could represent the views of different churches, organizations, and regions, carry out the plan nation-wide, and recommend experts from different churches. This is the first step of organizing.
Next, the chosen representatives should set up a tightly structured central body according to the outline plan decided by the representative conference, and gather different kinds of experts from across the nation to serve as the staff of the central body. It would then be up to these experts in the central body to decide the next steps of carrying out this movement’s plan. This is the second step.
The third step involves grassroots-level work. Under this unified organization, each church, church district, and church organization would, in the spirit of Christ, carry out the concrete work following the plan of the central body and—with strong faith and hope—complete the plan.
This organization and plan would not be experimental in nature. This would be a practical general mobilization so, in order to avoid large-scale mistakes, it would be very important for the central body to gather many specialists to carry out research and supervisory work.
This idea is only a very general opinion. Specific and practicable methods would need to be determined by those with special expertise who are in charge of administering and organizing. What is described above is only the author’s ideal for the great movement; I also point out that the work of national construction cannot succeed without systematic organization.
Finally, within all the plans and work, the condition that determines the success or failure of the entire movement is the source of our effort and our strength. The entire work of Christianity is built on faith, and the source of strength for our work lies in our faith and in our leader Jesus Christ, to whom no one can compare. Why can’t we achieve even greater works than others? Christ has already promised us that we can do even greater things than he did. Christ has already picked up the cross, blown the first trumpet call of the movement for the kingdom of heaven, and laid the foundation for this movement. Fulfilling the implications of his death on the cross falls to us as Christians. Completing the great task of building the kingdom of heaven on earth falls to us as Christians. Making China into a Christianized country and making it a model of the kingdom of heaven on earth falls to us as Christians!
Conclusion.
The plea above is not a new one. It represents rather the thoughts, desires and strength found in the heart of many Christians. I have already heard similar sighs, and sensed a similar growing of Christ’s life in our hearts. In the midst of cruel war, in the midst of Christ’s blood flowing on the cross, we need to gather such desires together, uniting scattered strength into a great movement, and bringing the spirit of the great movement Christ began in Palestine into the chaos of China today, to serve as comfort to those who are disappointed, to serve as a gathering of strength, to serve as a revelation of hope, and to serve as light in the darkness!
Watching the bodies of our compatriots shattered, watching the achievements of centuries torched into ashes in the blink of an eye, watching our burdened motherland gradually disintegrate, how can our young hearts be still? How can we keep our lips tight together? Watching the budding of new hope, watching the twinkling light in the darkness, watching the work of God’s saving grace in this turmoil, watching the glory of the heavenly kingdom promised by Christ, how can we not call out the hope and passion in our hearts even more loudly!
This is but a weak call from the heart of a Christian, but I believe that in the hearts of many compatriots across the country it will find an echo, and my hope is that these echoes will combine into a loud roar calling forth the sympathy of Christians across the nation, inspiring great power, and bringing the hoped for heavenly kingdom into reality in China, so that all glory be given to the all-holy, all-powerful, and all-loving Father in heaven!
原本发表于《真理与生命》第12卷第5–6期, 1939年10月出版, (301–332页)。 (“燕京大学宗教学院”？)
作者当时是上海沪江大学 (社会学系)本科三年级学生。本人对此文的写作, 早已忘记得一干二净。后来于2008年由北京世界宗教研究所的段琦教发现此文。我认为当时虽有一股热情, 但思想还远没有成熟, 极为肤浅；而且改朝换代, 时政背景已经大为不同, 现在不值得发表!承蒙刘若民老师恳请南京大学Don Snow教授译成英文, 至为感谢!陈泽民谨识。2010年3月15日。南京。
1. I have translated this passage from First Corinthians (13:4–8) directly from the Chinese text in Prof. Chen’s article, using the NRSV translation as a point of reference. (Translator.)
2. 强调实践, 避免空谈
3. Sino-Japanese War.
Protestant Church in China Today
(Tokyo, 1992)
Chen Zemin
One way to present a picture of the Christian church in China to our Japanese friends is to begin retrospectively and in comparison with Japan. There are many similarities between the Christian churches in the two countries.
First, in both countries Christianity had been from the beginning a foreign religion, imported from the west at about the same time. Catholic Christianity was introduced by the Jesuits during the period of colonial expansion of the so-called Christian powers in the 16th century. Francis Xavier came to Japan in 1549, and Matteo Ricci to China in 1583. Both used the colonial enclaves of Goa and Macao as their springing boards. Both succeeded in some measure in their inaugural attempts, then met with difficulties and suffered temporary decline due to the failure on the part of some earlier missionaries to take enough notice of the foreignness of their religion. Catholicism was almost exterminated under the persecutions in the 16th to 17th centuries and prohibition policy in the 16th to 17th centuries in Japan. Xavier had been rightly accused of his lack of understanding of oriental religions and civilizations. Matteo Ricci made some headway because of his policy of accommodation, but the Franciscans and Dominicans were banned by Emperor Kang Xi after the Rites Controversy in 18th century, as a punishment of the reluctance on the part of the Pope and his emissaries to realize the significance of Chinese historical cultural and religious forces, in sharp contrast to the wiser and more understanding Ricci.
Protestant Christianity came to Japan in the later half of the 19th century, and developed the Meiji period (1868–1912), through the efforts of denominational missionary organizations. In spite of the admirable anti-denominational “non-Church Movement” (Mykyokai) headed by KanzoUchimura (内村鉴三), Protestant Christianity as a whole had been looked at with askance and suspicion by the people because of its foreignness. In China, it was unfortunate that Protestant Christianity was forced upon China in the salvoes of gunboats and through the intrigues of merchants of Western imperialist powers, and missionary advances were flanked and protected by unequal treaties imposed upon the rotten Manchu Government in the 19th century. As a result Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, had been long regarded by most patriotic Chinese as a tool of political, economical and cultural invasions of colonialism and imperialism. Until the last three decades Christianity had been stigmatized by the Chinese people, who were not particularly anti-religious at all, as yang-jiao (洋教, foreign religion), with justifiable sentiments of hatred, contempt and resentment.
Another similarity lies in the historical cultural
