This lecture is based on a book that Dr. Lee has recently published ‘The Bible and the Gun: Christianity in South China, 1860-1900’ (2003). Drawing on unpublished Chinese archival materials and ethnographic data collected by him at several Christian villages in Guangdong Province, he argues that Christianity became far more indigenous in China than has been acknowledged in the scholarly literature. In areas with absence of state control and a long history of rural violence, mass conversions were encouraged by the conviction that Christianity – through church affiliation and missionary connections – would provide external support, protection and other advantages in the violent domain of local politics.
