growth of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan is a fascinating phe-

nomenon. The involvement and expressions of the many tribes, peoples,
and tongues in the movement in Taiwan—also known as Formosa by
Westerners—not only echo the vibrant and diverse Holy Spirit renewal
movements of the global scene but enrich as well as complicate the global
story. Treading on a path that none have gone before, this book traces the
contour of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan’s church history from
1900 to 2000, while giving special attention to the years from 1970 to
1995, which is when the movement took flight, gained currency, and was
popularized. The development of numerous charismatic church contexts
in this quarter of the century subsequently altered the ecclesiastical scene
in Taiwan. The time frame in the book title was set to start from 1945 to
ensure that several important activities that took place in postwar Taiwan
are duly recognized.
As prominent as the Charismatic Movement has been in Taiwan’s eccle-
sial context for over two decades, the story remained untold in the aca-
demic arena. Dissatisfaction with such lacuna thrust me into the current
research, which led me to be ever more convinced that Taiwan has a story
to tell.
The growth of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan since 1980 is
known to many people, but lesser known is the history leading to 1980.
By connecting the dots, this book investigates crucial contributions made
by some early charismatic missionaries, and their impact on key charis-
matic Taiwanese leaders who subsequently popularized charismatic teach-
ings throughout Taiwan starting in the 1980s.

xiii
xiv PREFACE

Instead of focusing on the development of the Charismatic Movement

in a single denomination, this work examines several churches and com-
munity clusters that I regard as more influential in informing the trajec-
tory of the movement in Taiwan. The breadth of the discussion enables
me to compare and contrast how the movement has been perceived and
received by churches across denominations over a span of time.
Readers, however, will quickly notice the short discussion of the
Classical Pentecostal churches in Taiwan in this work. The scope of my
research accounts for the want. While it is misleading to put the Classical
Pentecostal Church in Taiwan and the Charismatic Church in Taiwan in
two different categories as if the two had never cross-fertilized ideas (the
latter being the focus of my research), the two do have distinct origins,
constituents, and growth patterns. Precisely because the Classical
Pentecostal Church in Taiwan is such a complicated enterprise, and its
convoluted history so unique compared to the Classical Pentecostal
churches in other nations, it seems that any hasty attempt to mine the field
will only render a mediocre analysis that does not do justice to the com-
plexity and richness of the church. I, therefore, kept the discussion pithy.
Having engaged relevant written and oral sources relating to Classical
Pentecostal churches during my research, I am led to believe that it is
preferable that the Classical Pentecostal Church in Taiwan be studied in its
own right—from start to finish—rather than being examined through the
lens of the Charismatic Church in Taiwan. It is my personal hope that the
intentional blank that I left in my work would pique people’s curiosity and
impel scholars to conduct further research.

Montrose, CA, USA Judith C. P. Lin

 Acknowledgments

Articulating an account of history in the public space involves a degree of

risk. It is an act that opens people’s stories for critique. History concerns
the lives of the living and the dead, including parts that some would prefer
not to be remembered. History and the people there within carry weight,
which should not be tread upon lightly. Without people opening them-
selves up to the past—which is often a mixture of pleasurable and painful
experiences—the act of history telling cannot be complete. As such, my
deepest thanks go to the generous contributions of about thirty missionar-
ies, missionaries’ children, and pastors and church leaders from Taiwan
and abroad who made this project possible. The list includes Allen
J. Swanson, Ross Paterson, Malcolm Foster, Helene Reichl, Tony Dale,
Doug Plummer, Louise Ho (née van den Berg), Lynn New, Jennifer
McQuade (néeMcGillvray) , Zeb Bradford Long, Rey Bianchi, Kenneth
Shay, Marion Shay (née Woodward), Norman Cook, Peter Ning-ya Yang
楊寧亞, Nathaniel Shen-chu Chow 周神助, Daniel Li-chung Tsao 曹力中,
Andrew Chi-ming Chang 章啟明, James Sheng-chih Huang 黃聖志,
Abraham Ku 顧其芸, Peng Teh-kui 彭德貴, William Jung-kuang Lo 羅榮
光, Chen Yi-ming 陳義明, Lewis Yi-che Sung 宋義哲 (1951–2018),
Daniel Chih-yung Ho 何志勇, Vernon Wen-­ lang Wu 吳文朗, James
Chung-chien Shia 夏忠堅, Jonathan Chih-chien Chiu 邱志健, David Tsai
蔡錦源, Daniel Tai I-shun 戴義勳, and Ernest Chong-fai Chan 陳仲輝.
Specifically, my deep appreciation goes to Allen J. Swanson, Ross Paterson,
Daniel Li-chung Tsao, and Malcolm Foster for fielding my incessant ques-
tions with incredible patience through their extensive e-mail exchanges
with me.

xv
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In regard to research institutions, I am principally thankful for the staff

at Fuller Seminary’s David Allan Hubbard Library for rolling out trolly
after trolly of periodicals for me. I am also thankful for China Evangelical
Seminary (Taipei) and President Tsai Lee-Chen, Taiwan Theological
College and Seminary, Taiwan Baptist Theological Seminary, Research
and Development Center at the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, and Holy
Spirit Research Center at Oral Roberts University for opening doors to
me. In addition, I am thankful for Iso Kirja College in Finland for helping
to provide sources that I need for this research.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my mentor and advisor,
Dr. Cecil M. Robeck Jr., for rooting for me since the day he agreed to take
me under his wings as a doctoral student. I have indeed been standing on
a giant’s shoulders—a privilege that few enjoy. I could not have imagined
having a better mentor for my PhD study. Besides my advisor, I would like
to thank my second mentor, Dr. Amos Yong from Fuller, and Dr. Lin
Hong-Hsin from Taiwan Theological College and Seminary for their
encouragement and insightful comments that led me to widen my research
from various perspectives. A very special thank you also goes to Dr. John
L. Thompson, Chair of the Department of Church History at Fuller, for
his continued support, encouragement, and friendship.
I am grateful to my extended Church family of many colors, especially
the First A.M.E. Zion Church of Pasadena that has cared for my soul as I
spent strenuous months working on this project. In addition, I am thank-
ful to Chao Shih-Yi, Kally Wong, Cindy Powell, and Charlotte Lin for
their friendship and support during the research process. Lastly, I am eter-
nally grateful for my parents for their constant love and support, and for
encouraging me in all of my pursuits.
If I forget to mention the names of the numerous people who have
helped me in the course of writing this project, I ask for their forgiveness.
Full responsibility for this work and any remaining errors it may contain
are mine alone.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Significance of the Study   2
History of Research   4
Terminology   8
Pentecostal? Charismatic? Renewal?   8
“Taiwanese”: A Hard-Fought Identity  14
Delimitation of the Study  20
Methodology and Structure  21
Oral History  22
Structure  24

2 Protestant Christianity in Twentieth-Century Taiwan, with

a Focus on the Evangelical Force from 1945 to 1990 25
Protestant Christianity in Taiwan, 1900–1945  26
Protestant Christianity in Taiwan, 1945–1990  29
Mission Societies  29
Defending Christianity and Opposing Communism  33
China Evangelical Seminary (Taipei)  35
Case Studies  39
China Inland Mission—Overseas Missionary Fellowship  39
The Church Assembly Hall  46
Stephen Tong  53
Conclusion  55

xvii
xviii Contents

3 A Brief Historical Overview of the Pentecostal-Charismatic

Activities in Taiwan, 1900–1970 57
True Jesus Church  57
Japan Apostolic Mission  61
Different Pentecostal Groups in Postwar Taiwan  65
Pearl G. Young (1904–1986) and Zion Church (1957)  67
Nicholas G. Krushnisky (1932–2016)  69
New Testament Church (1965)  71
Charismatic Phenomena Among Non-Charismatic Christians in
Taiwan  76
Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International Formosa
Chapter (1958–1968?) and Oral Roberts in Taiwan (1960)  78
FGBMFI Formosa Chapter (1958–1968?)  78
Oral Roberts’ 1960 Visit to Taiwan  84
Jean Stone and Richard Willans in Taiwan (1968) and
Charismatic Activities Among Non-Charismatic Missionaries in
Taiwan  88
Conclusion  92

4 The Surprising Work of God, 1970–1979 93

Setting the Scene: The Age of Hunger  94
Pearl G. Young (1904–1986) and Zion Church (1957)  94
Donald and Penelope Dale and the Renewal Team 100
Donald Dale (1923–1998) and Penelope Dale (1924–2016):
The Legendary Couple 101
The Renewal Team 107
Other Missionaries’ Involvement in Charismatic Ministry 115
Renewal Among Missionary Children in Taiwan 118
Ross Paterson (1943–) 120
The Tongues, the “Chaos”: Leadership Training Camp,
Taichung, 1973 121
Déjà vu: The Tongues, the “Chaos”: Leadership Training
Camp, Taichung, 1976 123
Small-Scale Revival at the National Taiwan University
Fellowship, 1975 125
Interim Summary 126
Nicholas G. Krushnisky (1932–2016) 127
The 1972 Tayal Revival 129
 Contents  xix

Allen J. Swanson (1934–) 146

Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Taiwan 150
Conclusion 155

5 The Loosing of the Holy Spirit: The Charismatic

Movement Takes Off, 1979–1995157
Church Growth Initiatives in the Late 1960s and the 1970s 158
Ministry of Chen Chuan-huang 158
Taiwan Church Growth Society (1972) 160
Chinese Campus Crusade for Christ (Taiwan) and Visits to
Churches in South Korea (1979–1980) 164
Chinese Christian Prayer Mountain (Miaoli Prayer Mountain,
1981) 166
Elim Christian Bookstore (1982)—Hosanna Ministry (1987):
From a “Soft Revolution” to a “Merciless Revolt” 169
Latter Rain Magazine 170
Contemporary Worship from South Korea (1989) 173
Hosanna Ministry (1987): Enlarge the Place of Thy Tent 174
Non-Charismatic Churches Turned Charismatic, 1980s 176
Bread of Life Christian Church in Taipei 176
Hsintien Covenant Church 180
Other Churches 185
Zeb Bradford Long (1950–) and the Charismatic Movement
within the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan 186
Charismatic Conferences from 1980 to 1995 197
The Year 2000 Gospel Movement (1990–2000): A Godsend 198
Agape Renewal Center, California (1987) 205
Other Developments in the 1990s 208
Taipei Truth Lutheran Church 208
The Christian Pastoral Training Association (1996) and the
Cell Group Movement 210
Conclusion 212

6 Candid Discussion Regarding the Charismatic Movement

from 1970 to 1995: More Than a Battle of Words215
Campus Magazine 216
Basic Framework 216
Reception 218
xx Contents

The PCT’s Taiwan Church News, Messenger (New), and Other

Works 224
Basic Framework of Taiwan Church News 224
The “Ten Plus One” Movement 226
Initial Discussion on the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan
Church News and Messenger (New) 228
Drawing the Line 231
Reception 232
PCT’s “Recommendation for the Holy Spirit Renewal
Movement” 235
Summary 237
The “1995 Prophecy” 237
Summary 240

7 The Distinctive Features of the Charismatic Movement in

Taiwan, 1970–1995243
Historical 243
Sources of Influence 243
Reception 245
Theological 247
The Ever-Present “Middle” World 247
Grassroots Ecumenism 249
Cultural 250
Power Encounter 250
Shamanism 251
Summary 255

8 Conclusion257

Appendices263

Bibliography273

Index319
 Abbreviations

CES China Evangelical Seminary (Taipei)

CIM China Inland Mission
FGBMFI Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International
KMT Kuomintang
OMF Overseas Missionary Fellowship
PCT Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
TCGS Taiwan Church Growth Society
TJC Truth Jesus Church

xxi
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 This photograph was published on page 14 of Full Gospel

Business Men’s Voice 6, no. 1, February 1958. Left to right:
Harold Herman, Madame Ho, Dr. and Pastor Chen, and
Madame Wang. I am thankful to FGBMFI for granting me
permission to reprint the image in this book. Full Gospel Business
Men’s Fellowship International80
Fig. 3.2 This photograph was published on page 28 of Full Gospel
Business Men’s Voice 6, no. 1, February 1958. Left to right:
Major General Wu, Chang Ching-yu, S. S. Hwa, and Thomas
C. Kung. I am thankful to FGBMFI for granting me permission
to reprint the image in this book. Full Gospel Business Men’s
Fellowship International81
Fig. 3.3 This photograph was taken by the author on October 4, 2018,
at Oral Roberts University. The first flag on the left side of the
Praying Hands is Taiwan’s national flag. (Photograph by author)87
Fig. 4.1 This photograph was taken in May 1979. Left: Tom Nian-chun
Liu 劉念群, Vice-Chairman of the FGBMFI Taiwan Chapter. I
am very grateful to Liu Nian-chun’s wife, Liu Lin Ming-yueh 劉
林明月, and their son, David Yu-chu Liu 劉昱初, for sharing the
photograph and for granting me permission to include it in this
work. Personal Collection of Liu Nian-chun’s Family106

xxiii
Administrative Divisions of Taiwan
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The growth of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan is a fascinating phe-

nomenon. Treading on a path that none have gone before, this book
traces the contour of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan’s church his-
tory from 1900 to 2000, while giving special attention to the years from
1970 to 1995, which is when the movement took flight, gained currency,
and was popularized.
Instead of focusing on the development of the Charismatic Movement
in a single denomination, this research examines several churches or com-
munity clusters that I regard as more influential in informing the trajec-
tory of the movement in Taiwan. Due to the limited scope of this book,
my discussion centers on the activities among missionaries and “Han”
Christians on the island, whereas the experiences of non-Han Christians
(i.e., Aborigines) are circumscribed. “Han” is an umbrella term used in
Mandarin Chinese for those whom most people in the United States think
of as ethnically Chinese.1

1
Anthropologist Melissa Brown’s explanation of “Chinese” is succinct and lucid: “The
English term ‘Chinese’ can refer to ethnic identity (Americans of Chinese ancestry) or to
national identity (citizens of the PRC). In Mandarin Chinese, the official language of both
Taiwan and China, the distinction appears clear: han ren (lit., ‘Han person’) refers to the Han
ethnic majority, whom most Americans would think of as the ethnic Chinese. (Han are the
ethnic majority both in China and in Taiwan.) Zhongguo ren (lit., ‘China person’) refers to
national citizenship and includes all 56 minzu (ethnic groups) officially recognized in China.
However, the use of zhongguo ren in Taiwan is complicated by the term’s earlier political

© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. C. P. Lin, The Charismatic Movement in Taiwan from 1945 to
1995, Christianity and Renewal - Interdisciplinary Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48084-4_1
2 J. C. P. LIN

As exciting as the study is, this project is as daunting as any project that
attempts to reconstruct history through working with primary sources.
Unlike some may believe, primary sources are not necessarily more readily
available and accessible for researchers who work on a project that is situ-
ated in the recent past. The scarcity of primary sources of the early history
of Pentecostalism is well noted.2 Since no research of this scale has ever
been produced at a scholarly level, I began my research with little knowl-
edge of where my primary sources are and—perhaps even more drasti-
cally—what they might be. The identification of primary sources for this
project, including eyewitness accounts of living figures, was an ongoing
task that continued well into the writing stage. The incorporation of oral
history into this study is yet another challenge, which will be addressed in
this chapter.

Significance of the Study

Challenges aside, the current project is significant in a number of ways.
First, it is the first work that presents to the academic arena a more com-
prehensive picture of the historical development of the Charismatic
Movement in Taiwan in the twentieth century. The breadth of the discus-
sion enables me to compare and contrast how the movement has been
perceived and received by churches across denominations over a span
of time.
While the study of the Holy Spirit had long been regarded as “the
Cinderella of Western theology,”3 it has since generated much enthusiasm
in the field of theology. This recent movement is evidenced by the mush-
rooming of publications on a range of subjects from theology, biblical
studies, hermeneutics, history, to ethics, mission, ecumenism, inter-faith

uses: under the martial law rule of the Nationalist party (1947–1987), the term was used to
support Taiwan’s claims to ruling mainland China.” Melissa J. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese?
The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2004), 1. In her work, Brown uses “Han” to refer to ethnic identity and
“Chinese” only to refer to national identification with China. For historical reasons,
“Chinese” is still retained in this book to refer to the ethnic identity of those who reside in
Taiwan, but used only sporadically.
2
Cornelius van der Laan, “Historical Approaches,” in Studying Global Pentecostalism:
Theories and Methods, ed. Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers, and Cornelis
van der Laan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 213–4.
3
Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2001), 1.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

dialogue, and so on in which the Holy Spirit is of central focus.4 The

Pentecostalism that was once disparaged as emotionalism and non-­
intellectual seems to have been slowly vindicated by the increasingly
sophisticated writings of pentecostal scholars in the English language.
With the leading effort of Walter Hollenweger (1927–2016), the
pentecostal-­turned-Reformed minister, Pentecostalism has now become a
recognized sub-discipline of theology.5 In contrast, scholarly study of the
Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement among Taiwanese scholars in the field
of theology is still in an inchoate stage. The shortage of pentecostal-­
charismatic scholars in Taiwan and a long-held negative view of the subject
matter by Taiwanese scholars could perhaps account for its impoverished
status in academia. Thus, the significance of this study lies, secondly, in its
attempt at providing Taiwanese scholarship with a more sympathetic
account of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan.
The growth of the Charismatic Movement in Taiwan since 1980 is
known to many Taiwanese Christians, but lesser known is the history lead-
ing to 1980. During this time, early charismatic missionaries made crucial
contributions that should be included in a more holistic narrative. By con-
necting the dots and offering a more thorough treatment of history, the
book offers the Church in Taiwan and missionaries involved in the move-
ment an opportunity to appreciate the past.
Lastly, as I engage in this work from a Taiwanese perspective, I see
people in Taiwan as being the Subject in history, instead of an appendage
of someone else’s subjectivity as has long been perceived (more below). By
reconfiguring historiography from a Taiwanese perspective, I wish to

4
For example, Amos Yong, Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the
Spirit Blow Through the Middle Way? (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Nimi Wariboko, The Pentecostal
Principle: Ethical Methodology in New Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012); Simon Chan,
Pentecostal Theology and the Christian Spiritual Tradition (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011);
Wolfgang Vondey, Pentecostalism and Christian Unity: Ecumenical Documents and Critical
Assessments (Eugene: Pickwick, 2010); Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 years
of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901–2001 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001);
Walter J. Hollenweger, Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (Peabody:
Hendrickson Publishers, 1997); Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit
in the Letters of Paul (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994); Cheryl Bridges Johns, Pentecostal
Formation: A Pedagogy Among the Oppressed (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993).
5
Allan H. Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity,
2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 244.
4 J. C. P. LIN

challenge the academic circle also to take seriously the “Taiwanese con-
sciousness” when engaging Taiwan’s history.6

History of Research
Within academia, serious scholarly writings on the Charismatic Movement
in Taiwan are scarce; and until around 2005, evaluations of the movement
in a more positive light were even less common. The first edited quasi-­
scholarly work, Lingen Yundong zhi Yanjiu (Research on the Charismatic
Movement) appeared in 1987,7 around fifteen years after the work of the
Holy Spirit had already greatly stirred up the Tayal tribe, one of the
aboriginal tribes in Taiwan (Chap. 4). The work was published by Yu-Shan
Theological College and Seminary in Taiwan, a Presbyterian institution
that primarily serves aboriginal communities. One of the purposes of the
small book is to serve as a corrective to the “erratic” charismatic phenom-
ena among aboriginal people groups in Taiwan (Chap. 6).
China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei published an edited work,
Shengling Gujinlun (The Holy Spirit Then and Now), in 1999.8 Heavy on
biblical, historical, and theological studies, the work only engages limited
discussion on the contemporary charismatic phenomena in Taiwan.
Scholars Samuel H. H. Chiow and Peter K. Chow from China Evangelical
Seminary published Lingen Shenxue yu Lishi Tantao (Charismatic Theology
and History, 1999) and Rongyao Guang zhong Huoshui Quan: Lun Jiuen
yu Lingen (The Glorious Light and the Living Water: Salvation and

6
As such, I decisively critique the regrettable mistake of including a map that indicates that
Taiwan is a province of China in Fenggang Yang, Joy K. C. Tong, Allan Anderson, Global
Chinese Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2017), xiv.
7
Chen Nan-jou 陳南州 ed., Lingen yundong zhi yanjiu: Taiwan shandi jiaohui he pushi
jiaohui de yixie guandian 靈恩運動之研究: 台灣山地教會和普世教會的一些觀點
[Charismatic Movement: Some perspectives from the tribal churches in Taiwan and the
global church] (Hualien: Yu-Shan Theological College and Seminary, 1987). In this book, I
have chosen to respect the common spelling of names and place names in Taiwan, which is
traditionally in Wade-Giles, except when individuals have adopted another form of spelling,
such as the Pèh-ō e-jı̄ orthography (an orthography that is used to write Taiwanese Hokkien).
The transliteration of book titles in footnotes will be rendered in Pinyin for ease of reference.
8
Archie Wang-do Hui 許宏度 ed. Shengling gujinlun: Cong shengjing, lishi, shenxue kan
Shen de tongzai 聖靈古今論: 從聖經, 歷史, 神學看神的同在 [The Holy Spirit then and now:
Discussing God’s presence from biblical, historical, and theological perspectives] (Taipei:
China Evangelical Seminary, 1999).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Charismaticism, 2002), respectively.9 While Samuel Chiow explores how

the Holy Spirit was understood by the Church and church fathers in his-
tory, Peter K. Chow discusses the charismatic theology and phenomena
from an evangelical perspective. A part of both works addresses the
Charismatic Movement in Taiwan, although their discussions seem to be
more prescriptive than descriptive.
Long snubbed by Taiwanese theological scholars, the Charismatic
Movement in Taiwan finally received more attention by Taiwanese schol-
arship in the 2000s, with Taiwan Theological College and Seminary (here-
after Taiwan Theological Seminary)—a Presbyterian seminary in
Taipei—spearheading the effort. Under the leadership of Lin Hong-hsin,10
professor of systematic theology at Taiwan Theological Seminary, semi-
narians have made over a dozen of trips to Tayal churches in Hsinchu since
1999 to conduct interviews with tribal members who had experienced the
1972 Tayal Revival, and the children of Tayal tribe members who had
been affected.11 The interview materials were subsequently complied and
published as Shanjian Lingfeng chui qi: Taiyaer de suxing (The Tayal
Revival) in October 2019. The seminary-wide effort that engages in oral
history continues to this day. Further, Shih Shu-ying, former professor of
systematic theology from the same seminary, organized several scholarly
conferences in the latter half of the 2000s to explore such themes as
“Demon Possession and Exorcism” and “Charismatic Movement.” Papers
from the colloquium were subsequently collected in Jidu Zongjiao yu
Lingen Yundong Lunwenji (Christian Religion and the Charismatic
Movement in Taiwan, 2012),12 which engages the ongoing Charismatic

9
Samuel H. H. Chiow, Lingen shenxue yu lishi tantao 靈恩神學與歷史探討 [Charismatic
theology and history] (Taipei: China Evangelical Seminary, 1999); Peter K. Chow 周功和,
Rongyao guang zhong huoshui quan: Lun jiuen yu lingen 榮耀光中活水泉: 論救恩與靈恩
[The glorious light and the living water: Salvation and charismaticism] (Taipei: China
Evangelical Seminary, 2002).
10
Lin Hong-hsin 林鴻信 studied under Jürgen Moltmann, and produced a dissertation on
pneumatology in Reformed theology: “Die Person des Heiligen Geistes als Thema der
Pneumatologie in der Reformierten Theologie” (D. Theology diss., Tübingen
University, 1990).
11
Taiwan Graduate School of Theology’s Center for the Study of Christian Thought ed.,
Shanjian Lingfeng chui qi: Taiyaer de suxing 山間靈風吹起:泰雅爾的甦醒 [The Tayal
Revival] (New Taipei City: Gan Lan, 2019), 307.
12
Shih Shu-ying 石素英 ed., Jidu zongjiao yu lingen yundong lunwenji: Yi Taiwan chujing
wei zhuzhou 基督宗教與靈恩運動論文集: 以台灣處境為主軸 [Christian religion and the
Charismatic Movement in Taiwan], (Taipei: Yong Wang, 2012).
6 J. C. P. LIN

Movement in Taiwan far more seriously than previous works referenced.

Also commendable is the publication of Chuanyue Chuantong de Jilie
Shensheng Huiyu (An Intense Divine Encounter Beyond Tradition, 2012),
which documents the charismatic experiences of two dozens of Christians
in Taiwan.13 Edited by Shih Shu-ying, the work gives voice to those who
had long been rendered voiceless, and charismatic phenomena appear to
have grown into experiences that are worth recognizing within Taiwanese
scholarship.
Treatments of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in Taiwan by
non-Taiwanese scholars or missionaries from the West tend to be less reac-
tionary. Murray A. Rubinstein from the United States has written on the
True Jesus Church, the New Testament Church, and the Assemblies of
God in Taiwan.14 Also from the United States, a section of the Doctor of
Missiology dissertation of missionary Robert Donnell McCall (1927–1997)
at Fuller Theological Seminary investigates how the charismatic message
impacted the church’s growth in the 1980s.15 Another US missionary and
scholar, Ralph R. Covell (d. 2013 at the age of ninety), discusses the
Charismatic Movement among aboriginal people groups in Taiwan—but
he simply re-narrates others’ writings, which constitute only a few pages in
his Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan.16 In contrast to what some may have

13
Shih Shu-ying ed., Chuanyue chuantong de jilie shensheng huiyu: Taiwan Jidu zhanglao
jiaohui lingen yundong fangtan jilu 穿越傳統的激烈神聖會遇: 台灣基督長老教會靈恩運動
訪談記錄 [An intense divine encounter beyond tradition: Interview transcripts concerning
the Charismatic Movement within the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan] (Taipei: Yong
Wang, 2012).
14
Murray A. Rubinstein, “Holy Spirit Taiwan: Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in
the Republic of China,” in Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present,
ed. Daniel H. Bays (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 353–66; “The New
Testament Church and the Taiwanese Protestant Community,” in Christianity in China,
445–73; Rubinstein, The Protestant Community on Modern Taiwan: Mission, Seminary, and
Church (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), 86–93, 117–47; Rubinstein, “Evangelical
Spring: The Origin of the True Jesus Church on Taiwan, 1925–1926” (Paper presented at
the sixteenth annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Costa Mesa, CA,
November 13–15, 1986).
15
Robert Donnell McCall “Conversion, Acculturation, Revitalization: The History of
Fataan Presbyterian Church in Kwangfu, Taiwan, 1934–1994” (D. Miss. diss., Fuller
Theological Seminary, Pasadena, 1995).
16
Ralph Covell, Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan: The Christian Faith among the Original
Inhabitants (Pasadena, CA: Hope Pub. House, 1998), 271–8. Another important work that
discusses the mass conversion of the Aborigines to Christianity after WWII in Taiwan is
George F. Vicedom, Faith that Moves Mountains: A Study Report on the Amazing Growth
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

been led to believe, Pentecost of the Hills in Taiwan is not a book on the
Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement among aboriginal peoples in Taiwan.
“Pentecostal” in Covell’s work refers to the mass conversion of aboriginal
people in Taiwan after the Second World War. It is likely that charismatic
phenomena were not left wanting during the mass conversion,17 yet more
research is required to demonstrate this point.
The emergence of Joshua Sian-chin Iap, the first Taiwanese Pentecostal
scholar (with a doctoral degree), in the 2010s, has added a long-needed
and meaningful voice to the discussion of the Charismatic Movement in
Taiwan.18 While several Taiwanese theological scholars have produced
article-length studies on the subject, few would identify themselves as
Pentecostals or Charismatics. Taking Pentecostal theology as a starting
point, Iap’s works often interact with the current Charismatic Movement
in Taiwan, which perspective has been lacking in the guild heretofore.
The most recent work on the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in
Taiwan in the English language appeared in 2016, which is co-authored
by Joshua Iap and Maurie Sween.19 The article surveys the historical devel-
opment and theology of various Pentecostal-Charismatic churches in
Taiwan, albeit only at an introductory level. In sum, the present scholarly
writings on the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in Taiwan are mostly
article-length studies or limited in scope to particular churches. The article
by Iap and Sween (2016) is an attempt to extend the breadth of the study,
yet it is limited by length.

and Present Life of the Church among the Mountain Tribes of Taiwan (Taiwan: China
Post, 1967).
17
For example, Ruth Winslow, The Mountains Sing: God’s Love Revealed to Taiwan Tribes
(Winona Lake: Light and Life, 1984), 42.
18
Joshua Iap’s PhD dissertation is on “Quanqiu Wuxunjie yundong shiyexia de Zhenyesu
Jiaohui” 全球五旬節運動視野下的真耶穌教會 [The formation of the True Jesus Church: A
perspective from the global Pentecostal Movement] (PhD diss., National Chengchi
University, Taiwan, 2016).
19
Iap Sian-Chin and Maurie Sween, “Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in Protestant
Taiwan,” in Global Renewal Christianity: Spirit-Empowered Movements Past, Present, and
Future, vol 1, Asia and Oceania, ed. Vinson Synan and Amos Yong (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma
House, 2016), 127–41.
8 J. C. P. LIN

Terminology

Pentecostal? Charismatic? Renewal?

Choosing between “Pentecostal” and “Charismatic” is a thorny issue
when it comes to research located in Taiwan. The New International
Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements identifies three
waves of the Renewal in the Holy Spirit in the twentieth century: the
Classical Pentecostal Movement that originated from the Azusa Street
Revival in 1906; the Charismatic Movement that emerged from within
historical denominations in the middle of the twentieth century; and the
Neocharismatics as a “catch-all category that comprises 18,810 indepen-
dent, indigenous, postdenominational groups that cannot be classified as
either pentecostal or charismatic but share a common emphasis on the
Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, pentecostal-like experiences … , signs and won-
ders, and power encounter.”20
At the risk of oversimplification,21 I recognize that the threefold classi-
fication is a useful starting point, not least because the development of the
Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement in Taiwan is appreciably influenced by
a great number of pentecostal-charismatic missionaries, who brought with
them distinctive theological beliefs, be it Pentecostal, Charismatic, or even
“Third Wave.”22 Hence, when there is no need for generalization, this
book will continue to use the terms “Pentecostal” or “Charismatic” in
congruence with how churches or individuals identify themselves, unless a
narrower definition is required.
In English language literature, scholars often use “P/pentecostal” and
“P/pentecostalism” as umbrella terms “to include all the different forms
of ‘spiritual gifts’ movements.”23 Since the Azusa Street Revival

20
Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas, ed. The New International Dictionary
of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), xx. For
critique of such categorization, see Cornelius van der Laan, “Historical Approaches.”
21
Cf. Allan Anderson, “Varieties, Taxonomies, and Definitions,” in Studying global
Pentecostalism, 15.
22
In Taiwan, C. Peter Wagner’s Three-Wave theory is popular within churches, yet it fails
to accurately account for global Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements. See C. Peter Wagner,
The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit: Encountering the Power of Signs and Wonders Today (Ann
Arbor, MI: Servant, 1988), 15–9. For a critique, see Anderson, An Introduction to
Pentecostalism, 5–6, 62, 158.
23
For example, Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 6; Amos Yong, The Spirit
Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 18.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

(1906–1909) quickly spread into a worldwide movement,24 it is

­understandable why “Pentecostalism” became the generic term for all
later forms of “spiritual gifts” movements that often find roots in earlier
“Pentecostal” history.
The convention notwithstanding, I suggest that for this research within
the Taiwanese context, “C/charismatic” functions better as an umbrella
term than “P/pentecostal” for historical and linguistic reasons. First,
unlike Classical Pentecostal denominations that have remained influential
in the United States and worldwide since their inception in the early twen-
tieth century,25 such denominations have hardly galvanized any extensive
excitement in Taiwan, which is a curious phenomenon that awaits separate
research.26 Rather, it is the global “spiritual gifts” movements in the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century, which are often, but not exclusively,
associated with the global Charismatic Movement, or Charismatic
Renewal, that have widely captured the imagination and attention of
Taiwanese Christians, and have exerted far-reaching influence on Taiwanese
churches.
Another reason why the term “C/charismatic” is preferable in com-
parison to “P/pentecostal” for this particular study pertains to language
use. In Mandarin Chinese—one of the widely used official languages in
Taiwan—the most commonly adopted blanket terms that include differ-
ent forms of “spiritual gifts” movements are lingen 靈恩 (literally: “spirit
grace”; trans. charismatic), or lingen yundong 靈恩運動 (Charismatic
Movement), instead of wuxunjie (de) 五旬節(的) (literally: “pertaining to
the feast of fifty days”; trans. pentecostal),27 or wuxunjie jiaopai 五旬節教
派 (Pentecostalism).

24
Cecil M. Robeck Jr., Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal
Movement (Nashville: Nelson Reference & Electronic, 2006), 8. While the Welsh Revival
(1904–1905) and the North-East Indian Revival (1905) predate the Azusa Street Revival in
1906, the Azusa Street’s message wielded global influence as its missionary program sur-
passed all others in scale.
25
Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 52–3, 72, 113–4; Walter J. Hollenweger,
“After twenty years research on Pentecostalism,” International Review of Mission, no. 75
(January 1986): 6.
26
Allen J. Swanson provides some possible reasons for the slow growth of the Assemblies
of God in Taiwan in Taiwan: Mainline versus Independent Church Growth: A Study in
Contrasts (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1970), 117–21.
27
In Mandarin Chinese, wuxunjie (de) is incomplete when standing alone. A noun has to
be followed immediately after in order to make sense of the phrase (e.g., wuxunjie jiaohui,
Pentecostal Church), and in which case, de is omitted.
10 J. C. P. LIN

When Pentecostalism first arrived in the Chinese-speaking regions soon

after the Azusa Street Revival, the term wuxunjie (de) (pentecostal) was
employed within the official pentecostal circle: Mok Lai Chi (Mo Lizhi) in
Hong Kong edited and published the first issue of a pentecostal monthly
paper in Chinese, Wuxunjie zhenlibao 五旬節真理報 (Pentecostal Truths),
in January 1908.28 The usage of wuxunjie in relation to pentecostal groups
is therefore as old as the appearance of the twentieth-century Pentecostals
in the Chinese-speaking regions.
Use of the word “Pentecostal” in the English language evolved consid-
erably in the twentieth century, so much so that it has grown from a set of
denominational doctrines and expressions to a generic term used to
describe all churches and movements that emphasize the gifts of the Holy
Spirit. An “imported” word that does not already exist in the Chinese
language, the term wuxunjie (de) (pentecostal) has hardly caught on
among Christians in Taiwan, possibly because the plain wuxunjie
(Pentecost; literally: “the feast of fifty days”) is meaningless in Mandarin
Chinese, until one puts it in the Christian context.
In contrast, lingen 靈恩, literally translated as “spirit grace,” is a more
colorful term. While it does not already exist in the Chinese language,
either, the term, at face value, conveys the idea of “something spiritual,
while grace is somehow involved.” Semantically, therefore, lingen more
aptly captures the essence of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Movement, in
which spiritual gifts are greatly emphasized. It is thus perhaps unsurprising
why the more descriptive lingen (charismatic) is preferred over wuxunjie
(de) (pentecostal) among Chinese-speaking Christians in the long run to
refer to different forms of “spiritual gifts” movements. Yet, this preference
may have also come at a cost, as usage of the phenomenologically derived
lingen may have in turn contributed to an (over-)emphasis on lived experi-
ences at the expense of doctrines within the pentecostal-charismatic com-
munity among the Chinese-speaking population.29

28
Robeck, Azusa Street, 257. For Mok Lai Chi, see also Daniel H. Bays, “Indigenous
Protestant Churches in China, 1900–1937: A Pentecostal Case Study,” in Indigenous
Responses to Western Christianity, ed. Steven Kaplan (New York: New York University Press,
1995), 129.
29
In a similar vein, Allan Anderson suggests that since “Pentecostalism” is concerned pri-
marily with “the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit and the practice of spiritual
gifts,” any definition on Pentecostalism based on theology or doctrine will be inadequate
(Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism, 6). Nonetheless, it is impossible to dissociate
“Pentecostalism” from certain doctrines in the English language, as Pentecostalism has sub-
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

More research is needed to determine when and how the term lingen
靈恩 (charismatic) first appeared within the pentecostal circle in the
Chinese-speaking regions. A brief survey of existing research shows that
lingen is used frequently, comfortably, and sometimes loosely, as early as
1925 in the True Jesus Church’s Shenglingbao 聖靈報 (Holy Spirit
Paper).30 Often, lingen is employed in the Holy Spirit Paper to describe
pentecostal meetings (lingen dahui 靈恩大會),31 pentecostal teachings
(jieshou lingen 接受靈恩),32 and experiences to be sought (zhuanqiu lin-
gen 專求靈恩; qieqiu lingen 切求靈恩).33 Moreover, lingen is believed to
carry power that is able to heal and to deliver people from demons as well
as sins.34 As Holy Spirit Paper compiled reports and testimonies from True
Jesus churches all over China, it is safe to say that by 1925, lingen not only
had matured but also was widely used at least within the True Jesus com-
munities in China.

sequently evolved into an institution. The term lingen in the Chinese language, on the other
hand, cannot be said to have been institutionalized, but has remained a thorough-going
phenomenologically derived adjective, much more so than “Pentecostalism” in the English
language.
30
In this book, the first time I cite a journal, magazine, or newspaper title published in
Mandarin Chinese, I will provide the original Chinese characters, the transliteration of the
characters, and an English translation of the journal title. Since my target audience is English-
speaking readers who do not necessarily speak or read Chinese, when I cite a journal, maga-
zine, or newspaper in subsequent notes, I will only use the English translation, which conveys
more clearly the nature of sources, and also for ease of reference. Readers should be able to
tell that such a title was originally published in Chinese from the article title, which offers
original Chinese characters, their transliteration, and the title’s English translation. When in
doubt, consult the bibliography.
31
For example, “Shanghai benhui baogao” 上海本會報告 [Report from Shanghai],
Shenglingbao 聖靈報 [Holy Spirit Paper], no. 1, March 1925; “Shen yi sanshi yu nian zhi
qichuan kesoubing” 神醫三十餘年之氣喘咳嗽病 [God heals thirty years of asthma], Holy
Spirit Paper 2, no. 4, April 1927.
32
For example, Barnaba Chang 張巴拏巴, “Budao jilue” 佈道記略 [A brief report of an
evangelistic ministry], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 4, September 1925.
33
For example, “QuanMin benhui dierci dajuhui shengkuang” 全閩本會第二次大聚會盛
況 [The second conference well attended in Min], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 1, March 1925;
“Hubei” 湖北 [Hubei], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 5, November 1925.
34
For example, Lo Ko-ching 羅客卿 “Shubao xuanchuan zhi xiaoyan” 書報宣傳之効驗
[The effects of paper advertising], Holy Spirit Paper 1, no. 2, September 1926; Chou Chun-
chang 周鈞章, “Zhengming zhuen” 證明主恩 [Testifying God’s grace], Holy Spirit Paper 2,
no. 7, July 1927; Wang No-fu 汪挪弗, “Nanchang benhui ge lingbao mengen jianzheng” 南
昌本會各靈胞蒙恩見證 [Testimonies from members in Nanchang], Holy Spirit Paper 2, no.
11, December 1927.
12 J. C. P. LIN

Watchman Nee (Nee To-sheng) 倪柝聲, one of the most prolific

Chinese Christian writers in the first half of the twentieth century, com-
monly used wuxunjie (de) to refer to pentecostal groups and their related
phenomena, such as wuxunjie yundong (the Pentecostal Movement),35
wuxunjiehui (pentecostal churches),36 wuxunjiepai de ren (Pentecostal
Christians),37 and wuxunjie de jingli (pentecostal experiences).38 Although
Nee did not commonly use lingen to describe those same groups, at least
two letters circulated within Nee’s circle in the 1930s did,39 and one of
Nee’s associates used lingjinpai 靈浸派 (literally, “Spirit immersion
group”) at least once, to refer to pentecostal groups.40

35
For example, Watchman Nee, “Wen da (ba)” 問答 (八) [Question and answer box (8)]
(April 1927), in Ni Tuosheng wenji di yi ji di qi ce: Jidutu Bao (juan wu) 倪柝聲文集第一集
第7冊: 基督徒報 (卷五) [The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (Set 1) Vol. 7: The
Christian (5)], 4th ed. (Taipei: Taiwan fuyin shufang, 2004), 182. For the English transla-
tion of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, see Living Stream Ministry, “Books by
Watchman Nee,” Living Stream Ministry, https://www.ministrybooks.org/watchman-nee-
books.cfm (accessed July 28, 2018).
36
For example, Watchman Nee, “Jiaru jiaohui” 加入教會 [Joining the church] (July 12,
1950), in Ni Tuosheng wen ji di san ji di sishiba ce: Guanyu chuxin zaojiu juhui, chuxin zaojiu
(shang) 倪柝聲文集第三集第48冊: 關於初信造就聚會 初信造就 (上) [The Collected Works
of Watchman Nee (Set 3) Vol. 48: Messages for building up new believers (1)], 4th ed.
(Taipei: Taiwan fuyin shufang, 2004), 114.
37
For example, Watchman Nee, “De Shengling jiaoguan de tiaojian yu zhuyi shixiang” 得
聖靈澆灌的條件與注意事項 [The conditions for receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
and things to watch out for] (November 18, 1935), in Ni Tuosheng wen ji di er ji di sishiyi ce:
Tehui, sinxi, ji tanhua jilu (juan yi) 倪柝聲文集第二集第41冊: 特會、信息、及談話記錄 (
卷一) [The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (Set 2) Vol. 41: Conferences, Messages, and
Fellowship (1)], 4th ed. (Taipei: Taiwan fuyin shufang, 2004), 151.
38
Watchman Nee, “Women shi shenme” 我們是甚麼 [What are we?] (January 1934), in
Ni Tuosheng wen ji di yi ji di shiyi ce: Fu Xing Bao (juan si) 倪柝聲文集第一集第11冊: 復興
報 (卷四) [The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (Set 1) Vol. 11: The Present Testimony
(4)], 4th ed. (Taipei: Taiwan fuyin shufang, 2004), 163.
39
Lingenhui 靈恩會 (charismatic group) appeared in Yuan Ching-chou 袁進舟 and Yuan
His-ling 袁洗鱗, “Di er qi: Linzi laixin” 第二期: 臨淄來信 [Issue No. 2: Letter from Ling
Tzu, Shantung] (December 14, 1933), and An Ching-t’ien 安靜天, “Di ba qi: Changchun
Zhu Jia Cheng Zi jinxun” 第八期: 長春朱家城子近訊 [Issue No. 8: Recent News from Chu
Chia Cheng Tze, Ch’ang-Ch’un, Manchuria] (June 8, 1934), in Ni Tuosheng wen ji di er ji
di ershiwu ce: Tong Wen Hui Kan (juan yi) 倪柝聲文集第二集第25冊: 通問彙刊 (卷一) [The
Collected Works of Watchman Nee (Set 2) Vol. 25: Collection of Newsletters (1)], 4th ed.
(Taipei: Taiwan fuyin shufang, 2004), 34, 206.
40
Chang Wen-wei 張文蔚, “Di liu qi: Dalian laixin” 第六期: 大連來信 [Issue No. 6: A
Letter from Dairen, Manchuria] (April 14, 1934), in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee
(Set 2) Vol. 25: Collection of Newsletters (1), 165.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

The question of when the term lingen first appeared in Taiwan is yet
another topic that requires further research. While True Jesus churches
started work in Japan-ruled Taiwan as early as 1925,41 the term lingen
appeared only once in the eighteen reports on Taiwan in the Holy Spirit
Paper from 1925 to 1949 (which can be found on the True Jesus Church’s
website, but note that these issues are incomplete). In that single occur-
rence, lingen is used in conjunction with testimony (lingen jianzheng,
trans. pentecostal testimony).42
Even though the True Jesus Church headquarter eventually reestab-
lished in Taiwan in 1956, lingen was not commonly used in reports on
Taiwan in Holy Spirit Paper published in the 1950s and the 1960s to refer
to charismatic phenomena. All usages of lingen in these two decades were
in conjunction with meetings or conferences (lingenhui, or lingen dahui),43
except for once when it refers to pentecostal experiences (qiqiu lingen 祈
求靈恩).44 It is therefore my speculation that the understanding of the
term lingen in the “charismatic phenomena” sense—which is how it is
commonly understood in contemporary Taiwan—may have “traveled” to
Taiwan with other Christian groups that moved to Taiwan with Chiang
Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in the late 1940s (more below on his-
tory), and was popularized by preachers therewithin, instead of by the
already existing True Jesus churches on the island.

41
“Guowai: Riben yi you lingbao juhui le” 國外: 日本已有靈胞聚會了 [Overseas: There
are now True Jesus members in Japan], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 5, November 1925.
42
Tsai Sheng-min 蔡聖民, “Taiwan Jiayi benhui lingen jianzheng” 臺灣嘉義本會靈恩見證
[Pentecostal testimony from Jiayi, Taiwan], Holy Spirit Paper 8, no. 11–2, December 1933.
43
For example, Wang Chin-lu 王進祿, “Zhu shifang wo” 主釋放我 [God delivered me],
Holy Spirit Paper, no. 36, April 1951; Pan Lin Yueh-yun 潘林月雲, “Zhongbing deyu” 重病
得癒 [Healed from severe sickness], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 44, April 1954; Hsu Tung-lin 許
東林, “Jilong Jiaohui lingen budaohui mengen jianzheng” 基隆教會靈恩佈道會蒙恩見證
[Testimonies from a Pentecostal evangelistic meeting in Keelung], Holy Spirit Paper, no.
205, September 1967; Tien Chi A-pien 田吉阿變, “Wojia guiru Zhenjiaohui de jingguo” 我
家歸入真教會的經過 [How I joined the True Church], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 207,
November 1967; Tsao Jen-sheng 曹忍聖, “Chuisi yinghai shoujin zhongsheng” 垂死嬰孩受
浸重生 [A nearly dead infant regained life], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 220, December 1968;
Hsieh Yu-ying 謝玉英, “Daogao zhong kanjian yixiang” 禱告中看見異象 [Seeing visions in
prayer], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 227, July 1969.
44
Chen Pi-te 陳彼得, “Bei gui kunbang meng Zhu shifang” 被鬼捆綁蒙主釋放 [Delivered
from demons by God], Holy Spirit Paper, no. 199, March 1967.
14 J. C. P. LIN

Due to these historical and linguistic reasons, I believe that “C/charis-

matic” will be a better umbrella term than “P/pentecostal” for this study.
Nonetheless, not all churches or Christians involved in the movement in
Taiwan are in favor of the term “Charismatic Movement,” as some believe
that the term carries negative connotations with which they wish to dis-
sociate. One of my high-profile informants from a charismatic church
communicated to me during our interview that he would not wish to
participate in my project, should my research use the term “Charismatic
Movement,” or even “Charismatic Renewal”; only “Renewal” is accept-
able to him. Even though we finished our interview, this research is unable
to include his voice as a result of his inclination. The Presbyterian Church
in Taiwan that prefers the term “Holy Spirit Renewal Movement” over the
“Charismatic Movement” is another example (Chap. 6). While several
other informants from charismatic churches are also hesitant to self-­
identify as wholehearted Charismatics due to strong evangelical identifica-
tion, they readily acknowledge that they are participating in the Charismatic
Movement.
It is therefore after much thought and deliberation that I have decided
to adopt “Charismatic Movement” as the umbrella term I will use for this
project. The choice enables me to assess the strengths and weaknesses of
the movement more objectively, and to negotiate properly between con-
textual needs while maintaining clarity as I present the materials in the
English language. When there is a decided Pentecostal presence or repre-
sentation, however, “P/pentecostal-C/charismatic” will be utilized.
Occasionally, I will follow the authors and adopt the term “charismatic
renewal” in accordance with how it appears in publications.

“Taiwanese”: A Hard-Fought Identity

People from outside of Taiwan may be surprised to learn that the existence
and usage of the term “Taiwanese” is hardly a given. While “Taiwanese”
today can function simply as a modifier that describes things or people of
Taiwan—in a similar way to terms like Canadian, Nigerian, or Peruvian—
that has not been the case historically. Before 1990, the term could not be
used without eliciting strongly positive or negative reactions when applied
to people residing in or from Taiwan, for historical, cultural, and sociopo-
litical reasons.
The various sensitivities toward the term “Taiwanese” have primarily to
do with how people in and from Taiwan understand who they are in
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

relation to the world in general and mainland China in particular. It is a

matter of self-identification, which is “formed and negotiated through
everyday experiences and social interactions.”45 Long ruled by the Other,
the ongoing battle for self-identification for people in Taiwan has been
treacherous.
Taiwan, 240 miles long and 85 miles wide at its broadest points, is an
island on the Western pacific rim, about 100 miles from the Southeast
coast of China. Taiwan was originally inhabited by Austronesian peoples,
who are officially known as “Taiwan Aboriginal Peoples” in Taiwan, since
at least 15,000 years ago,46 before a larger population of Han people
migrated from mainland China in the seventeenth century. As of 2018,
the Taiwanese government recognizes a total of sixteen different aborigi-
nal tribes in Taiwan.47
From the seventeenth century until the twentieth century, Taiwan was
occupied and ruled by the Dutch (1624–1661), Cheng Cheng-kung
(Zheng Chenggong, also known as Koxinga, 1661–1683), the Qing
dynasty (1683–1895), and then Japan (1895–1945).48 With Japan’s
unconditional surrender to the Allies in August 1945, Taiwan was retro-
ceded to China,49 under President Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist
government, also known as Kuomintang (KMT). Defeated by the
Communists on the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek’s government of the
Republic of China (ROC) retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
Before the arrival of an estimated one- to two-million “Mainlanders”—
those who migrated from mainland China to Taiwan with Chiang and
KMT—from 1948 to 1949, the population of Taiwan consisted of
Aborigines and the Han. Han people who had resided in Taiwan under

45
Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese?, 13.
46
Michael Stainton, “Politics of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins,” in Taiwan: A New History,
ed. Murray A. Rubinstein, exp. ed. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), 28–9. Stainton’s
article neatly discusses different theories of Taiwan Aboriginal origins, which serve different
political agendas.
47
Council of Indigenous Peoples. “The Tribes in Taiwan.” Council of Indigenous Peoples.
h t t p : / / w w w. a p c . g o v. t w / p o r t a l / c a t e I n f o . h t m l ? C I D = 5 D D 9 C 4 9 5 9 C 3 0 2 B 9
FD0636733C6861689 (accessed November 26, 2018).
48
John E. Wills Jr., “The Seventeenth-Century Transformation Taiwan Under the Dutch
and the Cheng Regime,” in Taiwan: A New History, 84–106; John R. Shepherd, “The
Island Frontier of the Ch’ing, 1684–1780,” in Taiwan: A New History, 107–32.
49
For why Taiwan was returned to China when Japan, in effect, surrendered to the Allies
and not to China, and how people in Taiwan were disadvantaged unjustly by Chiang Kai-
shek’s administration from 1945 to 1950, see George H. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed (Manchester,
UK: Camphor, 1997).
16 J. C. P. LIN

Japanese rule before 1945 can trace their ancestry largely to Fujian and
Guangdong Province in China. The Han are considered natives in Taiwan,
or as “Taiwanese” in the narrowest sense, in contrast with the “Aborigines,”
and the “Mainlanders” who arrived since 1945.
There was no sense of a broad, island-wide Taiwanese identity before
1895. The emergence of Taiwanese nationalism, or at least its roots, took
place during the 1920s and 1930s during the Japanese rule,50 but with
limited effectiveness.51 The tragic Er-er-ba shijian (“228 Incident”) in
1947 marked the watershed of Taiwanese nationalism.52
Enthusiasm of people in Taiwan for Taiwan’s retrocession to China in
1945 lasted for about six weeks, when the Taiwanese people’s optimistic
expectations from the Chinese government were swiftly demolished by
the unlawful acts of KMT soldiers and the looting of the new administra-
tors at a grand scale all over Taiwan.53 On February 27, 1947, a woman in
Taipei peddling cigarettes was accused by Monopoly Bureau agents of
handling untaxed cigarettes, who then seized her small stock and money.
When she fought back, the agents pistol whipped her, and fired upon the
gathering crowd, killing at least one person. Harbored with prolonged
frustration and anger, a crowd protested the incident the next day, which
turned into an island-wide uprising against KMT misrule. Governor Chen
Yi responded with the massacring of thousands of native Taiwanese on
February 28 and in March, which is dubbed the Er-er-ba shijian (“228
Incident”).54 An estimated 6000–20,000 native Taiwanese, many of whom

50
Evan N. Dawley, “The Question of Identity in Recent Scholarship on the History of
Taiwan,” The China Quarterly, no. 198 (June 2009): 445–8; Harry J. Lamley, “Taiwan
Under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945: The Vicissitudes of Colonialism,” in Taiwan: A New
History, 231–4; Chang Mau-kuei “On the Origin and Transformation of Taiwanese National
Identity,” in Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities, ed. Paul R. Katz and Murray
A. Rubinstein (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 31–5.
51
Daniel Lynch, “Taiwan’s Self-Conscious Nation-Building Project,” Asian Survey 44,
no. 4 (July/August 2004): 518; Chang, “On the Origin and Transformation of Taiwanese
National Identity,” 44.
52
Chang, “On the Origin and Transformation of Taiwanese National Identity,” 42.
53
Kerr, Formosa Betrayed, 75–87.
54
For the incident and its aftermath, see George H. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed. Kerr served as
vice consul of the US diplomatic mission in Taipei from 1945 to 1947 and was an eyewitness
to the February 28 Massacre and the subsequent mass arrests and executions. See also
Tillman Durdin, “Formosa killings are put at 10,000,” New York Times, March 29, 1947;
Peggy Durdin, “Terror in Taiwan,” The Nation, May 24, 1947; “Taiwan: China’s Unhappy
Colony,” The Nation, June 7, 1947.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

were societal elites, lost their lives as a result.55 The impact of this terrible
tragedy persists in Taiwanese society to this day.
Thanks to political propaganda, most Han people in Taiwan identified
themselves nationally as Zhongguo ren (literally, “China person”) from
1945 to the early 1990s—many by conviction and some by constraint. In
contrast, the term “Taiwanese,” prior to 1990, meant nothing more than
those who are native speakers of Minnan (Hoklo) and Kejia (Hokkien),56
and it was illegal to refer one’s national identity as “Taiwanese.”57 In other
words, while Zhongguo ren was the only politically accepted self-­
identification to characterize one’s nationality, “Taiwanese” was relegated
to indicating nothing more than one’s ethnic attribute. Deprived of equal
opportunities and short on political leverage, the “Taiwanese” people that
form about 85% of the population in Taiwan were not allowed to unite by
using the collective noun despite several attempts.58 Usage of the word
“Taiwanese” as an adjective that represents those living in Taiwan as a
whole was similarly not permitted. The task for formal self-identification
was reserved for, and only for, the politically charged Zhongguo ren.
For the majority of the twentieth century, the identity of people in
Taiwan was defined by whichever regime ruled the island, and was often
imposed on the inhabitants without their consent.59 Yet discrimination and
political repression faced by Taiwanese natives under Japanese rule and the
rule of the two Chiang dynasties could not suppress the construction of a

55
Kerr, Formosa Betrayed, 258.
56
Alan M. Wachman, “Competing Identities in Taiwan,” in The Other Taiwan: 1945 to the
Present, ed. Murray A. Rubinstein (London: Routledge, 2015), 23.
57
Tsai Duujian, “Shifting National Identities in Public Spheres: A Cultural Transformation
in Taiwan,” in Religion and the Formation of Taiwanese Identities, 78.
58
For Taiwan’s demography, see Allen J. Swanson, The Church in Taiwan: Profile 1980: A
Review of the Past, a Projection for the Future (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1981),
6–7. Taiwan’s population is generally described as 84–85% Taiwanese (10% Hakkas and 75%
Minnan), about 13–14% Mainlanders, and about 1–2% aboriginal peoples. For political activ-
ities in Taiwan, see Marc J. Cohen, Taiwan at the Crossroads: Human Rights, Political
Development and Social Change on the Beautiful Island (Washington, DC: Asia Resource
Center, 1988). Cohen’s fine work documents major political events and developments in
Taiwan from around 1943 to 1988.
59
Although after Japan gained control of Taiwan, registered inhabitants of Taiwan were
given a choice by the Japanese government to leave for China by May 8, 1897, or staying in
Taiwan and becoming Japanese citizens. Lamley, “Taiwan Under Japanese Rule,
1895–1945,” 208.
18 J. C. P. LIN

unified Taiwanese political identity. Such discourses, as might be antici-

pated, also often elicited pressure or vengeance from their oppressors.60
Taiwan’s democratization only made greater strides after the lifting of
martial law in 1987, when freedoms of speech, press, assembly, travel, and
association were gradually returned to the people.61 Taiwan’s democrati-
zation culminated in the first direct popular election of Taiwan’s president
in 1996.62 What emerged and then flourished in the 1990s was the robust
island-wide Taiwanese national identity, or “Taiwanese consciousness,”
when the climate was finally ready to cultivate a sense of “Taiwanese sub-
jectivity” (Taiwan zhutixing). The task was arduous, however, because
people in Taiwan “have never seen themselves as being a Subject in
History, only an appendage of someone else’s subjectivity—whether the
Manchu Qing Empire (1683–1895), the Japanese Empire (1895–1945),
or Republican China (1945–2000).”63 Different measures have been
taken to break free from the deep-rooted, forced “peripheralization” of
Taiwan in history, including rewriting history “from a Taiwanese
perspective.”64 Challenges notwithstanding, the blossoming of Taiwanese

60
For pressure under Japanese rule, see Tsai Pei-huo 蔡培火, Taiwan minzu yundongshi 台
灣民族運動史 [History of the national movement in Taiwan] (Taipei: Zi li wan bao, 1971).
For pressure under the Chiangs’ government, see Alan M. Wachman, Taiwan: National
Identity and Democratization (Milton Park, UK: Routledge, 2015), 132–41, and Li Hsiao-
feng 李筱峰, Taiwan minzhu yundong sishinian 台灣民主運動40年 [Forty years of demo-
cratic movements in Taiwan] (Taipei: Zi li wan bao, 1988). KMT’s efforts to squelch the
dissents over the years may have contributed inadvertently to the radicalization of the
Taiwanese opposition movement. There were also a number of dissenting Mainlanders under
the KMT rule in Taiwan, but most of them were concerned with democratic reform of the
government, and not with the national identity as were native Taiwanese.
61
Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization, 146–7.
62
The maturation of Taiwan’s democracy is reflected in the winning of Chen Shui-bian, a
candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, in the presidential election in 2000. Chen’s
victory ended fifty-five years of KMT rule under the two Chiangs’ one-party dictatorship,
and Lee Teng-hui’s democratizing polity. The former opposition peacefully transitioned to
the role of the government, and vice versa. J. Bruce Jacobs, Democratizing Taiwan (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 163–4.
63
Lynch, “Taiwan’s Self-Conscious Nation-Building Project,” 516–7.
64
Chang Yen-hsian 張炎憲, “Taiwanshi yanjiu yu Taiwan zhutixing” 台灣史研究與台灣主
體性 [The study of Taiwan’s history and Taiwan subjectivity], in Taiwan jin bainian shi
lunwenji 台灣近百年史論文集 [Symposium of Taiwan’s history in the last one hundred
years], ed. Chang Yen-hsian, Chen Mei-jung 陳美蓉, and Li Chung-kuang 黎中光 (Taipei:
Wu Sanlian Taiwan shiliao jijinhui, 1996), 431–51.
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

consciousness over the course of the 1990s has had far-reaching influences
on political, social, economic, and cultural realms in Taiwan.65
Numerous people in Taiwan thus underwent a paradigm shift since
1987 from self-identifying as Zhongguo ren and perhaps frowning upon
the term “Taiwanese” to embracing the identifier Taiwan ren (Taiwanese).66
A telling result of such shift in language of national identity is observed
from the answers to the question, “Would you identify yourself as a
Taiwan ren (Taiwanese), or a Zhongguo ren (China person, or Chinese), or
both?,” in surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology of Academia
Sinica in Taiwan in 1992, 1998, 2003, and 2013.67 The percentage of
people identifying themselves as (exclusively) “Taiwanese” grew from
23.7% (1992), to 40.6% (1998), to 59.9% (2003), to 73.7% (2013),
whereas those identifying themselves as (exclusively) Zhongguo ren
(Chinese or China person) dropped from 23.4% (1992), to 10.6% (1998),
to 9.0% (2003), to 1.1% (2013). Concurrently, survey participants who
identify themselves as both Taiwanese and Zhongguo ren decreased from
49.7% (1992), to 46.7% (1998), to 30.0% (2003), to 24.2% (2013).68

65
Stéphane Corcuff, “The Symbolic Dimension of Democratization and the Transition of
National Identity Under Lee Teng-hui,” in Memories of the Future: National Identity Issues
and the Search for a New Taiwan, ed. Stéphane Corcuff (New York: Routledge,
2015), 73–101.
66
Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization, 9. Lowell Dittmer, “Taiwan
and the Issue of National Identity,” Asian Survey 44, no. 4 (July/August 2004): 475–483.
67
Academia Sinica, founded in 1928, is the national academy in Taiwan that supports
research activities in a wide range of disciplines.
68
Fu Yang-chih 傅仰止, Chang Ying-hwa 章英華, Tu Su-hao 杜素豪, and Liao Pei-shan 廖
培珊 ed., “Taiwan shehui bianqian jiben diaocha jihua: Diliuqi disici diaocha jihua zhixing
baogao” 台灣社會變遷基本調查計畫—第六期第四次調查計畫執行報告 [Report of the
Taiwan Social Change Survey 2013 (Round 6, Year 4): National Identity], (Taipei: Institute
of Sociology, Academia Sinica, March 2014), 214. Other options to the question are:
“Neither (please explain),” “I cannot decide,” “I do not understand the question,” “I do not
know,” and “Unwilling to answer.” The report can be accessed from “Taiwan shehui bianq-
ian diaocha” 台灣社會變遷調查 [Taiwan social change survey], Institute of Sociology,
Academia Sinica, https://srda.sinica.edu.tw/datasearch_detail.php?id=978 (accessed June
1, 2020). The project was conducted by the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, and
sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (formerly known as National Science
Council), Taiwan. Readers are advised to consult the entire report to obtain a more nuanced
picture of Taiwanese’ views on national identity. For an insightful discussion on how
Chineseness is negotiated and perceived in different contexts of power and meaning, includ-
ing Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and among overseas Chinese in particular, see Allen
Chun, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity,” bound-
ary 2, vol. 23, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 111–138.
20 J. C. P. LIN

Because the term “Taiwanese” has taken on a whole new meaning and
weight in the last three decades, the use of Taiwanese as an adjective to
represent those living in Taiwan collectively not only warrants but also
respects the self-determination of people in Taiwan. It is in this spirit that
this book engages Taiwan’s history.
The greatest risk for favoring the term “Taiwanese” in this project is
not related to the political orientations of my informants, who have
invested their lives in Taiwan (and none, to my knowledge, are likely to
disidentify with Taiwanese). Instead, the greatest risk lies in the seemingly
anachronistic use of “Taiwanese” as a collective noun in a project that
focuses on the years from 1970 to 1995—an era in which the term had no
place due to the political climate of the day. Still, I argue that my usage of
the term “Taiwanese” is acceptable, as it returns to the majority of people
in Taiwan the right to self-designation that should have belonged to them
in the first place.69 Readers are to be reminded that when invoked in this
project, “Taiwanese” is used to refer to phenomena and people in Taiwan
in a generic sense, not to a group of people with certain ethnic attributes.
In this book, “Taiwanese” will be used interchangeably with “natives”
(bendi ren本地人), which differentiate local Christians from missionaries
at work in Taiwan. Due to the historical and political reasons just explained,
some organizations in Taiwan still carry “China” in their names, such as
the China Evangelical Seminary in Taipei. Readers are advised to heed to
the location of such organizations from the context.

Delimitation of the Study

Since this research investigates the Charismatic Movement primarily
among Taiwanese Protestants of the Han population in Taiwan in the
twentieth century, with a special focus on the years from 1970 to 1995, it
necessarily precludes in-depth discussion of some other communities that
are also involved in the movement, such as the aboriginal peoples. While a
section in Chap. 4 examines the 1972 Tayal Revival and its impact, the
discussion is not exhaustive. Further, although this research briefly inves-
tigates the development of several pentecostal groups with Western roots

69
I am aware that the term does not do full justice to the aboriginal people groups who
were the first inhabitants of Taiwan.
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

in Taiwan in Chap. 3, more research is needed in the future to provide a

more comprehensive account of these events.
Instead of focusing on a single denomination, this research intends to
offer a wider purview of the Charismatic Renewal across churches in
Taiwan in the twentieth century. As a result, discussions in a few places
may not appear to be as comprehensive as it could have been, although
most often it is by design rather than oversight. I will also note areas that
I believe merit further research as I proceed.

Methodology and Structure

As a historical project, this research utilizes primary as well as secondary
sources to reconstruct a narrative account of history. Identifying some of
the essential primary sources for my task has been a great challenge. To my
knowledge, only three pentecostal-charismatic churches and communities
in Taiwan prior to 1995 are known to have produced carefully edited peri-
odicals over a substantial number of years: Shenglingbao 聖靈報 [Holy
Spirit Paper] and Shengling yuekan 聖靈月刊 [Holy Spirit Monthly] of the
True Jesus Church, Enguang zazhi 恩光雜誌 [Grace and Glory] (1973–)
of the Zion Church, and Chunyu zazhi 春雨雜誌 [Latter Rain Magazine]
(1983–1994) of the Elim Bookstore. As primary sources for this project
are not readily identifiable, I spent much time perusing periodicals, news-
papers, and magazines in both the English and Chinese languages, pub-
lished by pentecostal-­charismatic as well as non-pentecostal-charismatic
churches or mission organizations, with an eye to finding records perti-
nent to Taiwan. While some searches were more fruitful than others, each
discovery brought with it indescribable joy and excitement. As materials
germane to this research are scarce, any material relevant to its subject
matter appears to be extra valuable.
Directories published by the Taiwan Missionary Fellowship (particu-
larly issues from the 1970s and 1980s), which comprise basic information
of missionaries at work in Taiwan, are invaluable sources that I consulted
frequently throughout my research. Further, I have also relied heavily on
Taiwan’s Chinese Christian Tribune 基督教論壇報 database for this
research. The database does not store past issues of newspapers in the
original format, and hence a systematic walk-through is not an option.
However, by entering keyword phrases such as names of people or organi-
zations, the database displayed articles relevant to the searched words,
through which I then began to sift.
22 J. C. P. LIN

Once identified, I was able to locate most sources I needed from the
David Allan Hubbard Library at Fuller Theological Seminary and China
Evangelical Seminary’s library in Taipei. However, the effort to connect
with eyewitnesses was not as straightforward. As many of my sources were
renowned pastors and church leaders from Taiwan, it is almost impossible
to arrange an interview with them without special connections. As a result,
I was only able to arrange face-to-face interviews with prominent pastors
and church leaders from Taiwan and abroad through the kind help of my
various contacts. I made two research trips to Taiwan for data collection
and interviews in August–September 2016 and January 2018.
The effort to connect with key pentecostal-charismatic missionaries
who were at work in Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s was equally challeng-
ing. Yet sources snowballed as research went on. Most frequently, it was
through the personal connections of already-known missionaries that I
was informed of and connected with more sources. A few times, I tracked
down informants through the help of mission organizations and the inter-
net. Since most of these missionaries and missionaries’ children are now all
over the world, most of our communications took place via phone, skype,
and e-mail. Occasionally, conversations with missionaries and missionaries’
children led to the uncovering of more written sources that have not seen
the light of day. Allen J. Swanson, Malcolm Foster, and Rey Bianchi, in
particular, have dug out and generously shared with me articles, newslet-
ters, and personal documents from the 1970s and 1980s. Further, my
dialogue with Marion Shay (née Woodward) led to my reviewing the Jean
Stone Willans Collection from the Fuller Archives,70 in which I discovered
Jean’s rarely mentioned four-month stay in Taiwan in 1968.

Oral History
Unique to this historical project is the incorporation of oral history, which
“collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance
through recorded interviews.”71 In a project where written sources are
scanty and not readily identifiable, it is hard to deny the value of oral

70
Through the suggestion of Marion’s friend, Nancy Gower, former archivist of Fuller
library.
71
Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), 20.
 1 INTRODUCTION 23

sources. Scholars have sufficiently explored the strengths and weaknesses

of oral history, hence I will not repeat what has been discussed.72
As with written sources, the primary consideration for including a piece
of an oral source is that it is significant and contributes directly to the cur-
rent research. What I deem significant, conditioned by the aforementioned
preexisting historical framework, necessarily rules out other information
that appears extraneous to the topic under discussion.73 While I, together
with other oral history practitioners, value oral sources based on memory,
as they often reveal contents that written narratives do not,74 I am also
aware of the limitations of human memory, as well as the particularities of
the lenses through which informants interpret past events. As my infor-
mants recall and retell certain past events, memories of details are
­sometimes blurred or faulty. In light of the limitations, I cross-examine
oral sources—as I do with written sources—when other sources are
available,75 and report any discrepancies as well as explain their possible
causes. I also juxtapose oral sources with written sources as I see fit to
thicken the narratives. Largely speaking, this research is chiefly concerned
with eliciting data from oral sources to answer research questions prepared
beforehand.76 There are a handful of instances, however, where I privilege
narrators and their stories over my interpretation. These stories, I suggest,
furnish us with accounts that are unavailable otherwise, and enhance the
value of the current study.
Contributions of oral history notwithstanding, historians have pointed
out the inequalities of power embedded in the interviewer-interviewee
relationship, and that arises at the point of interpretation and publication.77
Even with attempts to equalize the relationship between the academic and
the informants, scholars have concluded that certain power imbalances—
especially when it comes to transcription and publication—can never be

72
For example, Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (London: Routledge, 2016); David
Henige, Oral Historiography (London: Longman, 1982).
73
See Abrams, Oral History Theory, 29.
74
See Abrams, Oral History Theory, 81.
75
See William H. Dray, and W. J. van der Dussen, The Principles of History: And Other
Writings in Philosophy of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 147;
R. G. Collingwood, and W. J. van der Dussen, The Idea of History (Oxford, UK: Clarendon
Press, 1993), 257–9.
76
In so doing, I am aware that I did not fully exhaust the benefits of oral history.
See Abrams, Oral History Theory, 29.
77
Abrams, Oral History Theory, 163.
Another random document with
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 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY

The Monthly Magazine.]

[January, 1828.
‘Ha! here be three of us sophisticated.’—Lear.

‘If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes!’ said the

Macedonian hero; and the cynic might have retorted the compliment
upon the prince by saying, that, ‘were he not Diogenes, he would be
Alexander!’ This is the universal exception, the invariable reservation
that our self-love makes, the utmost point at which our admiration
or envy ever arrives—to wish, if we were not ourselves, to be some
other individual. No one ever wishes to be another, instead of
himself. We may feel a desire to change places with others—to have
one man’s fortune—another’s health or strength—his wit or learning,
or accomplishments of various kinds—
‘Wishing to be like one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope:’

but we would still be our selves, to possess and enjoy all these, or we
would not give a doit for them. But, on this supposition, what in
truth should we be the better for them? It is not we, but another, that
would reap the benefit; and what do we care about that other? In
that case, the present owner might as well continue to enjoy them.
We should not be gainers by the change. If the meanest beggar who
crouches at a palace-gate, and looks up with awe and suppliant fear
to the proud inmate as he passes, could be put in possession of all the
finery, the pomp, the luxury, and wealth that he sees and envies on
the sole condition of getting rid, together with his rags and misery, of
all recollection that there ever was such a wretch as himself, he
would reject the proffered boon with scorn. He might be glad to
change situations; but he would insist on keeping his own thoughts,
to compare notes, and point the transition by the force of contrast.
He would not, on any account, forego his self-congratulation on the
unexpected accession of good fortune, and his escape from past
suffering. All that excites his cupidity, his envy, his repining or
despair, is the alternative of some great good to himself; and if, in
order to attain that object, he is to part with his own existence to take
that of another, he can feel no farther interest in it. This is the
language both of passion and reason.
Here lies ‘the rub that makes calamity of so long life:’ for it is not
barely the apprehension of the ills that ‘in that sleep of death may
come,’ but also our ignorance and indifference to the promised good,
that produces our repugnance and backwardness to quit the present
scene. No man, if he had his choice, would be the angel Gabriel to-
morrow! What is the angel Gabriel to him but a splendid vision? He
might as well have an ambition to be turned into a bright cloud, or a
particular star. The interpretation of which is, he can have no
sympathy with the angel Gabriel. Before he can be transformed into
so bright and ethereal an essence, he must necessarily ‘put off this
mortal coil’—be divested of all his old habits, passions, thoughts, and
feelings—to be endowed with other lofty and beatific attributes, of
which he has no notion; and, therefore, he would rather remain a
little longer in this mansion of clay, which, with all its flaws,
inconveniences, and perplexities, contains all that he has any real
knowledge of, or any affection for. When, indeed, he is about to quit
it in spite of himself, and has no other chance left to escape the
darkness of the tomb, he may then have no objection (making a
virtue of necessity) to put on angels’ wings, to have radiant locks, to
wear a wreath of amaranth, and thus to masquerade it in the skies.
It is an instance of the truth and beauty of the ancient mythology,
that the various transmutations it recounts are never voluntary, or of
favourable omen, but are interposed as a timely release to those who,
driven on by fate, and urged to the last extremity of fear or anguish,
are turned into a flower, a plant, an animal, a star, a precious stone,
or into some object that may inspire pity or mitigate our regret for
their misfortunes. Narcissus was transformed into a flower; Daphne
into a laurel; Arethusa into a fountain (by the favour of the gods)—
but not till no other remedy was left for their despair. It is a sort of
smiling cheat upon death, and graceful compromise with
annihilation. It is better to exist by proxy, in some softened type and
soothing allegory, than not at all—to breathe in a flower or shine in a
constellation, than to be utterly forgot; but no one would change his
natural condition (if he could help it) for that of a bird, an insect, a
beast, or a fish, however delightful their mode of existence, or
however enviable he might deem their lot compared to his own.
Their thoughts are not our thoughts—their happiness is not our
happiness; nor can we enter into it except with a passing smile of
approbation, or as a refinement of fancy. As the poet sings:—
‘What more felicity can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with liberty,
And to be lord of all the works of nature?
To reign in the air from earth to highest sky;
To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature;
To taste whatever thing doth please the eye?—
Who rests not pleased with such happiness,
Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness!’

This is gorgeous description and fine declamation: yet who would be

found to act upon it, even in the forming of a wish; or would not
rather be the thrall of wretchedness, than launch out (by the aid of
some magic spell) into all the delights of such a butterfly state of
existence? The French (if any people can) may be said to enjoy this
airy, heedless gaiety and unalloyed exuberance of satisfaction: yet
what Englishman would deliberately change with them? We would
sooner be miserable after our own fashion than happy after their’s. It
is not happiness, then, in the abstract, which we seek, that can be
addressed as
‘That something still that prompts th’ eternal sigh,
For which we wish to live or dare to die,—’

but a happiness suited to our taste and faculties—that has become a

part of ourselves, by habit and enjoyment—that is endeared to us by
a thousand recollections, privations, and sufferings. No one, then,
would willingly change his country or his kind for the most plausible
pretences held out to him. The most humiliating punishment
inflicted in ancient fable is the change of sex: not that it was any
degradation in itself—but that it must occasion a total derangement
of the moral economy and confusion of the sense of personal
propriety. The thing is said to have happened, au sens contraire, in
our time. The story is to be met with in ‘very choice Italian’; and Lord
D—— tells it in very plain English!
We may often find ourselves envying the possessions of others,
and sometimes inadvertently indulging a wish to change places with
them altogether; but our self-love soon discovers some excuse to be
off the bargain we were ready to strike, and retracts ‘vows made in
haste, as violent and void.’ We might make up our minds to the
alteration in every other particular; but, when it comes to the point,
there is sure to be some trait or feature of character in the object of
our admiration to which we cannot reconcile ourselves—some
favourite quality or darling foible of our own, with which we can by
no means resolve to part. The more enviable the situation of another,
the more entirely to our taste, the more reluctant we are to leave any
part of ourselves behind that would be so fully capable of
appreciating all the exquisiteness of its new situation, or not to enter
into the possession of such an imaginary reversion of good fortune
with all our previous inclinations and sentiments. The outward
circumstances were fine: they only wanted a soul to enjoy them, and
that soul is our’s (as the costly ring wants the peerless jewel to
perfect and set it off). The humble prayer and petition to sneak into
visionary felicity by personal adoption, or the surrender of our own
personal pretensions, always ends in a daring project of usurpation,
and a determination to expel the actual proprietor, and supply his
place so much more worthily with our own identity—not bating a
single jot of it. Thus, in passing through a fine collection of pictures,
who has not envied the privilege of visiting it every day, and wished
to be the owner? But the rising sigh is soon checked, and ‘the native
hue of emulation is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ when
we come to ask ourselves not merely whether the owner has any taste
at all for these splendid works, and does not look upon them as so
much expensive furniture, like his chairs and tables—but whether he
has the same precise (and only true) taste that we have—whether he
has the very same favourites that we have—whether he may not be so
blind as to prefer a Vandyke to a Titian, a Ruysdael to a Claude;—
nay, whether he may not have other pursuits and avocations that
draw off his attention from the sole objects of our idolatry, and which
seem to us mere impertinences and waste of time? In that case, we at
once lose all patience, and exclaim indignantly, ‘Give us back our
taste and keep your pictures!’ It is not we who should envy them the
possession of the treasure, but they who should envy us the true and
exclusive enjoyment of it. A similar train of feeling seems to have
dictated Warton’s spirited Sonnet on visiting Wilton-House:—
‘From Pembroke’s princely dome, where mimic art
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers,
Its living hues where the warm pencil pours,
And breathing forms from the rude marble start,
How to life’s humbler scene can I depart?
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers,
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours?
Vain the complaint! For Fancy can impart
(To fate superior and to fortune’s power)
Whate’er adorns the stately storied-hall:
She, mid the dungeon’s solitary gloom,
Can dress the Graces in their attic pall;
Bid the green landskip’s vernal beauty bloom;
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall.’

One sometimes passes by a gentleman’s park, an old family-seat,

with its moss-grown ruinous paling, its ‘glades mild-opening to the
genial day,’ or embrowned with forest-trees. Here one would be glad
to spend one’s life, ‘shut up in measureless content,’ and to grow old
beneath ancestral oaks, instead of gaining a precarious, irksome, and
despised livelihood, by indulging romantic sentiments, and writing
disjointed descriptions of them. The thought has scarcely risen to the
lips, when we learn that the owner of so blissful a seclusion is a
thorough-bred fox-hunter, a preserver of the game, a brawling
electioneerer, a Tory member of parliament, a ‘no-Popery’ man!—‘I’d
sooner be a dog, and bay the moon!’ Who would be Sir Thomas
Lethbridge for his title and estate? asks one man. But would not
almost any one wish to be Sir Francis Burdett, the man of the people,
the idol of the electors of Westminster? says another. I can only
answer for myself. Respectable and honest as he is, there is
something in his white boots, and white breeches, and white coat,
and white hair, and red face, and white hat, that I cannot, by any
effort of candour, confound my personal identity with! If Mr.
Hobhouse can prevail on Sir Francis to exchange, let him do so by all
means. Perhaps they might contrive to club a soul between them!
Could I have had my will, I should have been born a lord: but one
would not be a booby lord neither. I am haunted by an odd fancy of
driving down the Great North Road in a chaise and four, about fifty
years ago, and coming to the inn at Ferry-bridge, with out-riders,
white favours, and a coronet on the panels; and then I choose my
companion in the coach. Really there is a witchcraft in all this that
makes it necessary to turn away from it, lest, in the conflict between
imagination and impossibility, I should grow feverish and light-
headed! But, on the other hand, if one was born a lord, should one
have the same idea (that every one else has) of a peeress in her own
right? Is not distance, giddy elevation, mysterious awe, an
impassable gulf, necessary to form this idea in the mind, that fine
ligament of ‘ethereal braid, sky-woven,’ that lets down heaven upon
earth, fair as enchantment, soft as Berenice’s hair, bright and
garlanded like Ariadne’s crown; and is it not better to have had this
idea all through life—to have caught but glimpses of it, to have
known it but in a dream—than to have been born a lord ten times
over, with twenty pampered menials at one’s back, and twenty
descents to boast of? It is the envy of certain privileges, the sharp
privations we have undergone, the cutting neglect we have met with
from the want of birth or title, that gives its zest to the distinction:
the thing itself may be indifferent or contemptible enough. It is the
becoming a lord that is to be desired; but he who becomes a lord in
reality is an upstart—a mere pretender, without the sterling essence;
so that, all that is of any worth in this supposed transition is purely
imaginary and impossible. Had I been a lord, I should have married
Miss ——, and my life would not have been one long-drawn sigh,
made up of sweet and bitter regret![41] Had I been a lord, I would
have been a Popish lord, and then I might also have been an honest
man:—poor, and then I might have been proud and not vulgar! Kings
are so accustomed to look down on all the rest of the world, that they
consider the condition of mortality as vile and intolerable, if stripped
of royal state, and cry out in the bitterness of their despair, ‘Give me
a crown, or a tomb!’ It should seem from this as if all mankind would
change with the first crowned head that could propose the
alternative, or that it would be only the presumption of the
supposition, or a sense of their own unworthiness, that would deter
them. Perhaps there is not a single throne that, if it was to be filled by
this sort of voluntary metempsychosis, would not remain empty.
Many would, no doubt, be glad to ‘monarchise, be feared, and kill
with looks’ in their own persons and after their own fashion: but who
would be the double of ——, or of those shadows of a shade—those
‘tenth transmitters of a foolish face’—Charles X. and Ferdinand VII.? If
monarchs have little sympathy with mankind, mankind have even
less with monarchs. They are merely to us a sort of state-puppets or
royal wax-work, which we may gaze at with superstitious wonder,
but have no wish to become; and he who should meditate such a
change must not only feel by anticipation an utter contempt for the
slough of humanity which he is prepared to cast, but must feel an
absolute void and want of attraction in those lofty and
incomprehensible sentiments which are to supply its place. With
respect to actual royalty, the spell is in a great measure broken. But,
among ancient monarchs, there is no one, I think, who envies Darius
or Xerxes. One has a different feeling with respect to Alexander or
Pyrrhus; but this is because they were great men as well as great
kings, and the soul is up in arms at the mention of their names as at
the sound of a trumpet. But as to all the rest—those ‘in the catalogue
who go for kings’—the praying, eating, drinking, dressing monarchs
of the earth, in time past or present—one would as soon think of
wishing to personate the Golden Calf, or to turn out with
Nebuchadnezzar to graze, as to be transformed into one of that
‘swinish multitude.’ There is no point of affinity. The extrinsic
circumstances are imposing: but, within, there is nothing but morbid
humours and proud flesh! Some persons might vote for
Charlemagne; and there are others who would have no objection to
be the modern Charlemagne, with all he inflicted and suffered, even
after the necromantic field of Waterloo, and the bloody wreath on the
vacant brow of his conqueror, and that fell jailer set over him by a
craven foe, that ‘glared round his soul, and mocked his closing
eyelids!’
It has been remarked, that could we at pleasure change our
situation in life, more persons would be found anxious to descend
than to ascend in the scale of society. One reason may be, that we
have it more in our power to do so; and this encourages the thought,
and makes it familiar to us. A second is, that we naturally wish to
throw off the cares of state, of fortune or business, that oppress us,
and to seek repose before we find it in the grave. A third reason is,
that, as we descend to common life, the pleasures are simple,
natural, such as all can enter into, and therefore excite a general
interest, and combine all suffrages. Of the different occupations of
life, none is beheld with a more pleasing emotion, or less aversion to
a change of our own, than that of a shepherd tending his flock: the
pastoral ages have been the envy and the theme of all succeeding
ones; and a beggar with his crutch is more closely allied than the
monarch and his crown to the associations of mirth and heart’s ease.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that our pride is too apt to
prefer grandeur to happiness; and that our passions make us envy
great vices oftener than great virtues.
The world shew their sense in nothing more than in a distrust and
aversion to those changes of situation which only tend to make the
successful candidates ridiculous, and which do not carry along with
them a mind adequate to the circumstances. The common people, in
this respect, are more shrewd and judicious than their superiors,
from feeling their own awkwardness and incapacity, and often
decline, with an instinctive modesty, the troublesome honours
intended for them. They do not overlook their original defects so
readily as others overlook their acquired advantages. It is wonderful,
therefore, that opera-singers and dancers refuse, or only condescend
as it were, to accept lords, though the latter are so often fascinated by
them. The fair performer knows (better than her unsuspecting
admirer) how little connection there is between the dazzling figure
she makes on the stage and that which she may make in private life,
and is in no hurry to convert ‘the drawing-room into a Green-room.’
The nobleman (supposing him not to be very wise) is astonished at
the miraculous powers of art in
‘The fair, the chaste, the inexpressive she;’

and thinks such a paragon must easily conform to the routine of

manners and society which every trifling woman of quality of his
acquaintance, from sixteen to sixty, goes through without effort. This
is a hasty or a wilful conclusion. Things of habit only come by habit,
and inspiration here avails nothing. A man of fortune who marries an
actress for her fine performance of tragedy, has been well compared
to the person who bought Punch. The lady is not unfrequently aware
of the inconsequentiality, and unwilling to be put on the shelf, and
hid in the nursery of some musty country-mansion. Servant girls, of
any sense and spirit, treat their masters (who make serious love to
them) with suitable contempt. What is it but a proposal to drag an
unmeaning trollop at his heels through life, to her own annoyance
and the ridicule of all his friends? No woman, I suspect, ever forgave
a man who raised her from a low condition in life (it is a perpetual
obligation and reproach); though, I believe, men often feel the most
disinterested regard for women under such circumstances. Sancho
Panza discovered no less folly in his eagerness to enter upon his new
government, than wisdom in quitting it as fast as possible. Why will
Mr. Cobbett persist in getting into Parliament? He would find
himself no longer the same man. What member of Parliament, I
should like to know, could write his Register? As a popular partisan,
he may (for aught I can say) be a match for the whole Honourable
House; but, by obtaining a seat in St. Stephen’s Chapel, he would
only be equal to a 576th part of it. It was surely a puerile ambition in
Mr. Addington to succeed Mr. Pitt as prime-minister. The situation
was only a foil to his imbecility. Gipsies have a fine faculty of evasion:
catch them who can in the same place or story twice! Take them;
teach them the comforts of civilization; confine them in warm rooms,
with thick carpets and down beds; and they will fly out of the
window-like the bird, described by Chaucer, out of its golden cage. I
maintain that there is no common language or medium of
understanding between people of education and without it—between
those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance
has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to
you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that
which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power. This
is what foiled Buonaparte in Spain and Russia. The people can only
be gained over by informing them, though they may be enslaved by
fraud or force. You say there is a common language in nature. They
see nature through their wants, while you look at it for your pleasure.
Ask a country lad if he does not like to hear the birds sing in the
spring? And he will laugh in your face. ‘What is it, then, he does
like?’—‘Good victuals and drink!’ As if you had not these too; but
because he has them not, he thinks of nothing else, and laughs at you
and your refinements, supposing you to live upon air. To those who
are deprived of every other advantage, even nature is a book sealed. I
have made this capital mistake all my life, in imagining that those
objects which lay open to all, and excited an interest merely from the
idea of them, spoke a common language to all; and that nature was a
kind of universal home, where all ages, sexes, classes met. Not so.
The vital air, the sky, the woods, the streams—all these go for
nothing, except with a favoured few. The poor are taken up with their
bodily wants—the rich, with external acquisitions: the one, with the
sense of property—the other, of its privation. Both have the same
distaste for sentiment. The genteel are the slaves of appearances—the
vulgar, of necessity; and neither has the smallest regard to true
worth, refinement, generosity. All savages are irreclaimable. I can
understand the Irish character better than the Scotch. I hate the
formal crust of circumstances and the mechanism of society. I have
been recommended, indeed, to settle down into some respectable
profession for life:—
‘Ah! why so soon the blossom tear?’

I am ‘in no haste to be venerable!’

In thinking of those one might wish to have been, many people will
exclaim, ‘Surely, you would like to have been Shakspeare?’ Would
Garrick have consented to the change? No, nor should he; for the
applause which he received, and on which he lived, was more
adapted to his genius and taste. If Garrick had agreed to be
Shakspeare, he would have made it a previous condition that he was
to be a better player. He would have insisted on taking some higher
part than Polonius or the Grave-digger. Ben Jonson and his
companions at the Mermaid would not have known their old friend
Will in his new disguise. The modern Roscius would have scouted
the halting player. He would have shrunk from the parts of the
inspired poet. If others were unlike us, we feel it as a presumption
and an impertinence to usurp their place; if they were like us, it
seems a work of supererogation. We are not to be cozened out of our
existence for nothing. It has been ingeniously urged, as an objection
to having been Milton, that ‘then we should not have had the
pleasure of reading Paradise Lost.’ Perhaps I should incline to draw
lots with Pope, but that he was deformed, and did not sufficiently
relish Milton and Shakspeare. As it is, we can enjoy his verses and
their’s too. Why, having these, need we ever be dissatisfied with
ourselves? Goldsmith is a person whom I considerably affect,
notwithstanding his blunders and his misfortunes. The author of the
Vicar of Wakefield, and of Retaliation, is one whose temper must
have had something eminently amiable, delightful, gay, and happy in
it.
‘A certain tender bloom his fame o’erspreads.’

But then I could never make up my mind to his preferring Rowe and
Dryden to the worthies of the Elizabethan age; nor could I, in like
manner, forgive Sir Joshua—whom I number among those whose
existence was marked with a white stone, and on whose tomb might
be inscribed ‘Thrice Fortunate!’—his treating Nicholas Poussin with
contempt. Differences in matters of taste and opinion are points of
honour—‘stuff o’ the conscience’—stumbling-blocks not to be got
over. Others, we easily grant, may have more wit, learning,
imagination, riches, strength, beauty, which we should be glad to
borrow of them; but that they have sounder or better views of things,
or that we should act wisely in changing in this respect, is what we
can by no means persuade ourselves. We may not be the lucky
possessors of what is best or most desirable; but our notion of what
is best and most desirable we will give up to no man by choice or
compulsion; and unless others (the greatest wits or brightest
geniuses) can come into our way of thinking, we must humbly beg
leave to remain as we are. A Calvinistic preacher would not
relinquish a single point of faith to be the Pope of Rome; nor would a
strict Unitarian acknowledge the mystery of the Holy Trinity to have
painted Raphael’s Assembly of the Just. In the range of ideal
excellence, we are distracted by variety and repelled by differences:
the imagination is fickle and fastidious, and requires a combination
of all possible qualifications, which never met. Habit alone is blind
and tenacious of the most homely advantages; and after running the
tempting round of nature, fame, and fortune, we wrap ourselves up
in our familiar recollections and humble pretensions—as the lark,
after long fluttering on sunny wing, sinks into its lowly bed!
We can have no very importunate craving, nor very great
confidence, in wishing to change characters, except with those with
whom we are intimately acquainted by their works; and having these
by us (which is all we know or covet in them), what would we have
more? We can have no more of a cat than her skin; nor of an author
than his brains. By becoming Shakspeare in reality, we cut ourselves
out of reading Milton, Pope, Dryden, and a thousand more—all of
whom we have in our possession, enjoy, and are, by turns, in the best
part of them, their thoughts, without any metamorphosis or miracle
at all. What a microcosm is our’s! What a Proteus is the human
mind! All that we know, think of, or can admire, in a manner
becomes ourselves. We are not (the meanest of us) a volume, but a
whole library! In this calculation of problematical contingencies, the
lapse of time makes no difference. One would as soon have been
Raphael as any modern artist. Twenty, thirty, or forty years of
elegant enjoyment and lofty feeling were as great a luxury in the
fifteenth as in the nineteenth century. But Raphael did not live to see
Claude, nor Titian Rembrandt. Those who found arts and sciences
are not witnesses of their accumulated results and benefits; nor in
general do they reap the meed of praise which is their due. We who
come after in some ‘laggard age,’ have more enjoyment of their fame
than they had. Who would have missed the sight of the Louvre in all
its glory to have been one of those whose works enriched it? Would it
not have been giving a certain good for an uncertain advantage? No:
I am as sure (if it is not presumption to say so) of what passed
through Raphael’s mind as of what passes through my own; and I
know the difference between seeing (though even that is a rare
privilege) and producing such perfection. At one time I was so
devoted to Rembrandt, that I think, if the Prince of Darkness had
made me the offer in some rash mood, I should have been tempted to
close with it, and should have become (in happy hour, and in
downright earnest) the great master of light and shade!
I have run myself out of my materials for this Essay, and want a
well-turned sentence or two to conclude with; like Benvenuto Cellini,
who complains that, with all the brass, tin, iron, and lead he could
muster in the house, his statue of Perseus was left imperfect, with a
dent in the heel of it. Once more then—I believe there is one
character that all the world would be glad to change with—which is
that of a favoured rival. Even hatred gives way to envy. We would be
any thing—a toad in a dungeon—to live upon her smile, which is our
all of earthly hope and happiness; nor can we, in our infatuation,
conceive that there is any difference of feeling on the subject, or that
the pressure of her hand is not in itself divine, making those to whom
such bliss is deigned like the Immortal Gods!
 APHORISMS ON MAN

The Monthly Magazine.]

[October, 1830–June, 1831.

I
Servility is a sort of bastard envy. We heap our whole stock of
involuntary adulation on a single prominent figure, to have an excuse
for withdrawing our notice from all other claims (perhaps juster and
more galling ones), and in the hope of sharing a part of the applause
as train-bearers.
 II
Admiration is catching by a certain sympathy. The vain admire the
vain; the morose are pleased with the morose; nay, the selfish and
cunning are charmed with the tricks and meanness of which they are
witnesses, and may be in turn the dupes.
 III
Vanity is no proof of conceit. A vain man often accepts of praise as
a cheap substitute for his own good opinion. He may think more
highly of another, though he would be wounded to the quick if his
own circle thought so. He knows the worthlessness and hollowness
of the flattery to which he is accustomed, but his ear is tickled with
the sound; and the effeminate in this way can no more live without
the incense of applause, than the effeminate in another can live
without perfumes or any other customary indulgence of the senses.
Such people would rather have the applause of fools than the
approbation of the wise. It is a low and shallow ambition.
 IV
It was said of some one who had contrived to make himself
popular abroad by getting into hot water, but who proved very
troublesome and ungrateful when he came home—‘We thought him a
very persecuted man in India’—the proper answer to which is, that
there are some people who are good for nothing else but to be
persecuted. They want some check to keep them in order.
 V
It is a sort of gratuitous error in high life, that the poor are
naturally thieves and beggars, just as the latter conceive that the rich
are naturally proud and hard-hearted. Give a man who is starving a
thousand a-year, and he will be no longer under a temptation to get
himself hanged by stealing a leg of mutton for his dinner; he may still
spend it in gaming, drinking, and the other vices of a gentleman, and
not in charity, about which he before made such an outcry.
 VI
Do not confer benefits in the expectation of meeting with
gratitude; and do not cease to confer them because you find those
whom you have served ungrateful. Do what you think fit and right to
please yourself; the generosity is not the less real, because it does not
meet with a correspondent return. A man should study to get
through the world as he gets through St. Giles’s—with as little
annoyance and interruption as possible from the shabbiness around
him.
 VII
Common-place advisers and men of the world, are always
pestering you to conform to their maxims and modes, just like the
barkers in Monmouth-street, who stop the passengers by entreating
them to turn in and refit at their second-hand repositories.