Friday, May 3, 2024

It is the 3rd of May 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Sung Chia-shu was born in 1861 in poverty on the Chinese island of Hainan. No one would expect that by the time of his death on this, the 3rd of May in 1918 he would be one of the most significant Chinese figures of the 20th century with a family dynasty with drama worthy of feature length film.  

Chia-shu was apprenticed to relatives in Indonesia at the age of 9. Unhappy with this situation, he ran away, making his way to Boston, where an uncle ran a Chinese silk and tea shop. He was interested in education, but his uncle didn’t approve, so he ran away again, this time as a stowaway on a ship that belonged to the National Guard. When he was found out, the captain took a liking to him and made him a cabin boy. When that captain left for a new job in Wilmington, North Carolina, Chia-shu followed. He and the captain would converse about Christianity, and the captain introduced him to his pastor, the Reverend Thomas Ricaud, at the Fifth Street Methodist Church in Wilmington. Chai-shu was baptized in 1880, taking the name Charlie after his sponsor.

Charlie Soong would work in a print shop, learning the trade while his pastor made arrangements to attend Trinity College (today Duke University) to train as a missionary. Ricaud appealed to General Julian Carr of Bull Durham tobacco fame and the first millionaire in North Carolina, to help fund Charlie’s education. Carr not only did that, he invited Charlie to live with him, and the two would be lifelong friends. From Trinity to Vanderbilt, Charlie studied and worked with the YMCA. This was the golden age of missions, and to send a native Chinese man back to evangelize his country would be a feather in the cap of Carr and the Methodist church.

In 1886, he moved back to China to work with the YMCA as a missionary. Unfortunately, he was not treated well, paid less than American missionaries, and he began to look elsewhere for an occupation. Using the printing skills he learned back in North Carolina, he started a printing press that initially made cheap Bibles. With the financial backing of Carr, the printing business took off, and Charlie was becoming wealthy. He had also joined a secret society dedicated to overthrowing the Qing dynasty. There, he met Sun Yat Sen, another Chinese Methodist and future president of China. Charlie became the treasurer of the society and helped lead the Kuomintang (Chinese nationalists). These would be the leaders of the Republic of China- the Chinese government after the fall of the Qing Dynasty until they were defeated by Mao and the People’s Republic in 1949.

Charlie married and had six children, three boys and three girls. They were all educated in the United States and in the Methodist Christian tradition. His eldest daughter would marry H.H. Kung, soon to be the wealthiest man in China and the finance minister and president of China. His second daughter would serve as a secretary to Sun Yat Sen and would disobey her father and run off with Sun, a much older man, and marry. After the death of Sun, she would side with the Communists against Chiang Kai-Shek, the new president of the Republic, who was married to Charlie’s third daughter. His sons would become wealthy and influential in the Republic of China until the Soong family moved back to the United States and became celebrities in their own right, helping to support U.S. War efforts against Japan and eventually Mao and the People’s Republic of China. With his eldest daughter, who was married to Sun Yat Sen, Charlie broke up with his former partner and retired to his home island of Hainan.

They are today referred to as the Soong dynasty and plenty has been written about those Soong sisters- but it all began with Chia-Shu baptized Charlie Soong a runaway missionary turned publisher who would die on this day in 1918. Born in 1861 he was 56 years old.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary. More Messianic promises from Isaiah as we are still in Eastertide:

This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,

    who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,

    who gives breath to its people,

    and life to those who walk on it:

“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;

    I will take hold of your hand.


I will keep you and will make you

    to be a covenant for the people

    and a light for the Gentiles,

to open eyes that are blind,

    to free captives from prison

    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

“I am the Lord; that is my name!

    I will not yield my glory to another

    or my praise to idols.

See, the former things have taken place,

    and new things I declare;

before they spring into being

    I announce them to you.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 3rd of May 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who is the father of his own dynasty- he has more children than some have fingers… Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who wondered with some Tar Heels is anything good could come from Duke- maybe Charlie Soong and Elton Brand- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.