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By the late 1840s, Hong had convinced a host of others to believe his ideas, and he began assembling an army of faithful "God-worshipers." Finally numbering in the hundreds of thousands, by 1850 they had coalesced into the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or Kingdom of Peace.

In Hong's forces, men and woman were strictly separated. If a soldier was caught flirting with a woman, he was beheaded on the spot. Hong, however, had many women and numerous wives.

Hong's army, quoting the 10 commandments each day, fought the prevailing Ming dynasty and cut a destructive yet triumphant path through southern and central China until in 1853 they had captured the powerful Yangzi River city of Nanjing. Here Hong set up his "New Jerusalem."

Nanjing remained Hong's base until 1864, when Hong and the remnants of his army perished.

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"The not-so-peaceful kingdom of Hong Xiuquan"

This is neat. According to a Jonathan Spence who wrote a book about it entitled "God's Chinese Son" (I read about this in another one of his books entitled "The Search for Modern China), a Christian revolutionary dynasty emerged within China in the mid 19C and almost toppled the ruling Qing dynasty. Imagine what world geo-politics would be like today if the China were some sort of Christian communist regime (Hong Xiuquan, the founder of this Christian dynasty, is apparently credited with laying the roots of collectivisation, as all his Christian followers had to pool their excess foodstuffs for the community).

A reviewer writes:

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Finally, there is a question here of peculiar poignancy, one that troubled the Western powers at the time and that ought trouble Christians now. Were the Taipings Christian? They baptized; they prayed in the name of Jesus; they regarded the Bible as the word of God; they believed in God as creator of all that is, as the only proper recipient of love, worship, and praise. They were not, of course, orthodox by Catholic Christian standards, but that is not quite the same thing. Considering seriously the question of whether the Taipings were Christian provides a splendid focus for the broader theological question of just what makes someone, or some group, Christian. Spence's book could provide a very effective pedagogical focus for discussion of this question.

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Check this page out:

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How unworthy the world truly is may be understood by the deliberate falsity of recorded history in describing the Taiping rebellion.

Missionaries and politicians alike have accused them of committing acts of which the enemies of the Taipings were guilty. The Taipings were maligned just as David and his followers were.

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Anyway, the Christian Hong Xiuquan was finally defeated in 1864 by the "Ever-Victorious Army", led by F. T Ward, an American, and Charles Gordon, an Englishman. Both, presumably, were Christian as well.

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

As for measuring them against "orthodox Catholic Christian standards" to test their "Christianity" - ha, that's a laugh, considering that there are millions of Protestants who consider Catholicism "the whore of Babylon" because they "pray to idols" and to "false gods" (saints).

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I have never heard of this sect.

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Here is a question I'd like to know: I gather the Anglican and Catholic priests at the time did not relate Marx's philosophy (assuming the dates line up, and given, of course, China was not an industrializing nation) so is this collectivisation of Hong's dynasty something that appeared through his reading of the Bible, or was it actually influenced from natural circumstances (although the idea that collectivisation could simultaneously emerge in completely foreign cultures strikes me as a bit weird)? Which leads to another question: was Mao informed by Western thought, or was his ideas an outgrowth of Chinese thought? Did Mao know about Lenin/Marx/Engels/etc?? What I want to know is if introduction of Christian theology had the similar effect in China as the introduction as Marxist ideology (if, in fact, that was the foreign influence that guided the Cultural Revolution, and I must admit, I not up to the Cultural Revolution in my book that I'm reading, so maybe I will relate this answer later).

Questions, questions!

I sense a flaw in this reasoning (from the "reviewer" link I posted above):

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The book is important even for First Things readers who have no special interest in Chinese history. It provides a detailed and well- documented analysis of what is probably the most effective Christian revolutionary movement there has ever been. Contemplation of the details of this story raises deep questions in missiology: If tracts handed out by Baptist missionaries in China contributed to the Taiping Rebellion, what does this suggest about how to propagate the gospel? At the very least it may mean that unrestricted distribution of the Bible without an institutional context and a tradition is deeply problematic.

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I have to admit, I see no difference in this Hong guy having more than one wife and Catholic bishops doing… well, whatever they do that is against scripture. It seems a bit hypocritical to ask whether the Tiaping dynasty was Christian or if, as you say Michelle, any other sect is "Christian". Think about it: let's say Paul is the Anglican (or Catholic, whoever) priest bringing the Word to China, and as a result this Hong guy builds an empire (albeit an empire that lasts less than 20 years). Please tell me the difference between this and the conversion of Constantine. I mean, beside the obvious that Constantine was already an imperial ruler and the Hong person made an empire. Is the Roman Catholic church any less "Christian" than that of Xiuquan dynasty, or the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom"?

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

Interesting idea, btw, that perhaps Chinese communism was influenced by Christianity the way East bloc communism was influenced by Marxism. I would find it hard to swallow, though, that Mao hadn't heard of Marx. After all, it was Marx who developed the whole communist theme the most. And while China was a rather isolationist society in the long distant past, I think they had a lot more contact with the west during the last few centuries than they did millennia ago, so they would likely have had access to western philosophy like Marx (just as we had access to eastern philosophy). Of course, I wouldn't swear my life on it, having studied China only briefly, and that only in the context of the rise of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism at different points in their history. It's not something I've focused on a lot, although I found what I did read interesting.