Walter Judd and the Sino-Japanese War: Christian Missionary cum Foreign Policy Activist

• Published in: A journal of church and state Vol. 58; no. 4; pp. 615 - 632
• Main Authors: Gao, Yanli, Osburn, Robert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 01.09.2016
• Subjects: Activists; Christian ethics; Christianity; Foreign policy; History; Influence; Japanese imperialism; Judd, Walter; Missionaries; Personal profiles; Political activity; Political aspects; Social aspects; War
• ISSN: 0021-969X; 2040-4867
• DOI: 10.1093/jcs/csv032

Gao and Osburn profile Christian missionary and foreign policy activist Walter Judd. A medical missionary for ten years in early to mid-20th-century China, Judd utilized his firsthand knowledge of the Sino-Japanese War, textbook knowledge about Japanese imperialist goals, and personal revulsion at Japanese violence, along with his status as a Christian missionary, in a vast public education campaign concerning the Sino-Japanese War. A content review of his speeches reveals that the relentless speechmaker combined rhetoric of Christian moral idealism with appeals to American self-interest. As such, Judd was both a Wilsonian moralist and a Jacksonian protectionist, whose efforts were driven by a general Christian understanding of human beings, as well as a missionary complex. As he appealed simultaneously to American national interests and a popular Christian moral conscience, Judd's experience demonstrated that determined courageous advocacy by missionaries did in fact help to shape an American foreign policy needing to be awakened from its isolationist slumbers.