American Baptist West China Missionary Attrition

Title

American Baptist West China Missionary
Attrition See all items with this value

Identifier

DS0020

Description

These bar charts represent the numbers of American Baptist missionaries in West China at intervals from 1916 through 1948. The first chart shows the total numbers, while the second chart breaks down the numbers by gender. Figures are extracted from the annual reports of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board, available online through the Yale Divinity Library. See all items with this value

Commentary

The American Baptist Mission had a substantial increase in the number of missionaries between 1916 and 1926, followed by a drop back to the number in 1916 by 1929, a slight increase in 1931, and then a steady decline from then until 1948, when the number of missionaries is well below those of 1916. The major trends in this data are twofold: 1. Growth up until 1926, followed by attrition except for 1931; and 2. The preponderance of female missionaries overall, in greater increases and fewer decreases.

The “Financial Review of the Year” in the One-Hundred-Thirteenth Annual Report of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (1927) begins with the observation that the past year has “brought the Society to a genuine crisis in the matter of financial provision for its work.” The author provides financial figures showing decreases in donations each year for the previous six years, leaving the Society with a deficit of $217,123.79 at the end of 1926. Although two years previous the Convention had voted that there be “no retrenchment in foreign mission work,” the author concluded that “drastic readjustment and curtailing of work cannot longer be postponed.” The budget for 1928 therefore approved only nine new missionary positions across the “depleted staff of ten different mission fields” [worldwide].[1]

While American Baptists at home were decreasing their support for foreign missions at home, missionaries in the field were struggling under the rapid inflation occurring in China during the 1920s. At the instigation of the West China missionaries in 1925, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board commissioned a study of missionary expenditures. A committee composed of representatives from the East, South and West China missions gathered data and submitted a report in 1927, which was then analyzed and condensed into a set of recommendations published by a new committee in 1928. The data showed on average a 70% increase in the cost of living across all three mission fields between 1920 and 1927, with an expectation that inflation would continue to rise.[2]

How did the mission board solve the problem of increased expenses in the field coupled with decreased donations at home? In the “Financial Review of the Year” in the One-Hundred-Seventeenth Annual Report of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (1931) we learn that the Board has followed a “very conservative policy” to overcome the deficit, which had risen to $278,100.87 in 1927. While donations continued to dwindle, decreasing the number of missionaries in the field was an obvious place to cut expenditures. The author notes that while in 1926 there were 294 missionaries across all the American Baptist foreign mission fields, at the end of 1931 there were only 257, a loss of 37 paid missionaries (not counting unpaid wives of missionaries).[3]

Insofar as our chart shows the West China mission with five more missionaries in 1931 than in 1929, it must have fared better than some other mission fields during these years. The gender breakdown shows two more men and three more women, probably representing two couples and one single woman. Indeed, annual reports note the appointment of new missionaries that account for these numbers. Although specific names are not given for 1929, in 1930 Rev. and Mrs. Merril Brininstool were sent to West China, and in 1931 a single missionary woman was sent – Mrs. John Lenox (Cora Clinkscales).[4,5]

The chart that breaks down the numbers by gender indicates that the greatest increase in missionaries was the addition of 16 female missionaries between 1916 and 1926. In the subsequent attrition of 1929, the West China Baptist mission lost proportionally fewer women than it did men – women’s numbers remained above those of 1916, while men’s numbers dropped below those of 1916. The increases of men and women in 1931 are almost equal, as are the declines of subsequent years until 1948 when men’s numbers again drop in higher proportion to those of women. This may suggest that the mission board valued the work of women missionaries more highly than that of men, or it might have been due to incidental factors unrelated to gender or the mission board’s policies.

By 1936, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society’s annual report no longer included a section on “New Missionaries.” This was the centennial year for the organization, providing an opportunity to reflect on its work over a century. In a section entitled, “The Present Problem in the Homeland,” the author summarized that the work had gone on steadily building until the last decade (1926-1936), which closed in “a crisis marked by a devastating decrease in the entire missionary staff,” due to a decrease in donations to less than half their amount in 1923. [6]

We can therefore conclude that the American Baptist mission in West China experienced almost steady attrition from 1926 to 1946 due to lack of support for foreign missions from Baptist individuals and churches in the United States. The numbers of women missionaries were higher overall than those of men, and the attrition of women was only slightly less than it was for men. See all items with this value

Creator

Cory Willmott

Date Created

2026-05-05

Location

Sichuan See all items with this value

Relation