The Church in China in the 20th Century - Chen Zemin

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are few literary works of real value, and within Christian literature such quality works are even rarer. In the West, Christianity has an important place in literature. There are many famous works by Christian authors, and these have served as guides for many social reformers and inspired many valuable social movements. Our new China needs this kind of new and valuable literature, and in the process of constructing a new China we even more need such literature to inspire the enthusiasm of citizens in constructing the nation. Christian writers should view such a responsibility as very important. Christian publishing organizations should also make haste to encourage young writers to write. Among young Christians, there are many talents that have not yet been discovered, and churches and church leaders should take up the responsibility of finding and digging out such talents so that they are not buried and so that the garden of Christian literature is not neglected and barren.

      Using Christian literature as a vehicle for evangelism is very effective if we can really produce good literature. This is a relatively new ministry, with a very bright future. The cultural climate and mood of a nation is sometimes greatly influenced by special literature of its age, and as we engage in the task of construction it is necessary to have several powerful literary works; we long for several new books that are filled with the spirit of Christianity. May the leaders of the church no longer neglect this kind of ministry, and may bright flowers soon spring up in the garden of a new China’s literature.

      Cooperative writing between Christian authors is another effective new ministry. A few years ago we had organizations like the association of young Christian authors, and this was a very hopeful development. We hope that the church can again encourage this kind of movement, so that Christian writers working toward a common goal can produce collective works, and works of genuine literary merit, to serve as a source of guidance and strength for constructing new China.

      4. Medical work.

      The “medical work” referred to here is quite broad. In the past the medical work achievements of the church, especially with the assistance of western mission agencies, have been considerable, and in medical circles in China they still play a guiding role. However, we believe that the church can do even more. Simply treating diseases is definitely necessary in a poor China, but we have even greater work and hopes, and medical work in future China has an even greater mission.

      At present, nursing wounded soldiers and refugees is a task calling for all our efforts. Our nation has many inadequacies in medicine and medical equipment, and has experienced many serious losses, and this is definitely something that we should work on. But after the war, treating diseases and accumulating medical equipment and training is a big task in national construction. There are ways in which church organizations and people can presently make a contribution in this regard. We only need to unite our doctors and nurses together in a large organization, mutually encouraging each other with Christ’s love, and working together to research, to plan, and to carry out plans, and the people of China will be spared many innocent deaths and much pointless wasting of strength in struggles with disease and weakness. An ideal healthy China depends much on our efforts!

      5. Social work.

      This is a relatively vague term because we use it to cover all the kinds of work not covered by the terms above, such as the work of the YMCA and other social service organizations. In the past Christianity has already invested much effort in such work. However, in this time when the old social system has been shattered by war and chaos and the new system is already under construction, the responsibility of Christian social service is even more pressing and urgent. Evangelistic, educational, publication and the other kinds of work mentioned above are all foundation-laying long term efforts, and the accomplishments we hope for do not depend on immediate realization. However, before these accomplishments materialize, tens of millions or hundreds of millions of our compatriots will have lost their social ties due to war. Amidst poverty and disorder, if there is no good way to provide relief to them and help them resolve the serious problems in their lives, they may well generate very negative consequences for society. These problems are very immediate, and pose a great challenge to us. While such work is not the basis on which to build a new China, it is the start of building a new China. These are not tasks that pre-existing social work organizations are capable of handling on their own, but rather a cross that the whole church needs to bear. Whether or not the church has the strength to contribute to the construction of a future new China will be seen in such work now.

      So far our discussion has journeyed from spiritual culture to social life. Next we should examine what kind of contribution Christianity can make to the economic structure of a new China. From a materialist perspective, this would be most fundamental. Here we have placed it at the end not because it is secondary or unimportant. We acknowledge that economic organization is a most important part of society, and if Christianity only exerts itself with regard to spiritual culture and ignores material life, then our overall Christian theory of nation building cannot be put into practice and would instead be only empty imaginings.

      Christian “economic construction” is a relatively new work, and many people have harbored doubts about such a term. This has been a mistake, one that we should now strive to correct. If our religion is one that is integrated into life—indeed, if our religion is life itself—than we should give attention to every aspect of life, and not ignore the material aspects of life. Dr. Stanley Jones’ book Christ’s Alternative to Communism is a powerful challenge to Christian over-emphasis on the spiritual. Christ’s answer in the wilderness when tempted by the devil was “Man should not live by bread alone,” not “Man does not live by bread.” When Christ raised the widow’s son from the dead, the instruction he gave us was “Give him something to eat.” Furthermore, we can find much evidence that would lead us to believe that if Jesus lived in today’s China, he would definitely call for more than what the church has done in the past. Real Christianity is a religion of life, and addresses every aspect of life.

      So we need to raise the slogan of Christian economic construction, and let all the people of the nation know that we are not empty idealists. In the work of constructing new China, we need to strive to set up a new Christianized economic structure to serve as the foundation for the other kinds of construction.

      However, the issue of economic construction in today’s China is difficult and complex. There are many different views and parties, and many disagreements and conflicts. Even if we only look at rural economic construction, there are a huge range of divergent views among scholars. Now with the war, much is being heard of the so called Chinese Industrial Cooperate movement. Ultimately, faced with such the massive problem of economic construction, how much can our church do? What can we do? These questions go to the heart of what is discussed in this article, and are the questions to which the author wishes to call the attention of co-workers in Christ.

      Let’s start from rural reconstruction. If we remove the spiritual culture elements of the rural reconstruction movement, what remains is within the domain of economic construction. Above we have already briefly discussed spiritual culture construction, so here, in order to avoid repetition, we will focus on the economic aspects of rural reconstruction.

      Over the last ten years, the call for rural reconstruction has been increasing daily, though it has fallen off somewhat recently due to the war. If we investigate the rural reconstruction work and theory of each place and organization, we will see that with the exception of the Rural Reconstruction Institute (乡村建设研究院) of Mr. Liang Shumin in Shandong, neither Christian or non-Christian rural reform has been tied to construction of the nation. Many who carry out this kind of work simply feel that in rural areas bankruptcy is too severe and life is too bitter, so that there is no choice but to provide relief. The successful cases of Ding County (定县) and the Mass Education Movement (平民教育运动), of the well-known Li Chuan (黎川) rural reconstruction project, and cases of bank loans to rural areas—all are related to concerns of relief. Only Mr. Liang Shumin’s rural construction theory is a systematic and visionary nation-building philosophy. Even though his proposals and ours as Christians differ somewhat in purpose and principles, and we cannot fully agree with his epistemology and methodology, his rural construction philosophy definitely provides the nation constructing efforts of the church with valuable guidance and stimulation.

      In the constructing

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