Frank Joseph Rawlinson

Background

Frank Joseph Rawlinson was born on January 9, 1871 in the village of Langham, Rutlandshire, England, the eldest of ten children of David Joseph and Annie (Rawlinson) Rawlinson. His father was a lay preacher of the Plymouth Brethren.

Education

With an allowance of ninety dollars a year from the Baptists, he entered Blackburn Academy, Alexandria, Virginia, and went on to Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with the B. A. degree, summa cum laude, in 1899. then he entered Rochester Theological Seminary. While a student there he volunteered for foreign missionary service. In 1902 he completed his studies at Rochester.

In the United States in 1916-17, Rawlinson continued his education, receiving the M. A. degree from Columbia University and an honorary D. D. degree from Bucknell University.

Career

At the age of ten Frank left the village school to increase the family income by peddling oil and vegetables and worked for a time in a mill. In 1889, with a brother, he took steerage passage for America. Frank settled in Baltimore, where he found work doing odd jobs. In Baltimore he became active in the young people's group of the old North Baptist Church.

In 1902 he was ordained to the Baptist ministry, became naturalized as an American citizen, and with his wife and children was sent to China by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Southern Baptist Convention. After studying the Chinese language Rawlinson was assigned to teaching and became principal of the preparatory department of Shanghai Baptist College, serving in addition as acting pastor of a Chinese church, where he preached regularly and gave much pastoral service. He was also active in community service in Shanghai.

He was a prime mover in the Moral Welfare League, which aimed to restrict commercialized vice, and was one of the founders of the Shanghai American School.

In 1910 Rawlinson had begun a connection with the Chinese Recorder, the journal of Protestant Christian work in China, and in 1914 he became its editor. Six years later, however, he was asked by the Southern Baptist Board to give up the editorship and refrain from any other work tending to promote interdenominational cooperation. His efforts to modify the Board's policy proved unavailing and led to a termination of his missionary appointment.

In 1922, accordingly, Rawlinson transferred to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions of the Congregational Churches, which appointed him a missionary-at-large to continue his valuable service as editor of the Recorder. Under his leadership this journal became one of the outstanding missionary magazines, with a wide influence on international understanding. In his own religious experience Rawlinson had passed from a more conservative outlook to a liberal and progressive position.

But though he expressed his views fearlessly, he never lost his love and understanding of more conservative brethren, and the columns of the Recorder were always open on equal terms to those who differed from him. As editor of the proceedings of the great China missionary conference of 1922, he was able to put the emphasis on Christian unity and Chinese leadership in a form that had extended influence on the National Christian Council which succeeded the conference.

Rawlinson was also editor of the China Christian Year Book (originally the China Mission Year Book) from 1922 to 1937. This annual survey of Christian work, with supplementary articles on political and social conditions in China, forms a primary record of that important period in Chinese development.

Eager to develop Chinese leadership in the Christian enterprise, he encouraged the emergent indigenous church, and, as editor of the Chinese Recorder, he continuously sought for Chinese writers who could effectively present their own views to their western colleagues. Through such efforts he helped to discover and introduce to international Christian conferences the world over such men as T. T. Lew, T. C. Chao, Z. K. Zia, and Y. T. Wu, who contributed an effective element to the growing ecumenical movement of Protestant Christianity. Rawlinson himself carried out the advice he gave other missionaries - to study Chinese thought. To the Chinese Recorder he contributed articles on "Some Chinese Ideas of Truth" and a series on "Some Chinese Ideas of God, " which were later expanded into book form. In the same vein were his Naturalization of Christianity in China (1927), Revolution and Religion in Modern China (1928), and Chinese Ethical Ideals (1934).

He died in the International Settlement of Shanghai when struck by a fragment of a bomb aimed at a Japanese war vessel. His ashes were buried in the Pahsienjao Cemetery in Old Shanghai.

Achievements

• He was known for his theologically liberal views, openness to Chinese culture, and support for Chinese nationalism.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The China Mission Year Book, 1924: Issued Under Arrangement of the Christian Literature Society for China and the National Christian Council Under the ... Appointed by the National Christian Council

    (Excerpt from The China Mission Year Book, 1924: Issued Un...)

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, in a telegram of sympathy, expressed a general Chinese sentiment when he said: "Dr. Rawlinson was a friend of the Chinese people. "

Connections

In 1899 he married Carrie Mae Dietz. His first wife, who bore him nine children - Gilbert Watson, Marjorie, Doris, Frank, Alfred Harris, May, Eunice, Carolyn Rosemary, and George Joseph - died in 1916. In 1917 he married Florence B. Lang, by whom he had three children: Ruth, Jean Iris, and John Lang.

Father:

David Joseph Rawlinson

Mother:

Annie (Rawlinson) Rawlinson

Spouse:

Carrie Mae Dietz

Spouse:

Florence B. Lang

Daughter:

Doris

Daughter:

May

Daughter:

Marjorie

Daughter:

Carolyn Rosemary

Daughter:

Jean Iris

Daughter:

Ruth

Daughter:

Eunice

Son:

Frank

Son:

George Joseph

Son:

John Lang

Son:

Gilbert Watson

Son:

Alfred Harris