Press pioneers of the Orient

Want to understand more about the history of Chinese Christianity? Three volumes edited by Carol Lee Hamrin and Stacey Bieler and entitled Salt and Light (Wipf and Stock, 2009-2011) include 27 chapter biographies of Chinese Christians who were doctors, teachers, editors, artists, financiers, ministers, social activists—even a general. Fan Zimei, for example, was a scholar and journalist who valued newspapers as the “public textbooks of society” and became the editor in chief of Chinese YMCA publications. When Hamrin and Bieler gave talks on the books in Beijing and Hong Kong, the first 10,000 copies in Chinese sold out.

An academic, turgidly written book, A History of Journalism in China (see “An independent press?” in this issue), shows (seemingly reluctantly) how British missionaries in China advanced journalism. The Chinese Monthly Magazine, which the London Missionary Society launched in 1815, did not toe the government line. It promoted Christian doctrine for seven years and paved the way for other publications, including the Eastern Western Monthly Magazine, that emphasized short and punchy stories rather than lugubrious essays.

A big step toward more news reporting came in 1835 when Elijah Bridgman, the first American missionary appointed to China, started publishing the English-language Chinese Repository, which included stories on opium trafficking. Other missionary newspapers—Shanghai Miscellany, Church News, Chinese Recorder, Bible News, and Gospel News—were also pioneers. Wang Tao (1828-1897) worked with missionaries to translate the New Testament into Chinese, then launched The Cycle in 1873: From protected space in Hong Kong he examined political events, criticized Chinese bureaucracy, and proposed ways to strengthen China to resist foreign invasions.

In 1874 the first Chinese-run newspaper in Shanghai, Huibao, occasionally criticized the government: Stockholders got cold feet, and the newspaper ceased publication after a year. The closure typified the problems of 19th-century Chinese newspapers with insufficient official support. Had the imperial government paid attention to press rumblings, change could have forestalled 20th-century revolutions—but that did not happen.

Short stops

If you’re deciding which college to attend, Alex Chediak’s Beating the College Debt Trap (Zondervan, 2015) offers basic news you can use. Don’t go to college unprepared, though, for the propaganda you will face in secular classrooms and even some traditionally Christian ones. Wesley J. Smith’s The War on Humans (Discovery, 2014) is a succinctly excellent introduction to some of the flak that will head your way: Chapters include “Homo Sapiens, Get Lost,” “Global Warming Hysteria,” and “The ‘Rights’ of Nature.”

Many at secular universities and some Christian ones will push you to support solar or wind power and oppose use of oil, coal, and natural gas. Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Penguin, 2014) offers the other side. Epstein criticizes public relations efforts of fossil fuel companies that say, in essence, We put out harmful products, but we create jobs and like windmills. He argues convincingly that they contribute to improving health, longevity, and other indications of human well-being.

Epstein debunks climate change screaming and says we should not fear fracking. He debunks the frequent claim that 97 percent of climate scientists say the globe is warming and human beings are the main cause. He quotes scientists classified as part of the 97 percent saying they are not: One observer says only 2 percent of the papers examined to derive the “97 percent” figure stated that man-made greenhouse gases caused at least 50 percent of global warming.

We could use a Groucho Marx to make fun of global warming exaggerators. Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence (Yale, 2015) is a good introduction to a man fueled by frustration and disdain, like many comedians. Author Lee Siegel sometimes falls into the type of high-toned literary criticism (probably funded by Margaret Dumont) that Groucho would ridicule, but he is perceptive in places and quotes some good jokes. Phillip Luke Sinitiere’s Salvation With a Smile (NYU, 2015) lays out Joel Osteen’s Southern-fried Norman Vincent Peale prosperity teaching. —M.O.