JONATHAN D. SPENCE’S GOD’S CHINESE SON: A BOOK REVIEW
THE BOOK
Jonathan Spence’s book God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan is a remarkable account of the largest and bloodiest civil war in human history, the Taiping Rebellion, and the terror that this uprising brought to twentieth century China.[1] The literary creation is a short analysis of the narrative history wherein the author uses speculations to cover unavoidable gaps in the sources and gives the right amount of background information on Chinese folk customs and religious beliefs to make the story comprehensible. The result is a literary masterpiece of objectivity shadowed by sympathy to the principal figures.[2] The book is recommendable even for readers who do not have interest in Christianity or Chinese history. It does not only provide a detailed and well-documented analysis of probably the most effective Christian revolutionary movement world history has ever witnessed[3] but also follows the intellectual development of a young man who became a central figure in the Taiping Rebellion and had a striking impact to Chinese history.[4]
THE STORY
The ”Chinese Son of God” is a tale of a young village school teacher named Hong Houxiu, later renamed himself to Hong Xiuquan, who was filled with hope and determination to succeed in an important examination of his life but then failed four times. This failure sparked in him a sense of self-resentment and depression that led to a grave illness. He was on the verge of death when he saw a vision of the Heavenly Kingdom and the Heavenly Family of God the Father, His wife and His son Jesus. The dream renewed Hong’s strength and drove him in a fanatical quest to establish heaven on earth. Hong had no idea from the start that his quest would lead to a fatal civil uprising and numerous grave deaths among his fellowmen.
The story began when Hong, younger son of a poor farming family from the mountains north of Canton, member of a linguistic and quasi-ethnic minority in the region called the Hakka, and a village school teacher traveled about fifty miles to the northwest to take the provincial civil service examination. While he was in the area he came upon and kept some literature being distributed by an American missionary, including translations of some of the apocalyptic texts of the Bible.[5] After failing four attempts at the examination, the young man was forced to continue teaching in his small village. He developed depression and hostility and fell severely ill. He was dying when he dreamed or hallucinated to have been obliged by the Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Wife and their Son, Jesus, to abolish the “demon devils'' and drive them out of the Earth. When he found the Bible tract he had been given by a Christian missionary some years before, he absorbed the writing and tried to fit its contents to his vision. He then realized that he was actually Jesus’ younger brother sent to save the world. He began by preaching to his friends and family, and eventually set out to conquer the ruling Qing dynasty, the demon-devils of his vision. With his followers and their entire families, he started a long trek from their original base on Thistle Mountain to the old imperial city of Nanjing, located in the prosperous Lower Yangzi region. Here they established their Heavenly Capital in 1853. He proclaimed himself the Taiping Heavenly King and formed the cult known as the God Worshipper Society. Taiping expanded the role of women. It pioneered the first set of women soldiers in the world when women were allowed to serve in the army and civil service. They were countered by the authorities of the Qing dynasty and Europeans when they tried to siege Shanghai. These two adversaries became the greatest demons for the God Worshippers. Instead of being shattered, they broke out into rebellion and destroyed everything in their path. When the cult was finally put down after the death of Hong and the execution of his son, over twenty-million Chinese had lost their lives from battle or starvation.[6]
The story of Hong as God’s Chinese Son and the Taiping rebellion was triggered by unclear Western Christian ideologies personally interpreted by a Chinese who did not have the necessary background and orientation regarding Christianity. This haphazard and narrow interpretation and adaptation to personal and local circumstances led to absurd and fanatical struggles to establish a heaven on earth. In some ways, Taiping history was like the development of a normally harmless bacterium that unexpectedly rages out of control in a weakened body.[7] It all started with a vision to preach Christianity and teachings about God but then Hong’s personal beliefs and idiosyncrasies grew out of proportion when faced with opposition from the very same people that he saw as enemies. The Taiping history is a shocking story staged by desperate people with erratic religious ideologies. Spence wrote that "in a community that was at once scriptural, imagined and rooted in the soil, the Taiping New Jerusalem was created and remained a base for eleven years until in 1864, after 20 million people or more in the regions under their sway had lost their lives in battle or from starvation, Hong and the remnants of his army perished in their turn from famine, fire, and sword."[8] The book shows readers new ways of looking at the Heavenly Kingdom movement and its religious leaders. The author’s sources and mastery of the narrator's craft, has enabled him to reconstruct the Taiping fanatics’ voices in a most convincing way to reveal to the readers that stories of immense tragedies like the Taiping is crucial for a holistic view of the world.[9] More importantly, the author points out that as years unfold; many communities are gripped by a kind of "millenarian" fever - an apocalyptic belief in the end of human society and the coming of Paradise on Earth.[10]
[1] Jon Fetter. “God's Chinese Son The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan,” University of Michigan Center for the Study of Complex Systems, 1998 [article online]; available from http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/gods-chinese-son;
Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[2] John Reilley. “God's Chinese Son The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan,” John Reilley Homepage, 1997 [article online]; available from http://www.johnreilly.info/gcs.htm; Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[3] Paul Griffiths. “Books in Review: God’s Chinese Son,” Leadership University,
2002 [article online]; available from http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/
ft9606/reviews/griffiths.html; Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[4] Zhou Guanghui. “Jonathan D. Spence. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan,” University of California San Diego, 2003 [article
online]; available from http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/spence2.htm;
Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[5] Reilley, God’s Chinese Son.
[6] William H. Duquette, “God’s Chinese Son,” Ex Libris Reviews, 1997 [article
online]; available from http://www.wjduquette.com/exlibris/ex19970901.html
#gods_chinese_son; Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[7] Reilley, God’s Chinese Son.
[8] “A Chinese who claimed to be the son of God,” Asiawind, 2006 [article online];
Available from http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/
msg00451.html; Internet; accessed 24 November 2006.
[9] Barend ter Haar, “God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenli Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan”-
Book reviews,” Journal of Social History, 1997, 2.
[10] Chinese.
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