ABSTRACT
Evangelical Protestant missionaries in Western China since 1876 gradually discovered that Islam was an integrated but specific part of the native religious surroundings, and, consequently, that their missionary strategy had to be adapted for coping with it. Generally, the concerned missionaries were pertaining to the pietistic and fundamentalistic current: for them the only and unique source of truth was the Bible. For Chinese Muslim believers educated in Arabic only, Arabic translations of the New Testament were sought in the Protestant Missions of the Near East. The distribution of God's Word is the method par excellence in all Moslem lands. The symbolical view of Jesus, Protestant missionaries wished to transmit to their audiences of Muslims believers at the time their pastoral work was mature, is clearly defined in their imagery: the sacrificial Lamb, the Door leading to the Truth, the Light of the Spirit.
