History of Adventism in Sichuan

Early in 1914, the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) officials in China laid plans to establish a mission station in Sichuan, Francis Arthur Allum and Merritt C. Warren were chosen to be the mission's pioneers, accompanied by three Chinese staff members from Henan (Honan): Zhu Ziyi (Dju Dzi Ih; 朱子一), Shi Rulin (Shi Yung Gwei; 時汝霖) and Li Fakong (Li Fah Kung; 李法孔).

Meanwhile the Chinese staff members traveled around the city and its surrounding areas, securing hundreds of subscriptions to their monthly magazine Signs of the Times.

In 1927, a German medical missionary Johann Heinrich Effenberg took a trip into the regions north of Chongqing, where he established 4 Sabbath Schools, opened 2 chapels, and baptized 24 individuals.

During the two-year period of 1927 to 1929, two Chinese workers were killed by brigands, another was imprisoned, a married couple were badly beaten, and a chapel was looted by Communist forces.

After identifying some suitable rental premises for pioneer missionaries, Claude and Ida Blandford immediately began their work at Chengdu.

In 1920, the mission established an out-station and an elementary school with 62 pupils, while church membership rose to 22 despite civil unrest in the region.

After the Second World War, several public evangelistic crusades injected fresh life into the congregations, but such flourishing period was brief, because Communist forces gradually overran the country and made it difficult for Christian missions to function properly.

In 1946, Holman Carl Currie assumed the position of director of the West Szechwan Mission, but late in 1948, missionaries were ordered to evacuate Sichuan due to Communist threat.

After Currie left for Taiwan, his assistant Zhan Tienong (Djan Tieh Nung; 湛鐵儂) continued with the mission work throughout 1948 and baptized about 50 new converts.

[4] The SDA administration regarded the mission in Chongqing as a stepping stone to entering Tibet, thus an exploratory trip further west to Chengdu was carried out in February 1917, in order to establish another stage in their Tibetan quest to eventually reaching Lhasa.

[8] The 1952 Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook acknowledged that political circumstances made it impossible to accurately report any more mission activities in China.

[10] In 2018, the detention of 100 Christians in Sichuan, including their pastor Wang Yi, raised concerns about religious crackdown in China.