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CHAPTER
FIVE
Theology, Ideology, and The Church
Outline of the Chapter
1. Introduction
2.Martyrs'
Blood
2.1 Events
Leading Up to the Persecution of 1869
2.2 The
Persecution
3.Interregnum
3.1 Dormancy
3.2 Resurrection
4.The
Edict of Religious Toleration
4.1 The
Event
4.2 Impact
of the Edict
5.Conclusion
Introduction
 Even
before the mission baptized its first convert, it turned its
attention to the establishment of a church, and, in the process,
confronted two major crises, in 1869 and 1878. Each crisis involved
a political confrontation between the mission and the Chiang
Mai state government that reflected, at a deeper level, a conflict
between systems of meaning. Conservative political forces feared
the missionaries' new religion because it seemed bent on overturning
the religion of the people, thus undermining one of the pillars
of social and political stability. State repression of the early
Christian community represented one of northern Thai society's
most important responses to missionary evangelism. State-church
tensions also highlighted the Laos Mission's attempt to introduce
its own system of doctrines and meanings into Chiang Mai while
eschewing any contextualization of that system. As we will see
in what follows, the group most immediately affected by that
attempt was the first generation of northern Thai Christians.
This chapter
focuses on the crises of 1869 and 1878 as well as key events
in the founding of the church in the intervening years. In 1869,
Chao Kawilorot, the Prince of Chiang Mai, successfully interrupted
the initial formation of a northern Thai church and delayed
its effective establishment for nearly a decade; in 1878, his
ideological heirs failed to halt the church's permanent emergence.
By 1880, thus, the Laos Mission successfully instituted a stable,
growing northern Thai church, but at great cost and in ways
that ultimately precluded any large migration from traditional
religion to the "Jesus religion."
118
Martyrs' Blood
Introduction
Apart
from the arrival of the McGilvarys in Chiang Mai in 1867 and
the conversion of Nan Inta in 1868, Chao Kawilorot's brutal
suppression of the first community of northern Thai converts
in September 1869 stands as the most important single event
in the history of the Laos Mission and its churches. It halted
the foundation and formation of the church for several years
and, consequently, fundamentally altered the mission's relationship
to its converts. In the course of events, it also exemplified
the impact of the mission's Princeton-like system of doctrines
and meanings on the course of northern Thai mission and church
history. Although grim and bloody in its consequences, the persecution
of September 1869 was in part a cognitive event, a clash of
meanings that had severe consequences for the Laos Mission and
its churches.
Events Leading Up to the Persecution of 1869
From the
very first, the Laos Mission lived in the shadow of Chao Kawilorot's
reputation as a man best not trifled with, a man with a keen
sense of his own prerogatives. Although not present when the
McGilvarys arrived in Chiang Mai in April 1867, his reputation
was such that as soon as they began to preach their new religion,
a rumor spread among the people that anyone employed by the
McGilvarys would be punished in some unknown but severe way.
Their language teacher immediately quit. Chao Kawilorot, on
his return, however, showed them nothing but kindness and everything
seemed fine between him and the mission; but as time passed,
Kawilorot quietly grew more suspicious and resentful of the
missionaries. For a time he even employed a foreign advisor
who sought to undermine the McGilvarys' standing with the ruling
class and the people.
The Laos Mission, in the meantime, went about the task of establishing
its first church, made possible by the visit of Dr. Samuel R.
House of the Siam Mission in early 1868. The minutes of the
church, written by McGilvary, record that,
The
committee appointed by the Presbytery of Siam to organize
a church in Chiengmai met at the house of Rev. J. Wilson
on the evening of Saturday April 18th 1868. Prayer was
offered by Rev. D. McGilvary, chairman of the committee.
Rev. J. Wilson was appointed secretary. Mrs. Sophia Bradley
McGilvary presented a letter of dismission from the church
in Petchaburi. And as Mrs. Kate M. Wilson is known to
be a member of the church in good standing and though
the letter of dismission for which she applied to the
church of Bethlehem Pa. has failed to reach her, on motion
She and Mrs. McGilvary were received as members of the
newly constituted church, to be known as The First Presbyterian
of Chiengmai. It was |
McGilvary, "Laos Mission," FM 26, 10 (March
1868): 234-36; Bradley Journal, 29 March 1868; McGilvary to Dear
Brethren, 20 November 1867, v. 3, BFM; and McGilvary, Half
Century, 102-04.
119
resolved that the government and
discipline of this church be for the present committed
to the ordained members of the Chiengmai Mission. 
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The new church worshipped officially for the first time the
next day, April 19th, when it administered the sacrament of
baptism to the Wilsons' and McGilvarys' newly born infants,
Margaret Wilson and Cornelia McGilvary. Dr. House, himself a
clergyman, then conducted communion, "it being the first
time the sacraments of the church were ever administered in
this land."
The founding
of the Chiang Mai Church surely appeared to the Wilsons and
McGilvarys to be a normal, expected event that required no elaborate
explanation, such as McGil-vary gave for the importance of missionary
medicine (See Chapter Four). It does strike one as odd, however,
that the new church's only officers were the missionary men,
its only members the missionary women, and its only baptisms
were of missionary children. Further reflection uncovers additional
oddities, particularly in the context of nineteenth-century
Chiang Mai, such as the fact that the ecclesiastical forms,
structures, and procedures involved were all American Presbyterian
and the first language of the church was English. The formation
of the Chiang Mai Church, that is, took place at a substantial
cultural distance from its northern Thai social context and
poses questions not unlike those we began with in the Introduction.
Why did the mission establish a church in such a blatantly foreign
way? Why did it show so little interest in drawing on religious
resources from its cultural context in order to fit its infant
church to its social and cultural setting? As far as we can
tell, these questions never even occurred to the McGilvarys
and Wilsons, a point that reinforces the impression that they
operated from a set of assumptions that grew out of their own
system of doctrines and meanings. They simply took Presbyterian
polity as a given, a system of church order based on Scripture
that required no adaptation to the different situation in Chiang
Mai. In Chiang Mai's "heathen" context, indeed, their
system of meanings and doctrines precluded any idea of adapting
Presbyterian forms to northern Thai sensibilities, which they
believed to be "benighted" and "enslaved"
to the forces of evil. Commonsense thinking would have also
encouraged them to ignore the fact that American Presbyterianism
was historically and culturally conditioned and to assume that
they could use Presbyterian forms in Chiang Mai as well as American
churches used them in Pennsylvania or North Carolina. Missionary
ideology and theology, we will recall, was a closed, reified
system with a keen sense of sharply defined boundaries. Such
a system virtually dictated an American ecclesiastical order
for the churches of the Laos Mission. Closed systems do not
adapt their forms and structures to cultural contexts believed
to stand beyond the doctrinal and ideological pale of the system
itself.
Sessional Records, 1-2.
Sessional Records,
4-5.
120
The
writings of Alexander T. McGill, one of McGilvary and Wilson's
professors at Princeton, reinforce our sense that his former
students took a closed system of meanings and doctrines to Chiang
Mai that automatically rejected the contextualization of ecclesiastical
structures and procedures. McGill particularly compares the
democratic institutions of the Presbyterian Church to the American
government, writing, "The Church begins in heaven; the
State begins on earth. The Church begins with unity, the State
with multiplicity. The Church is founded on one divine 'Rock';
the State is founded on many minute constituencies of men."
He implicitly identifies, that is, the Presbyterian Church with
the true Church and the Church with Heaven, the sacred realm
of everything that is eternal and unchanging. The church stands
thus far above the state and culture even in America. It is
difficult to believe that McGill's two former students in Chiang
Mai would have thought any differently about the relationship
between church and state in that context.
The decision
to found the Chiang Mai Church at some social and cultural distance
from the city's people, however, did not initially intrude on
the development of a northern Thai church; things went generally
well for the rest of 1868 and into 1869. We have already told
the tale of Nan Inta's conversion and admission into the church
as its first northern Thai member. McGilvary later claimed that
Nan Inta's "…defection from Buddhism produced a profound
impression among all classes. Emboldened by his example, secret
believers became more open. Not the number alone, but the character
of the enquirers attracted attention."
He reported that prospective converts included at least one
member of the extended royal family, another member of the rural
petty ruling class, and several commoners. Interest in Christianity
also spread to the neighboring state of Lamphun. The early months
of 1869, thus, represented a time of great hope for the McGilvarys
and Wilsons, the one dark cloud on the horizon being Chao Kawilorot.
No one knew how he would react to the growing interest in Christianity
of a number of his subjects. McGilvary took some comfort in
the fact that during these months the Prince treated the missionaries
kindly and threw up no hindrances to their work, but he still
felt that matters would come to a head in 1869.
The increased interest in Christianity soon began to bear visible
results as six more men joined the church between January and
September 1869. On 2 May 1869 Boonma and Noi Sunya received
baptism, followed by Saan Ya Wichai on June 27th and Nan Chai,
Noi Kanta, and Poo Sang on August 1st. McGilvary claimed that
many others were considering conversion and watching to see
what Chao Kawilorot would do.
McGilvary and Wilson
Alexander T. McGill, "American Presbyterianism: From the
Founding of the Presbyterian Church to the War of the Revolution,"
in A Short History of American Presbyterianism (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1903),
35.
McGilvary,
Half Century, 99.
McGilvary, undated
letter in FM, 28, 3 (August 1869): 58-63; McGilvary,
undated letter in FM 28, 4 (September 1869): 80-8; and
McGilvary to Irving, 1 March 1869, v. 3, BFM.
Sessional Records,
10, 12, 15; and McGilvary, "For the Little Folks," NCP
New Series 3, 109 (2 February 1870): 4.
121
felt they stood on the verge of a "people’s movement,"
and many people assured them that if Chao Kawilorot did not
move against the incipient Christian community, there would
be many more conversions. The audiences they addressed impressed
the missionaries as being attentive and thoughtful. They felt
the presence of God in their work, and McGilvary, at one point,
declared enthusiastically that northern Siam was possibly the
most promising Presbyterian mission field in the world. By September
1869, they had asked Siam Presbytery for permission to establish
new churches at their own discretion, an act that showed they
were preparing to receive many new converts.
Whether or not McGilvary and Wilson were correct in that assessment,
Chao Kawilorot evidently agreed that "something" was
indeed happening—something he did not like and wanted
to halt as quickly as possible.
The Persecution
Both Nan
Inta and Nan Chai, as we have already seen in Chapter Four,
originally wished to "ease into" their new religious
affiliation by undergoing a private rather than public baptism,
but McGilvary and Wilson insisted in the strongest terms that
duty required them to make a clear, public profession of their
Christian faith. In northern Thai culture, an act conducted
in private can be considered "unofficial" even though
everyone knows it has taken place. It would appear that Nan
Inta and Nan Chai were not asking to be "secret" Christians
so much as private, unofficial ones. People would know that
they had become Christians, so there was nothing secret in their
conversion. Yet, by refraining from making a public break with
Buddhist-animistic practices they would not offend the sensibilities
of their neighbors, thereby also avoiding the official notice
of the authorities. McGilvary and Wilson would not have made
a distinction between a secret and an unofficial follower of
Christ; the converts were forbidden from making any compromise
with their former beliefs. Nan Inta and Nan Chai had proposed
to their foreign mentors a northern Thai process for conversion
that sought to avoid an abrupt break with society and confrontation
with political authority. In their general social and immediate
political context, such an approach seemed eminently sensible
to them, but it did not fit the missionaries' ideological and
theological understanding of what it meant to convert—to
cross over, that is, a clear boundary from superstition to truth.
In this particular case, the missionaries’ insistence
on their approach led to grievous consequences for the converts.
Hodge
addresses the question of "soft" conversions in The
Way of Life, a popular evangelical treatise that we may
presume several pioneer members of the Laos Mission had read
at one time or another. His strictures against such conversions
help us to understand Wilson and McGilvary's handling of the
matter in Chiang Mai. Realizing that some Christians may want
to hide their conversion for various reasons, Hodge rejects
that option out of
McGilvary,
"For the Little Folks," NCP New Series 3, 109
(2 February 1870): 4; McGilvary, undated letter, FM 28,
9 (February 1870): 212-17; and Siam Repository 2, 1 (1870):
124.
122
hand. Christians, he argues, have public
obligations that require an open confession. Hodge condemns
those who try to escape those obligations for their weak faith
and claims that a large portion of converts must face the pain
of ridicule and chastisement. Christianity, he states flatly,
cannot remain hidden. The Bible, if nothing else, demands public
profession. In words that take on a particular force in light
of the Laos Mission's context in Chiang Mai, he insists that
converts take Christ as their King and profess their allegiance
publicly. They take Christ as their father and must give him
public honor and obedience. He states,
But what kind of worshipper is he
who is ashamed or afraid to acknowledge his God? All the
relations, therefore, in which a Christian stands to Christ,
as his king, as the head of the family of God and as the
object of divine worship, involve the necessity of confessing
him before men; and we practically reject him in all these
relations by neglecting or refusing this public profession
of him and his religion. |
Being a Christian, Hodge argues further, cannot be hidden
in any event because Christians have to behave in ways utterly
alien to general social conventions. He writes, "This is
one of the reasons why the people of God are called saints.
They are distinguished, separated from others and consecrated
to God. When they cease to be distinguished from those around
them, they cease to be saints."
Hodge concludes with the unequivocal statement concerning every
convert's confession of faith that, "This confession must
be made public; it must be made before men; it must be made
with the mouth, and not left to be inferred from the conduct."
McGilvary
and Wilson never elaborated on their refusal to entertain the
notion of a "back door" or "soft" conversion.
It took Hodge, a man with the theological training and time,
to work out precisely why a convert must confess her or his
faith publicly; but whether in Chiang Mai or Princeton, the
system of doctrines and meanings was the same. We see that similarity
in Hodge's words and the Laos Mission's actions—both of
which were premised on an inviolable principle, rooted in an
absolute, dualistic distinction between the heathen and the
saved, and envisioned conversion as walking publicly across
a pencil-thin boundary between the two.
There
is no evidence that Wilson and McGilvary, however, intended
to challenge Chao Kawilorot's political authority. They came
from a secular state where religion legally was largely a personal
matter, one that did not normally impinge upon one's loyalty
to the state itself. Dr. A. A. Hodge summed up the American
Presbyterian doctrine on the question of church-state relations
by asserting that the two are entirely independent from each
other and have quite different purposes. He writes, "But
neither the officers nor the laws of either have any authority
within the sphere of the other."
Chao Kawilorot and the earliest
Hodge, Way of Life, 180-83. The quotations are from page
183.
Hodge, Way
of Life, 185.
Hodge, Outlines
of Theology, 433.
123
converts came from a very different polity, one in which ritual
and religion played an official role in the affairs of state.
It was impossible that Chao Kawilorot would see things as the
missionaries (or the Hodges) did, and he watched the expanding
interest in the new religion with close attention and growing
alarm. He felt threatened. He had not, we must surmise, expected
his people to pay any more attention to Christianity than had
the people of Bangkok, and he must have been taken aback when
men of the quality of Nan Inta and Nan Chai decided to convert.
He must also have been aware that others, including some members
of the ruling classes, claimed an interest in the new religion,
and he surely felt that their interest challenged his power
in a number of ways. First, it threatened to remove Christian
converts from the influence of the rituals that legitimized
his political power. Second, the missionaries' insistence that
converts not work on Sundays undermined the social control and
status of the whole ruling class, not least of all his own.
Third, in light of these first two points, it must have appeared
to Chao Kawilorot that the missionaries were setting themselves
up as a new patron class. Ratanaphorn observes,
The rulers of the Northern States,
therefore, claimed legitimacy by serving the ritual function
of mediating between peasant communities and the state
spirits. They were the only ones who could perform the
worship of state spirits from which common people were
excluded. In this manner, they were able to establish
a patronage relationship with the peasants. Their ceremonial
function, in return for tribute and respect from the peasants,
guaranteed crop fertility and protection from misfortune. 
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Vachara argues that the Prince's role as benefactor of Buddhist
temples "provided him with the most significant legitimizing
force to his rule, ensuring his power and enabling him to be
more effective in ruling the kingdom."
The conversion of hundreds, rather than a mere handful, to Christianity
could have seriously undermined Chao Kawilorot’s authority,
or so he had to believe, since the people would no longer depend
on him for protecting them from the powers of the spirits.
There
was more at stake than just the power of a single ruler. Davis
points out that historically Buddhism united the chao
and the phrai, the rulers and the people, in a single
socio-religious system that provided society with a rich literature,
cosmology, philosophy, and social ethic. Buddhism comprised
the most dynamic factor in the creation of northern Thai ritual,
and the ruling class, especially the Prince, functioned as the
protectors of this
Ratanaphorn, "Chiang Mai Treaties," 22-3. Vella noted
a similar relationship between the state and religious ritual
in Bangkok. He writes," The performance of many Hindu and
Buddhist ceremonies was one of the most important services of
the Siamese government in its estimation and in the estimation
of the Siamese people. These ceremonies, rituals, and acts of
religious merit that were conducted by the king and his government
were regarded as efficacious in bringing the people material benefits
as well as spiritual benefits. Although the principal function
of the state ceremonies was realized through the king's activities
as religious intermediary, the ceremonies and other displays of
power and wealth by the government also made it possible for the
people to see in their king the apex of the hierarchy of respect
that was operative in the Siamese family and throughout Siamese
society." Walter F. Vella, Siam Under Rama III 1824-1851
(Locust Valley, New York: J. J. Augustin, 1957), 16.
Vachara Sindhuprama,
"Modern Education and Socio-Cultural Change in Northern Thailand"
(Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, 1988), 35-6.
124
whole way of life.
Christianity, in the light of all of this, threatened social
and political chaos by loosening the bonds of the authority
of the state.
The mission
and the state entered into a profound conflict based on incompatible
religious and ideological differences that neither side felt
it could compromise. McGilvary and Wilson insisted that their
converts make a clean and complete break with Buddhism as a
precondition to conversion. They did not see the act of conversion
as a political one. Chao Kawilorot insisted with equal single-mindedness
that religion and state were one. Conversion constituted rebellion.
Matters were bound to come to a head, but when they did, it
was over what would appear to have been one of the finer points
of missionary thought, the keeping of the Sabbath.
Once Nan
Inta converted, both he and the mission had to decide how to
deal with Christian strictures against working on Sunday in
a society where the patron classes felt free to call on the
labor of their clients at almost any time. Only two weeks after
his baptism, Nan Inta's patron, Chao Tepawong, called him to
work on a Sunday. McGilvary writes,
He [Nan Inta] sent word back that
if his master insisted on the work he might hire a man
in his place for which he would pay, or if he would wait
he would work any number of days afterwards; but he begged
his Sabbath. On Monday morning he went in and found his
master in good humor, and he asked him about the change
in his views, with all pleasantness, which gave him an
opportunity of explaining it himself. Since then he has
called very pleasantly on me, when we both had a long
talk on the same subject. It was a noble sight to see
such a stand taken the first time for God and the Sabbath. 
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Nan Inta's behavior constituted a gross violation of the principle
of corvée. Chao Tepawong, however, reacted with patience,
even though at one point he did express some displeasure at
the limitations Sabbath observance placed on his right to Nan
Inta’s labor. He also discussed the whole matter very
carefully with Nan Inta and with the missionaries. McGilvary
seems to have felt that Chao Tepawong’s interest was a
positive thing, but one wonders whether, as a senior member
of the government and confidant of Chao Kawilorot and other
known opponents of the missionaries, he was not actually gathering
information for Chao Kawilorot.
Tampering
with Chiang Mai's corvee system of labor was a dangerous enterprise.
McGilvary and Wilson understood the significance of that system
quite clearly and knew they took a risk in insisting upon Sabbath
observance; they willingly took that risk, however, because
of the crucial significance of the day to their religious system.
Charles Hodge, their
Richard Davis, Muang Metaphysics: A Study of Northern Thai
Myth and Ritual (Bangkok: Pandora, 1984), 37.
McGilvary,
"Our First Convert," NCP New Series 2, 85 (18
August 1869): 4.
McGilvary,
undated letter in FM 28, 4 (September 1869): 80-4; and
McGilvary, undated letter, FM 28, 9 (February 1870):
212-17.
125
mentor at Princeton, provides important insights
into why the Laos Mission felt so strongly about not working
on Sundays that it was willing to risk Chao Kawilorot's displeasure
over the issue. Hodge argues that the keeping of the Sabbath
is a matter of fundamental importance, first, because the Sabbath
is a divinely given institution commanded in the Bible. Those
who believe in the Bible must observe it. Second, keeping the
Sabbath provides a time for the study of the Bible and other
sacred literature, as well as time for worship. Knowledge of
and a meaningful relationship with God, thus, both depend on
it. Third, God designed the Sabbath to fit the spiritual, social,
and physical needs of the human race, and any people who fail
to take advantage of it soon degenerates into an ignorant, idolatrous,
and superstitious mob, hopeless of any good in this life or
of salvation in the life to come.
In his 1859 article in the Princeton Review urging
the need for Sunday closing laws, Hodge lays down a series of
injunctions concerning the Sabbath, including, "Christianity
is a law of life; a law of Divine authority; it binds the conscience,
it must therefore be obeyed by those who profess to be Christians."
He continues, "They cannot deliberately violate any of
its injunctions without doing violence to their own consciences,
and forfeiting their allegiance to God." Again, "If
a set of men believe in God and the moral law, it is self-evident
that they must obey that law, not only as individuals, but in
all the associations into which they may enter." He goes
on, "Christians are bound to recognize the authority of
Christianity in their government acts. They must do it."
Hodge continues, furthermore, by arguing that, "It is expedient
to obey God. If he has enjoined the observance of the Sabbath,
all who recognize his authority, will feel that it is expedient,
best for the interests of society, that the day should be observed."
And, finally, he states, "…Christians, in all their
relations and associations, should have reverence to the law
of God as revealed in his word, as their rule of action."
Hodge returned to his emphasis on the necessity of Christians
observing the Sabbath in his Systematic Theology, where
he states flatly, "Any community or class of men who ignore
the Sabbath and absent themselves from the sanctuary, as a general
thing, become heathen. They have little more true religious
knowledge than pagans. But without such knowledge morality is
impossible."
Hodge
lodged his concern for the Sabbath squarely within his system
of doctrines and meanings, arguing that observing the Sabbath
is biblical, necessary to the knowledge of God and evangelical
piety, in accord with human nature, and a divine command. Faithful
See, Hodge, "Sabbath Sanctified"; and Hodge, "Sunday
Laws."
Hodge, "Sunday
Laws," 760-65. During the Antebellum years, Princeton and
the Old School supported various campaigns to prevent the Sunday
delivery of the mail, hence this emphasis on the Sabbath in
Hodge. See, Charles Elliott, The Sabbath (Philadelphia: Board
of Publication, 1867); Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Prelude to Abolitionism:
Sabbatarian Politics and the Rise of the Second Party System,"
JAH 58, 2 (September 1971): 316-41; and Richard R. John,
"Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously: The Postal System, the
Sabbath, and the Transformation of American Political Culture,"
JER 10, 4 (Winter 1990): 517-67. It was more than coincidental
that Jonathan Wilson refused to go to the post office on Sundays.
His colleagues praised this trait as symbolic of his strict observance
of the Sabbath. See "Personal and Otherwise," LN
8, 3 (July 1911): 77.
Hodge, Systematic
Theology, vol. 3, 331.
126
Christians have no choice in the matter.
They must observe the Sabbath. Wilson and McGilvary's insistence
that their converts refrain from working on the Sabbath thus
represented a central theological and moral concern for Princeton
as well as for them. McGilvary writes of Nan Inta’s refusal
to perform corvée labor on the Sabbath that, "It
was a spectacle over which angels must have stooped with interest
to see the first stand that had ever been taken by a native
Laos in favor of God and the Sabbath." Wilson writes of
Chao Tepawong’s patient response to Nan Inta, "And
here again the hand of the Lord was visible in causing the Sabbath
question to pass its first test under such favorable circumstances."
They believed that God intervened to give the mission a victory
in the question of keeping the Sabbath and that the whole matter
had a cosmic dimension, the very angels of heaven giving their
attention to the event. Equally to the point, they felt that
when Nan Inta refused to work on Sunday, he was taking a stand,
not just for a doctrine, but also for God.
The mission
chose a poor time, however, to insist on the strict observance
of the Christian Sabbath. By the 1860s, Chao Kawilorot found
himself embroiled in conflict with British teak companies over
logging rights in his forests, a confrontation that threatened
his political power and economic security to the extent that
at one point he attacked a logging camp, killing four loggers
and wounding four others.
The mission, by the same token, appeared to him to be setting
itself up as a new, alternative system of patronage by controlling
the labor of its converts—representing still another attack
on his authority and the economic well-being and stability of
his state. McGilvary later noted that,
In the light of subsequent events
we now know that the most dangerous element in the gathering
storm was the angry surprise of the Prince himself at
the discovery that the old order seemed actually passing
away under his very eyes; that his will was no longer
supreme in men's minds, nor always consulted in their
actions. 
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Whatever his particular thoughts, Kawilorot acted decisively,
forcefully, and effectively to put a halt to the new religion,
and when he had finished, two men were dead and the Christian
community was broken, its remnant in hiding.
The martyrdom
of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya in September 1869 can be summarized
briefly here.
Lulled into a false sense of security by the assurances of members
of the royal family, the McGilvarys and Wilsons believed that
Chao Kawilorot had decided to allow the new religion to grow
unmolested, where, in fact, the Prince was simply waiting for
an
McGilvary "For the Little Folks," NCP New Series
3, 106 (12 January 1870): 4; and Wilson to Irving, 27 January
1869, v. 3, BFM.
Ratanaphorn,
"Chiang Mai Treaties," 123ff, 156ff, esp. 157, 160-61.
McGilvary,
Half Century, 102
For fuller
accounts, see, McGilvary, Half Century, 104-117; and
Swanson, Khrischak Muang Nua, 12-20. The key sources
are, Wilson, letter dated 3 January 1870, FM 28, 12 (May 1870):
281-84; Wilson to Irving, 3 January 1870, v. 3, BFM; Sessional
Records, 16-21; McGilvary, "For the Little Folks," NCP
New Series 3, 120 (20 April 1870): 4; and McGilvary,"Latest
News From Chieng-Mai," FM 28, 10 (March 1870) 227-29.
127
appropriate moment to act.
On Monday morning, 13 September 1869, a party of armed men collected
two of the Christians, Nan Chai and Noi Sunya, and brought them
before a local official, who accused them, on trumped up charges,
of having committed certain crimes. The two men were beaten.
Based on information the missionaries obtained later, Wilson
relates that after they had been beaten,
The arms of the prisoners were tied
behind their backs. Their necks were compressed between
two pieces of timber (the death-yoke) tied before and
behind so tightly as painfully to impede both respiration
and the circulation of the blood. They were thus placed
in a sitting posture near a wall, and cords were passed
through the holes in their ears and tied to a beam above.
In this constrained and painful position—not able
to turn their heads or bow them in slumber—they
remained from Monday afternoon till Tuesday morning about
ten o-clock, when they were led out into the jungle and
executed. 
|
Their families had been helpless to intervene. Although Nan
Chai's wife did stay with him for a time, the authorities prevented
her from going to Wilson and McGilvary. On the evening of 13
September 1869, the servants of both mission families suddenly
left without a word of explanation. All they would say was that
if Nan Chai did not turn up in a few days, the missionaries
should be concerned. Having been quietly warned, Nan Inta fled
Chiang Mai and wandered about the countryside for some months.
One other convert, San Ya Wichai, was hauled before the chao
muang, or Prince, of Lamphun, condemned to death for being
a Christian, and saved only by the timely intervention of his
own patron, the son of the Prince.
With these
events, the two mission families, the Wilsons and the McGilvarys,
entered into a period of intense anxiety, made only worse by
a lack of information, the large number of rumors abroad in
Chiang Mai, and their inability to communicate with Bangkok.
They responded to all of this as calmly and passively as possible;
all they could do was to wait on events.
News of their situation did reach the Bangkok government and
the Siam Mission, and after worried consultations, the King
dispatched an official representative with vice-regal powers
(kha luang) in November; the mission sent along two
of its own members with the Siamese government party.
They finally reached Chiang Mai on Monday, 27 December 1869,
and the next day had an audience with Chao Kawilorot, at which
time McGil-
McGilvary, undated letter, FM 28, 9 (February 1870):
216-17; and Wilson, letter dated 3 January 1870, FM 28,
12 (May 1870): 281.
Wilson, letter
dated 3 January 1870, FM 28, 12 (May 1870): 283, quoted in McGilvary,
Half Century, 114-17.
Wilson to Irving,
31 August 1872, v. 4, BFM; and Wilson, letter dated 30 April 1872,
FM 31, 5 (October 1872): 151-53.
For the aftermath
of the events of September 1869, see, McGilvary, Half Century,
107ff; McGilvary to Irving, 1 November 1869, v. 3, BFM; McGilvary,
"For the Little Folks," NCP New Series 3, 120
(20 April 1870): 4; McGilvary, "For the Little Folks,"
NCP New Series 3, 121 (27 April 1870): 4; S. R. House,
"Sad and Unexpected News from Chieng-Mai," FM
28, 9 (February 1870): 202-04; and McGilvary, "Latest News
From Chieng-Mai," FM 28, 10 (March 1870): 227-29.
McGilvary,
Half Century, 112; McGilvary, "For the Little Folks,"
NCP New Series 3, 121 (27 April 1870): 4; and McDonald
to Irving, 2 February 1870, v. 3, BFM.
128
vary stood before the Prince and charged
him with the murder of two Christians. At first, Kawilorot angrily
denied that they had been executed on religious grounds, but,
When pressed a little closely on that point, so that he
found he could not deny it, he declared before us all, in
the most defiant manner, that he had done it and would kill
every man that should dare to become a Christian—that
he regarded every man who rebelled against his god as a
rebel against himself.
|
In the wake of this bitter confrontation, both the kha
luang and the Bangkok mission representatives urged the
McGilvarys and Wilsons to leave Chiang Mai, fearing for their
lives, but over the next few months matters settled down into
something of a routine. Chao Kawilorot comported himself in
a relatively friendly manner, although he made it clear that
he would eventually expel the two families.
Officials in Chiang Mai later informed the missionaries that
Kawilorot might be willing to have them remain if they would
only engage in medicine and refrain from teaching religion.
They rejected this offer out of hand, as we have seen, and McGilvary
affirmed that, "…all the king’s money would
not have induced us to come here for any other purpose than
to teach Christianity—that is now and must always be our
principal business here."
As it turned out, the Siamese government called Chao Kawilorot
down to Bangkok on other business. While there he became seriously
ill, and although he hurried back to Chiang Mai, he failed to
reach the city and died on 29 June 1870. Within some 24 hours
of Chao Kawilorot’s death, Chao Inthawichaiyanon ("Chao
Intanon" to the missionaries), his son-in-law and successor,
assured McGilvary that the missionaries were free to remain
and carry out their work without hindrance.
It required
months and then years before the Laos Mission's situation returned
to a semblance of normality, particularly with respect to the
development of a stable, growing Christian community. The four
surviving converts kept their distance from the missionaries,
and by mid-year 1870, two of them, Noi Kanta and Boonma, permanently
withdrew from the church. The missionaries themselves, meanwhile,
continued to receive numerous visitors and McGilvary went about
his medical work, much as before. Kawilorot's death, however,
fundamentally changed the mission's situation, and at some point
during July 1870 Nan Inta quietly renewed his relationship with
the Wilsons and McGilvarys; the mission, nonetheless, had powerful
enemies, and the people of Chiang Mai continued to refrain from
displays of interest in the Christian religion.
McGilvary, "For the Little Folks," NCP New
Series 3, 121 (27 April 1870): 4. See also McGilvary, Half
Century, 118-26.
McGilvary,
"Shall Chieng-Mai be Given Up?" FM 28, 12 (May
1870): 274; McGilvary, "For the Little Folks," dated
4 January 1870, NCP New Series 3, 121 (27 April 1870):
4; and McGilvary, Half Century, 126-29.
McGilvary to
Irving, 17 February 1870, v. 3, BFM.
McGilvary,
Half Century, 133-39; and Wilson, letter dated 28 July
1870, FM 29, 7 (December 1870): 182-88.
Wilson, "Fourth
Annual Report of the Laos Mission," 18 July 1870, v. 3, BFM;
and Wilson, letter dated 28 July 1870, FM 29, 7 (December
1870): 182-88. See also McGilvary to Irving, 17 February 1870,
4 March 1870, and 30 May 1870, v. 3, BFM.
129
Conclusion
Coleman,
we will recall, complained that the nineteenth-century American
Presbyterian missionaries he studied articulated only a rudimentary
version of the Princeton Theology. Missionary behavior, methods,
and activities up to 1870, however, make it clear that the Laos
Mission founded its work on a complex, interlocking cognitive
system much richer than Coleman suggests. That the mission's
written records reveal only the tip of that theological and
ideological system does not mean the system did not exist. It
is notable, for example, that before the events of September
1869, the mission based its decisions on clear and non-negotiable
principles, namely, that conversion to Christianity had to be
public and Christians must keep the Sabbath. The converts, that
is, had to "cross over" the boundary from traditional
northern Thai religion to Christianity in a single, visible
step, and they must thereafter act according to a foreign behavioral
pattern mandated by the mission's foreign system of doctrines
and meanings. From these principles, it is not difficult to
work back to the mission's closed, Old School, and evangelical
system of meanings and doctrines as exemplified by and, to a
degree, taken directly from the Princeton Theology—a system
characterized by its dualistic world view, Enlightenment epistemology,
universal understanding of truth, and profound concern for defining
and defending doctrinal boundaries.
During
the agonizing months after September 1869, McGilvary and Wilson
both wrote letters to the Board reaffirming the importance of
their system of doctrines and meanings and avowing that they
relied heavily on their theological beliefs to comfort them
and help them make sense of Chao Kawilorot's actions. Wilson
avowed that God would lead them through their time of trouble
and, more broadly, that all hearts are in God's hands. The murder
of Nan Chai and Noi Sunya only confirmed for him the "fact"
that northern Siam was a "benighted land." He called
on people in the United States to "Pray for this persecuting
king. Pray for these benighted & down trodden Laos."
In the face of the possibility of having to leave Chiang Mai,
Wilson felt that their decision to stay or go amounted to nothing
less than discerning God's will in the matter.
With Chao Kawilorot away in Bangkok and the fate of the Laos
Mission still uncertain, McGilvary wrote in mid-February 1870
that, "…we are just waiting to see what God will
have us to do and we cannot tell till the King's return. But
present duty is still as plain as ever. We can trust God's love
to us and his people and the Laos for the future."
God is sovereign. God leads. God has a will. The faithful can
discern that will. God has a people. God is love. God is trustworthy.
McGilvary and Wilson's statements were not merely formal expressions
of dogma; they stood as operating principles that provided the
two Presbyterian families with the patience
The quotation is from, Wilson to Irving, 3 January 1870, v. 3,
BFM. See also, Wilson to Irving, 15 October 1869, v. 3, BFM; and
Wilson to Irving, 24 January 1870, v. 3, BFM.
McGilvary to
Irving, 17 February 1870, v. 3, BFM.
130
and endurance to persevere under profoundly trying circumstances.
In that sense, they recall McGilvary's affirmation that the
fundamental doctrines of Calvinism both strengthened missionaries
and helped them to understand the situations they faced.
Apart
from their system of meanings and doctrines, Wilson and McGilvary's
refusal to allow private conversions and their insistence that
the converts must refuse their patrons' lawful calls for service
on Sundays make little sense. Everyone, including the missionaries
themselves, understood that Kawilorot was a dangerous man, zealous
in the protection of his rights and power. The mission played
with fire when it challenged the state religion and the fundamental
social and political structure of Kawilorot's patronage, and
it paid a substantial price as a consequence. The persecution
of September 1869 effectively halted the emergence of the church
in northern Siam for nearly a decade, nipped in the bud a potential
"people's movement" towards Christianity, severely
reduced interest in Christianity among people of all classes,
and led to the total domination of the weakened northern Thai
church by the mission.
According to the constraints of missionary ideology and theology,
however, Wilson and McGilvary behaved in an entirely reasonable
and correct manner; as dangerous as Kawilorot might have been,
they believed that rebellion against God was vastly more perilous
than challenging the power of a mere prince.
Interregnum
Introduction
The Laos
Mission, with the death of Chao Kawilorot in June 1870, entered
a peculiar period in its history. It had no Christian community
to speak of, the authorities remained discreetly aloof, and
the mission's members could only lay plans for the future and
try out various strategies that had few immediate results. Things
went on like this for some six years, until the mission began
to experience a renewal of its work and hopes in 1875 and 1876.
In the
months after June 1870, meanwhile, an event took place that
symbolized the cultural differences between the mission and
the people of Chiang Mai. Upon the accession of the new Prince,
Chao Intanon, the mission immediately approached him concerning
the problem of the status of its property. Chao Kawilorot had
given the mission a site as a gift, with the understanding that
they could not own the land legally since, according to the
law, the Prince owned all land. The piece of property he gave
the mission, however, was land he had taken away from others
without compensation. He left the mission thus with neighbors
who bitterly resented them, and the missionaries wanted Chao
Intanon to allow them to pay for the property, expand it, and
hold legal title to it. Chao Intanon, however, publicly sided
with the mission's enemies, refusing it permission to buy land,
hold title, and expand its site.
Swanson, Khrischak Muang Nua, 18-9.
131
Quietly and on the sly, however, he let it
be known that the missionaries could give their neighbors compensation
in the form of "gifts" and even expand their property
by the same stratagem, just so long as no one spoke of buying
and selling property. By December 1870, McGilvary could write,
"We have since the accession of the new prince remunerated
[the previous owners] for their places so that we have now a
place that we can feel is by right as well as in fact our own."
Chao Intanon's
solution to the mission's property problems, in a strictly legal
sense, changed nothing. The mission's enemies could lodge no
accusations against the new Prince because he maintained his
traditional rights over all property and did not allow the missionaries
to purchase any land. Yet, he managed to accommodate the mission's
desires by employing the principle that reality can be described
in different ways using different words; buying and selling
property is not really buying and selling unless we
say it is. The contrast between this event and those
related to the persecution of 1869 is striking. In this instance
Wilson and McGilvary went along with the game and came away
satisfied because, whatever they called it or did not call it,
the mission had exchanged money for land. They refused, however,
to consider Nan Inta's and Nan Chai's desire to follow a similar
stratagem concerning conversion, that is to convert without
calling the act "conversion." The purchase of property,
apparently, did not involve theological or ideological principles
while keeping the Sabbath and making public declarations of
faith did. The missionaries, that is, could accept culturally
appropriate ways of solving problems just so long as those decisions
did not impinge upon their system of doctrines and meanings.
Dormancy
After
Chao Kawilorot died, as we have seen, Nan Inta quietly renewed
his relationship with the missionaries, who presumed that San
Ya Wichai also remained a Christian although they heard nothing
from him. Two other Christians, Noi Kanta and Boonma, continued
to absent themselves from any relationship with the missionaries.
McGilvary hinted at some continuing discrete interest in Christianity
among the people, but until April 1872, no one dared make a
public profession of faith. There were no converts.
One person interested in Christianity told Wilson "an open
profession of Christianity would cost him his head." This
individual and several others asked to become what we have called
"back door disciples," but the missionaries again
adamantly refused to consider such an option, although they
took comfort in the fact that some people were still attracted
to Christianity.
Even Nan Inta's status is not entirely clear. In a letter
written on 24 April 1872, Wilson indi-
McGilvary to Irving, 31 December 1870, v. 3, BFM. See also, McGilvary,
"For the Little Folks," NCP New Series 5, 266
(5 February 1873): 4; McGilvary to Irving, 22 August 1870, v.
3, BFM; and Wilson to Irving, 1 October 1870, v. 3, BFM.
McGilvary to
Irving, 22 August 1870, v. 3, BFM; and McGilvary to Irving, 11
March 1871, v. 3, BFM.
Wilson to Irving,
24 October 1871, v. 3, BFM.
132
cates that Nan Inta was keeping his distance
from the missionaries and not participating in mission activities.
Wilson writes, "Whether his heart has become indifferent
to the gospel, or whether the fear of his master keeps him away
from our worship, we know not. We have long hoped for his return,
but disappointment & sorrow are all that his present course
brings us."
As of March 1872, then, the mission had no active converts.
During
the month of April 1872, however, the situation changed somewhat
for the better. On 7 April 1872, the mission received its first
convert since September 1869. Then, on Sunday, April 21st, McGilvary
and Vrooman, who were on their tour of the far north, unexpectedly
met San Ya Wichai, who was traveling on a Sunday. Although the
missionaries considered travel on the Sabbath sinful and instructed
him to that affect, they were still glad to see him. He affirmed
that he continued to consider himself a Christian. After this
meeting, he went on to Chiang Mai, arriving Saturday evening,
April 27th. He met Wilson, who heard for the first time how
the Prince of Lamphun hauled San Ya Wichai into his presence
and nearly had him executed. Sunday morning San Ya Wichai joined
in worship and then Sunday evening Wilson held a special worship
service. A few of San Ya Wichai’s traveling companions
attended this service, and so, interestingly enough, did Nan
Inta. It was a black, stormy evening with only a few persons
present. They sat on the floor, and San Ya Wichai avowed his
intention to remain a faithful Christian. He prostrated himself
and prayed that God would provide him with food, the Holy Spirit
would touch his friends, and that Jesus would come and set up
his throne in the land. Wilson observed that San Ya Wichai prayed
simply and in such a child-like manner that, "The Spirit
of God must have been in that prayer." Nan Inta also prayed
a moving prayer, and they closed the prayer meeting with hymns
and injunctions to San Ya Wichai to lead a faithful Christian
life. He left the next day.
From this time, Nan Inta evidently resumed his full place in
the life of the church and the Laos Mission. He was again employed
as a language teacher and Bible translator. Later in the year,
McGilvary described him as meek, humble, faithful, and a good
scholar who was "our brightest trophy of the power of the
gospel."
The closing
days of 1872 brought a further modest increase in the number
of members belonging to the Chiang Mai Church. Three men received
baptism on 29 December 1872. They were Lung (Uncle) In, Lung
Dang, and Noi Choi. Lung In had lived with the McGilvarys for
about two years, for reasons unknown. Lung Dang had come to
Vrooman’s hospital seeking cure for a disease the spirit
doctors could not heal. At this same time, the church Session,
meaning Wilson and McGilvary, dropped the three "old"
members who had long ceased to participate in church life. These
additions and subtractions left northern Thai
Wilson to Irving, 24 April 1872, v. 3, BFM
Wilson to Irving,
24 April 1872 [and 30 April 1872], v. 3, BFM. Emphasis in the
original. See also Vrooman, undated letter, FM 32, 2
(July 1873): 53-7.
McGilvary,
"For the Little Folks," NCP New Series 5, 266
(5 February 1873): 4; and McGilvary, letter dated 10 April 1872,
FM 31, 5 (October 1872): 150-51.
133
membership standing at six, including Nan Inta, San Ya Wichai,
and Nan Ta as well as the three baptized in December.
McGilvary, however, did not seem particularly enthusiastic about
these converts and acknowledged that the years 1871 and 1872
had been filled with discouragement. The McGilvarys and Wilsons
had put a great deal of effort into their work, but they had
little to show in return. Drawing once again on his system of
doctrines and meanings, McGilvary stated that only his belief
in biblical promise that Christianity must triumph throughout
the world, including in Chiang Mai, sustained him.
Early
in January 1873, the McGilvary family left Chiang Mai for a
long-awaited furlough, leaving the Wilsons and Dr. Vrooman behind
in Chiang Mai. By June 1873, as we have seen, Vrooman left Chiang
Mai and the Wilsons were entirely on their own. They felt lonely
and pressured, and their situation became particularly difficult
in September 1873 when the city experienced a great deal of
illness and Wilson had to fill McGilvary’s shoes by treating
over a thousand people with quinine. There were no converts
during 1873 or 1874, and two of the six active northern Thai
members—Nan Ta and Lung Dang—died during Wilson’s
tenure. Nan Ta’s death especially troubled Wilson because
during his search for a cure Nan Ta allowed spirit doctors to
perform their rites over him. In Wilson's eyes, Nan Ta had virtually
rejected his Christian faith.
The year 1874, in any event, belonged entirely to the Wilsons,
and by and large it went along much as the previous year had.
Wilson described his tasks as "varied." He had to
oversee the work of the mission compound. He visited people
in their homes. He provided medicines to the ill. He spent some
time most days teaching theology to Nan Inta. In June, Wilson
wrote, "The people come as of old, and many an hour is
given up to receiving their desultory visits."
It was
at the end of 1874, we will remember, that Wilson discovered
Noi Choi also engaged in what Wilson took to be anti-Christian
rites for the healing of his grandson (see Chapter Four). The
mission time and again had to face the question of the boundaries
between the insipient Christian community and Chiang Mai's larger
cultural and social world as the northern Thai converts and
potential converts repeatedly attempted to redraw those boundaries
along lines that made more sense to them. More people, as we
have already seen, would have converted if the mission had allowed
"unofficial" conversions. It refused. Nan Ta, on his
deathbed, went back to indigenous medical treatments, as did
Noi Choi for his grandson's illness. They saw nothing "un-Christian"
in doing so, but the mission did. The ideological and doctrinal
"dialogue" between the mission and church, thus, took
place over matters of life, health, risk, and death. The mission
remained closed to all
Sessional Records, 27-9; and McGilvary to Irving, 4 December 1872,
v. 3, BFM.
McGilvary to
Irving, 4 December 1872, v. 3, BFM.
Wilson to Irving,
9 December 1872, 1 September 1873, and 30 September 1873, v. 3.
BFM; and Wilson, "Annual Report of the North Laos Mission,
30 September 1873, v. 3. BFM.
Wilson, letter
dated 5 June 1874, FM 33, 7 (December 1874): 214-18.
134
options but its own, an attitude made clear
in its annual report for 1873. In that report, Wilson told the
story of an elderly widow, from a village near the city, whose
interest in Christianity led her to decided to convert. Her
relatives, however, warned her concerning the dangerous consequences
of abandoning spirit propitiation, and in the face of their
threats, she abandoned her intention and returned to temple
worship. She told Wilson that she still paid homage to Jesus
every day. She, that is, opted for the soft, private conversion
originally advocated by Nan Inta and Nan Chai in 1868. Wilson,
of course, did not accept the validity of her decision. Her
family, on the other hand, evidently did not care where she
gave her personal religious loyalty so long as she participated
in communal religious life, which life insured the safety of
her family and community from evil spirits.
The widow's
personal decision to worship Jesus and her family's willingness
to allow her to hold a private faith other than theirs so long
as she remained a secure part of its ritual life calls to mind
yet again Tongchai's description of the traditional Southeast
Asian conception of political boundaries as overlapping power
centers involving large swatches of territory rather than razor
thin boundary lines. Her family would not allow the mission
to lay down a boundary that destroyed its unity and ritual integrity.
Where Wilson and his colleagues in the Laos Mission refused
to permit any participation in Buddhist or animistic ritual,
the northern Thai sense of communal unity demanded such participation.
Those rites and practices tied community members to their ancestors
and their past, allowed the community to live in harmony with
the spiritual powers that inhabited their world, and provided
an avenue for reconciliation when disputes arose. They also
provided for the well being of the community and the salvation
of individuals through communal merit-making activities. Northern
Thai communities, thus, rejected the Laos Mission’s intention
to create a second, religiously independent social structure
in the North and refused to accept willingly the introduction
into their midst of an alternative, exclusive ritual. They could
not abide, in short, the thought of two mutually antagonistic
religions in one community.
Potential converts to Christianity, as a consequence, faced
two choices: they had to decide whether or not they found meaning
in Christian teachings and faith, and they had to decide if
they would divorce themselves from the religious life of their
family and community, a life that lay at the heart of northern
Thai society. After 1869, the great majority of individuals
who faced this choice decided not to withdraw from the practices
of their neighbors and ancestors; it is now impossible to know
how many of them felt as the widow did.
Kosuke
Koyama, we will remember, wondered if the northern Thai of McGilvary's
time understood his message because he observed "how thoroughly
strange and unrealis-
Wilson to Executive Committee [annual report], 30 September 1874,
v. 3, BFM.
See Kummool
Chinawong and Herbert R. Swanson, "Religion and the Formation
of Community in Northern Thailand: The Case of Christianity in
Nan Province" (Paper delivered at the Fifth International
Conference on Thai Studies, London, July 1993); and , S. J. Tambiah,
Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970), 54-7.
135
tic—how 'western'—is the Christian vocabulary to
the ears of my Thai neighbors!" If this case is any measure,
the people of Chiang Mai understood a great deal of what they
heard. The widow found meaning in Jesus and wanted to become
a Christian. Her family understood the dangers her conversion
posed for it and angrily opposed her taking that step. The widow
and her family surely did not understand the mission's underlying
system of meanings and doctrines, but they did understand something
of both the positive and negative implications of that system
for their own lives.
In mid-March
1875 and at the end of the Wilsons’ difficult months alone
in Chiang Mai, in the meantime, Wilson wrote a letter to the
Board describing the Laos Mission’s situation. It was
a discouraging time, in spite of the return of the McGilvarys
and the arrival of Dr. Cheek. He depicted the pervasive influence
of animism in northern Thai life and society and how it insinuated
itself into every part of daily life; and he enumerated the
numerous hindrances the mission faced. Wilson concluded, however,
on a more positive note by praying for a stronger faith and
affirming his trust in God. He wrote, " [God] has good
in store for this land. He will gather his chosen ones unto
himself. Not one shall be lost."
Like McGilvary, Wilson found strength and comfort in the doctrines
of Reformed confessionalism, doctrines such as divine grace
and divine election.
Church
life continued to languish. One important event did take place,
however, when the church held its first congregational meeting
on 10 April 1875, to elect Nan Inta as its first northern Thai
elder. Presbyterian polity recognized two ordained offices,
clergy and elders. Elders were members of the local church’s
governing body, known as a "session" in Presbyterian
parlance, along with the church's pastor, who moderated the
meetings of the session. Prior to this time, the Chiang Mai
Church session was made up of only ordained missionary clergy,
an irregular situation according to American Presbyterian ecclesiastical
practices. Nan Inta’s election, thus, regularized and
normalized the church's government, giving it a "proper"
session for the first time.
There were some other stirrings of life in the church. By October,
it appeared that Nan Inta’s wife was considering conversion.
Dr. Cheek’s language teacher, Nan Chai, also seemed ready
to become a Christian. In November, McGilvary reported that
Dr. Cheek’s patient, Boon Ruen, might also convert.
The events
of 1875 reinforce the impression that the missionaries' system
of meanings and doctrines took their power partly from the fact
that they silently embedded themselves in the assumptions on
which the missionaries acted. They apparently never stopped
to consider the question of how best to organize a northern
Thai church. In 1868, they established a typically American
Presbyterian congregation composed entirely of the missionary
Wilson to Irving, 15 March 1875, v. 3, BFM.
Sessional Records,
35-6. See also McGilvary, "For the Family," NCP
New Series 9, 417 (7 January 1876): 4. Note that McGilvary, Half
Century, 169, incorrectly dates Nan Inta’s ordination
as 1876.
McGilvary,
"For the Family," letter dated 1 October 1875, NCP
New Series 9, 417 (7 January 1876): 4; and McGilvary to Irving,
1 November 1875, v. 3, BFM.
136
families themselves. In 1875, they reconstituted that church's
organizational structure by the election of a northern Thai
elder, while maintaining it along those same Presbyterian lines.
One hears bubbling quietly in the background of these discrete
actions the ideological assumption that Christianity alone represented
truth, morality, and God's will for humanity. Its structures
were best. Its representatives were the ones best suited to
lead. Cementing this unconsciously ideological approach to the
formation of the church into place was the equally unconscious
commonsense assumption that the Presbyterian Church's organizational
structure was essentially universal and timeless, equally relevant
to any time, any place.
Resurrection
For some
six years after September 1869, the Laos Mission struggled to
resurrect the Chiang Mai Church and only began to see some glimmers
of hope towards the end of 1875. The church's first communion
service in 1876, held on the first Sunday of the New Year, marked
an important turning point in the history of the northern Thai
church. On that Sunday, Chiang Mai Church received its first
two women members, Pa (Aunt) Kamun, the widow of Noi Sunya,
the martyr, and Mae (Mother) Noo, the wife of Lung In. These
two women were the first northern Thai women to convert to Christianity,
and Mae Noo and Lung In became the first Christian couple.
From this point on, the number of conversions began to accelerate.
In September 1876, the mission baptized three more women including
Yai (Grandmother) Peng, the wife of Nan Inta and two daughters
of Pa Kamun, meaning that for the first time the church numbered
more members than it had at the time of the persecution seven
years earlier.
Kate Wilson,
recuperating in the United States, hailed the conversion of
the five women as being good news indeed and wrote of the Laos
Mission that, "The missionaries seem to be very much encouraged,
and I think have great occasion to be, as the people seem anxious
to hear the gospel." She went on to observe, nonetheless,
that it cost northern Thai women a great deal to convert.
She may have had Yai Peng in mind. According to McGilvary, Yai
Peng suffered for her interest in Christianity even before she
was baptized. In July 1876 her brother, the family patriarch,
called on her to assist in certain family animistic ceremonies,
and she refused. Her brother then summoned both Yai Peng and
her husband, Nan Inta, to a family conference at which he became
abusive and threatening. McGilvary recounts,
McGilvary, Half Century, 170; Sessional Records, 38-40;
McGilvary to Irving, 22 February 1876, v. 3, BFM.; and McGilvary,
"For the Family," letter dated 1 October 1875, NCP
New Series 9, 417 (7 January 1876): 4.
Sessional Records,
42-4.
Kate Wilson,
undated letter, WWW 7, 7 (September 1877): 243.
137
[Yai Peng] told him that as to that
he might do as he pleased but that she was never going
to worship the spirits. She was willing to redeem herself
for life by paying to the family a small sum, but
that she could not again join the family directly or indirectly
in their worship. The brother somewhat calmed down and
said he would consider that proposition, though insisting
still that his sister should be an alien to the family. 
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Those words, "an alien to the family," as we have
already seen, could well serve as the title of a social history
of early northern Thai Christianity. Yai Peng and most of her
Christian compatriots, men as well as women, had to step beyond
the normal boundaries of their society and culture in order
to become Christians in the face of considerable social pressure.
Even so, Yai Peng resorted to a strategy not unlike the one
used by Chao Intanon to solve the problem of the mission's property.
She agreed to pay a sum of money to the family as long as no
one called it a payment to the spirits. McGilvary seems
to have acquiesced to her way of calming the waters, perhaps
in recognition of the fact that the mission had to give its
converts some leeway in solving the problem of their relationship
with their relatives and with their former religion. As we will
see in the following section of this chapter, however, there
were still definite limits to missionary toleration of the northern
Thai inclination to rely on convenient definitions as a way
out of conflict.
Mae Noo
had her own problems, once she converted. In early December
1876, the session of the church suspended her from communion
on charges of "complicity in spirit worship" and failure
to exhibit "consistent Christian conduct."
McGilvary blamed a foolish, worthless son who was her only child
for getting her into trouble; Mae Noo could refuse him almost
nothing he wanted. McGilvary expressed some remorse at having
to suspend Mae Noo but felt the mission had no choice. "We
were compelled to do so," he writes, "for the purity
and discipline of the church, though we feel that great charity
is due to her."
When Wilson
suspended Noi Choi from the church for participating in "heathen"
rites, he did not express any remorse, however he may have felt
about the matter. When the church suspended Mae Noo, McGilvary
did express regret and sympathy, but he justified the act as
necessary for the sake of the purity and discipline of the church.
Smith argues that in the early decades of the nineteenth century,
Old School Presbyterians staked out more and more of a "position
of defense" doctrinally, and in the process found it necessary
to focus considerable attention on church discipline "lest
wolves infiltrate the flock or clergyman of good standing and
high reputation begin to entertain dangerous thoughts."
The seminaries taught their students to defend the faith and
to preach sermons that would enable local church members to
identify false philosophies.
The same doctrinal and
McGilvary to Irving, 12 August 1876, v. 3, BFM. Emphasis in original.
Sessional Records,
46-7.
McGilvary,
"The Laos Mission," NCP New Series 10, 485
(25 April 1877): 1. See also McGilvary to Irving, 4 December 1876,
v. 3, BFM.
Smith, Presbyterian
Ministry, 143-44.
138
ideological dynamic was at work in Chiang
Mai, urgently reinforced by the Laos Mission's need to replace
northern Thai traditional religion with Christianity. In the
case of the mission's sister Presbyterian mission to the south,
the Siam Mission, church discipline issues dominated its relationship
with its churches throughout the last decades of the nineteenth
century to the extent that the Siam Mission seriously jeopardized
church growth by alienating converts and potential converts
for the sake of maintaining moral and doctrinal purity. The
Siam Mission particularly worried that most central Thai Christians
converted out of a desire for "temporal" benefits
rather than from a "pure" faith in the Christian message.
Although somewhat more patient with its church members, the
Laos Mission took the same ideological stance, exercising especial
care to prevent participation in Buddhist rites and animistic
ritual.
The Laos
Mission, in spite of Mae Noo's lapses, could look back on 1876
with some satisfaction. The rate of conversions had picked up.
Its political relationships had also improved and stabilized.
McGilvary writes, "The whole year has probably been one
of greater labor and greater success than any one year of my
mission life."
The year 1877 marked yet another quiet advance in the life of
the small, but growing Christian community. On the first Sunday
of that year, McGilvary baptized three of Nan Inta's grandchildren,
the first children to receive baptism. Eventually, it became
common practice to baptize entire families as units, a practice
McGilvary later termed "household baptism."
The following May, Nan Suwan, from the village of Mae Dok Daeng,
received baptism. He was the son of Nan Panya, an elderly convert
who had been baptized in December 1876 and died shortly thereafter.
Nan Suwan demonstrated qualities of leadership, and he thereafter
emerged as one of the Laos Mission’s most capable local
church leaders. The process of family conversion, meanwhile,
became clearly apparent at the Chiang Mai Church’s monthly
communion of 7 October 1877. Among the four adults and two infants
baptized that day were the mother-in-law and two infant daughters
of converts. Another convert's wife would also be baptized in
less than a year. It is notable, furthermore, that three of
these six new Christians came from Nan Suwan's village, one
of them being his own infant daughter.
By October 1877, the converts were thus beginning to create
a distinct, viable community of their own, an augury of the
Christian counter society that the mission sought to create.
At the same time, Christians showed the first signs of clustering
together in larger groups, to the extent that an identifiable
Christian group began to take shape in Mae Dok Daeng, a village
near Doi Saket some twenty kilometers east of Chiang Mai. The
slow, steady accretion of new
See Herbert R. Swanson, Towards a Clean Church: A Case Study
in 19th Century Thai Church History (Chiang Mai, Office of
History, Church of Christ in Thailand, 1991).
McGilvary,
"The Laos Mission," NCP New Series 10, 485
(25 April 1877): 1.
McGilvary to
Mitchel, 3 July 1885, v. 5, BFM.
Sessional Records,
59-61; and McGilvary, letter dated 10 August 1877, NCP
New Series 10, 521 (2 January 1878): 4.
Sessional Records,
69-71, 81.
139
members that began in January 1876 continued
in 1878, with the church baptizing a total of ten adults and
five children during the year.
Among these, as before, were several more wives and children
of Christians. Most notable among the new Christians who received
baptism in 1878 was one of the highest-ranking converts in the
history of the northern Thai church, a government official from
Lampang, named Chao Phya Sihanot, who was baptized on 5 May
1878.
Conclusion
In Chapter
Four, we found that the Laos Mission, particularly in the person
of Daniel McGilvary, rooted its evangelism and the practice
of medicine in its system of meanings and doctrines. It emphasized
the dissemination of knowledge as the gateway to faith, engaged
the learned classes in cosmological and theological debate,
and pressed Western science into its service—all of this
after the manner of its mixed Reformed confessional and Scottish
common sense heritage. The mission maintained a closed, dualistic
attitude at all points, taking nothing from northern Thai culture
that might fit its message to that context. In the first section
of this chapter, we rediscovered many of the same theological
and ideological themes. They came most sharply into focus in
the mission's absolute insistence on keeping the Sabbath, an
insistence that gained the ultimately fatal attention of the
ruling powers of Chiang Mai. In spite of the initial success
of the mission in gaining converts in 1868 and 1869, then, the
experience of the first years of the Laos Mission did not bode
well for its future. It preached a richly textured Western religious
message grounded in Western scientific data and a cosmology
that convinced almost no one to convert to Christianity. Some
people who came into contact with missionary thinking accepted
the new world view more or less readily enough; some even accepted
Christian theological ideas to one degree or another, but only
one person, Nan Inta, converted because of the mission's Baconian
evangelistic strategy. The political establishment eventually
intervened effectively to disrupt the mission's evangelistic
program, postponing for years any hope of a significant number
of conversions or the establishment of strong churches. McGilvary
and Wilson themselves, in the years following September 1869,
knew that things were not going well and both of them admitted
discouragement to the Board, and yet they also both avowed a
continued reliance on the Princeton-like system of doctrines
and meanings they took with them to the field. McGilvary preached
his Baconian message for years after the deaths of Nan Chai
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