A Short History of Chinese Protestanism in Singapore
In September 1935, John Sung (1901–1944), one of the most influential Chinese evangelists of the 20th century, arrived in Singapore to conduct a series of revival and evangelistic meetings at Telok Ayer Methodist Church. Preaching mainly in Henghua (Hinghwa)-accented Mandarin, Sung’s sermons were translated into Hokkien for the large number of audiences who came to hear him.
Sung’s meetings were a success. Over 1,300 people converted and 111 voluntary evangelistic teams were formed. The teams became part of a transregional network of Sung-inspired evangelistic teams that had been established across China and Southeast Asia. Between 1935 and 1939, Sung visited Singapore eight more times, resulting in the formation of more teams. These teams galvanised Singapore’s Chinese Protestant churches, leading them into a period of evangelistic fervour through regular preaching activities among many local Chinese communities in Singapore and Johor, until the Japanese Occupation in 1941.
Sung’s revivals are representative of two key historical patterns in Singapore’s Chinese Protestantism:
Identification with China and its Protestant individuals, models, institutions and resources.
Identification with speakers of Southern Chinese languages such as Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese, and the use of these languages as the main medium of evangelism, worship and instruction. This was extended to Mandarin, and to a lesser degree, English, during the second half of the twentieth century.
This article provides an introductory historical narrative of Chinese Protestantism in Singapore through a selected number of cases during three discernible periods since colonial Singapore was founded. These cases will underline the presence and evolution of the two historical patterns in the different periods. The three periods are characterised as:
The use of Singapore as a training ground to reach Southern Chinese migrant communities, while waiting for China to be open to Christianity (1819–1840s);
The building of diasporic churches in Singapore with close connections with native-place and national Protestant movements in China (1840s–1945);
The struggles of Chinese Protestant churches to find their place in an increasingly English-speaking Singapore nation (1945–present).
Historically, Chinese Protestantism is a minority religion in Singapore. Nonetheless, this article recovers its contributions to Singapore’s engagements with China and the island’s Chinese-speaking communities.
This article is part 1 of a series, for the full article, please access it here.
About the Author | Joshua Dao-Wei Sim is a historian of 20th century Chinese Christianity. He received his PhD from the National University of Singapore in 2020.
