Yan Xishan - Yan Xishan Thought - Influence of Christianity

Influence of Christianity

Yan attributed much of the West's vitality to Christianity, and believed that China could only resist and overtake the West by generating an ideological tradition that was equally inspiring. Yan appreciated the efforts of missionaries (mostly Americans who maintained a complex of schools in Taigu) to educate and modernize Shanxi. Yan regularly addressed the graduating classes of these schools, but was generally unsuccessful in recruiting these students to serve his regime. Yan supported the indigenous Christian church in Taiyuan, and at one time seriously considered using Christian chaplains in his army. Yan's public support of Christianity waned after 1925, when he failed to come to the defense of Christians during anti-foreigner and anti-Christian demonstrations that polarized Taiyuan.

Yan deliberately organized many features of his Heart-Washing Society on the Christian church, including ending each service with hymns praising Confucius. Yan urged his subjects to place their faith in a supreme being that he called "Shangdi": he justified his belief in Shangdi via the Confucian classics, but described Shangdi in terms very similar to the Christian interpretation of God. Like Christianity, Yan Xishan Thought was permeated with the belief that, through accepting his ideology, people could become regenerated or reborn.