Buchman next took a part-time post at Hartford Theological Seminary as a personal evangelism lecturer. There he began to gather a group of men to assist in the conversion of China to Christianity. He was asked to lead missionary conferences at Kuling and Peitaiho, which he saw as an opportunity to train native Chinese leaders at a time when many missionaries held attitudes of white superiority. Through his friendship with Hsu Ch'ien (Xu Qian, Vice-Minister of Justice and later acting Prime Minister,) he got to know Sun Yat-sen. However, his criticism of other missionaries in China, with an implication that sin, including homosexuality, was keeping some of them from being effective, led to conflict. Bishop Logan Roots, deluged with complaints, asked Buchman to leave China in 1918.