Ch 10: Phase 8 - After China: Reintegrating into North American Society
All missionaries had to forge new lives when they returned from China (except for the few who died abruptly in the mission field). Assistance from their churches was not always forthcoming – in some denominations, the existence of missionaries was an awkward reminder of a colonial past, while in others, the left-wing enthusiasms of some missionaries were unwelcome in the conservative Cold War atmosphere.
While some missionaries were glad to return, others, especially those who had to leave in the turbulent 1940s, sought ways to return to China and only reluctantly turned to building a home and identity in north America. Still others (especially single women) opted to continue mission work, albeit in a different part of the world, and never fully assimilated back into North American life. Many also found work in diplomatic and academic careers, with qualifications that included language skills and presumed cultural fluency.
We argue that the legacies of the missions percolate down through the decades and generations, in ways which may not be immediately obvious, by sampling the post-China lives of former missionaries and their children (“mish kids”). The world-improving drive of the social gospel found expression in left-wing electoral politics and protest movements, especially nuclear disarmament, while missionaries’ religious imagination and interest in spirituality and the ineffable manifested itself in the human potential movements of the late 1960s and 1970s.