China Centenary Missionary Conference

[4] American missionary author and Congregationalist Arthur Henderson Smith and British Presbyterian John C. Gibson were elected joint Chairmen for the Conference.

However, J. W. Lowrie interjected a negative note into the conference by saying that “the far larger part of this century's sowing [i.e. spreading Christianity]... has been on fallow ground,” [6] an acknowledgement that the missionaries had often been disappointed at the pace of their progress and their results.

William Scott Ament chaired the Committee of Federation and Comity which established a framework for united action.

[8] The majority disagreed and the resolution adopted by the Conference stated that “the time has not come when all the protection to Christian converts provided in the treaties can safely be withdrawn.”[9] The missionaries at the 1907 Conference “did not see any need to make fundamental adjustments or to reorient the missionary movement in China.” Events soon proved they were short-sighted.

Within 10 years the spirit of Protestant unity and cooperation coming out of the Conference was undermined by disagreement between fundamentalists and liberals.