“Isaiah” Revisited: the Civil Religion of Lim Boon Keng, 1893–1905 1893–1905

Abstract This article offers a new perspective on the Straits Chinese public intellectual Lim Boon Keng (1869–1957) in historical context. Rather than analyze Lim’s relative Chineseness, it explores the development of his argument that a new civil religion was necessary for citizenship in the post-Enlightenment world before the rise of reform and revolution in China. It introduces the positions and the rhetoric of key protagonists in local debates in Singapore over governance, education, and religion, and analyzes the influence of global developments such as the expansion of Methodist mission schools, the American Student Volunteer Movement, James Legge’s translations of Confucian classics, and the first World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893. I argue that Lim, who wrote as “Isaiah” in 1896 to oppose proselytizing in publicly supported schools while courting his Chinese Christian bride, may be understood as engaging the world as a modern world citizen.