author
Frank Joseph Rawlinson
1871–1937
A missionary writer and editor in China, he became known for his unusually open-minded approach to Chinese culture and for speaking sympathetically about Chinese nationalism. His life and work sat at the crossroads of religion, journalism, and a rapidly changing China.
1 Audiobook
滬語開路 = Conversational Exercises in the Shanghai Dialect
by Jay William Crofoot, Frank Joseph Rawlinson
About the author
Born in Langham, Rutland, England, in 1871, Frank Joseph Rawlinson later became an American Baptist missionary and spent most of his adult life in China. He is remembered less as a conventional missionary figure than as a thoughtful observer of Chinese society who tried to engage seriously with the country around him.
From 1912 until his death in 1937, he edited The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal in Shanghai, an influential English-language journal on missions and public affairs in China. Accounts of his career describe him as theologically liberal, unusually receptive to Chinese culture, and supportive of Chinese nationalism at a time when many foreign religious workers were far less sympathetic.
That combination of faith, journalism, and cultural openness gives Rawlinson an enduring place in the history of Christianity in China. For readers today, he stands out as a writer who wrestled with the tensions between mission work, politics, and respect for local voices during a turbulent period in modern Chinese history.