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

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СКАЧАТЬ according to it; a meaningful life is one in which Christians do this to the utmost. This is the simple yet lofty Christian philosophy of life. Furthermore, while there are a great many unresolved disputes that make Christian philosophy complex and deep as theory, if we clean away all the loose ends and remove the disputed points, what remains are these essential truths on which the great majority agree. These are the truths that guide Christian act and thought, and they also serve as our goals in constructing a new China. If the Christian church is to fulfill its responsibility in the nation, faith in God is the starting point for all of our work. In our vision of the future, a new China is one part of the universal plan of a fully good and all-powerful creator, a part that is in harmony with the rest of creation; it is a country under the control of this all-benevolent God, and a channel through which the kingdom of heaven is realized on earth.

      In Christian theology, God is a spiritual reality. This point of faith determines one important characteristic of our ideal new China. In this era of transition during which material civilization is developing and overtaking spiritual civilization, people sometimes come up with a mistaken understanding and estimation of material and spirit. One extreme development is materialist philosophy. Though this school of philosophy contains an element of truth in its reaction to older views’ over-emphasis on spirit, it has missed the center and veered too far to the left. This is the basic reason why it opposes Christianity, and why Christianity opposes it. Here we do not wish to enter into the endless debate between idealism and materialism. We simply stand on Christian faith, and state that our ideal new China is not a materialist country that ignores spiritual life; rather, it is a country that emphasizes the spirit while not overlooking material life. It is spirit that drives the material, rather than the material governing the spiritual, because the entire establishment of the nation is built upon a part of the great plan of an all-sufficient God who is spirit.

      The God of Christianity also loves peace, justice, purity and truth. The building of new China shall take these four virtues as goals. We must steer clear of the violent contention of fascist nationalism, rid ourselves of all material and spiritual impurities and immorality, and end hypocrisy and ignorance in human society. Establishing peace, justice, purity, and love of truth in new China may seem to be too idealistic, but this is in fact the goal of Christians. We should take that which is highest as the goal of our striving, rather than pursuing goals that are lower and easier to reach, and establishing a baser society and country.

      Finally, the God of Christianity is love, and our method is to rely on this ultimate love to construct a new China. This idea—taking the establishment of a new China of love as our goal—will be explained in detail below when we discuss the spirit of Christianity. The Christianity understanding of God is as stated above, and the Christian understanding of everything else follows and develops from this understanding. The world is the garden in which God’s plan is worked out, and the physical world is the outer shell through which the spiritual world is expressed. So the view of life of the citizens of a new China is definitely not a hedonistic view in which “the meaning of life is to serve the body, hedonistic view, nor is it a self-sacrificing stoic view; even less is it a totally materialist and mechanistic view in which the spirit is totally destroyed or denied.” Instead, it is a view of life in which God’s plan is realized, in which a proper relationship is established between the material and the spiritual, and in which true happiness is established. The ideal new China is a practical embodiment of the kingdom of heaven in which all kinds of conflicts are reconciled.

      Christianity takes God as the loving father of the entire human race, so that all people on earth are compatriots, brothers and sisters. In this unified and great family, all of us as God’s children should love each other and cooperate with each other in order to create a great fellowship. The construction of a new China should take such a view as its foundation.

      Christian faith gives us proper guidance in building our nation, and gives us a nation-building goal. We also need the Christian spirit to determine our nation-building method and give us the strength for nation-building, so we should now discuss the Christian spirit.

      The greatest aspect of the Christian spirit is love. Broadly speaking, love is the entirety of the Christian spirit. Here let us leave aside onerous discussion and take a passage from the Bible to serve as our explication of love.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not jealous or boastful or arrogant, nor does it do that which is shameful. Love does not seek its own benefit, is not quick to anger, does not keep track of the evil actions of others, does not rejoice in injustice, and loves truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.”1

      If we analyze this passage of Scripture, we see that Christian love includes ten aspects: persistence, tolerance, kindness, grace, forbearance, humility, uprightness, sacrifice, love of truth, faith, and hope. If we analyze these ten virtues and seek general patterns, we find that they cover three general groupings of attitudes—those toward oneself, toward others, and toward God. With regard to self, there are four attitudes: persistence, tolerance, humility, and uprightness. With regard to others, there are three: kindness, forbearance, and sacrifice. With regard to God and truth there are three: love of truth, faith and hope. These constitute the core of Christian moral teaching, and serve as the driving force behind the development of the church today, and they should also be part of the spirit in which we build new China. These ten attitudes or virtues form a system that can be put into practice, rather than being empty phrases. The three attitudes toward God and truth serve as the foundation for the other seven, and the source of their strength. Love of truth gives birth to faith, faith gives birth to hope, and faith and hope give the birth to the strength for the carrying out of the other seven virtuous attitudes toward self and others. This is the foundation of the system of Christian love.

      The four attitudes toward oneself involve an effort of cultivation, and are necessary conditions for strong character. In Mr. Wu Leichuan’s article, “What contribution can Christianity make to the renewal of the Chinese people?” we find that his conclusion is that “[Christianity] can create all the leadership talent needed for the present times.” In fact, in the movement to construct a new China that we are presently discussing, what we need is not only leadership talent; we need all kinds of talent for planning and building. We need leaders, but even more we need front-line talents who will follow the direction of leaders and carry out the actual hard work. The cultivation of such human resources cannot rely on the revival of old China’s high civilization as called for by Mr. Liang Shumin(梁漱溟), because China’s old culture and morality is only a product of the past and has the traces of feudal society. While it appears to have some points of similarity with Christian love, what Mr. Liang sees is the shell of a dead culture; in contrast, Christianity’s spirit of love is vital and alive. This the key difference between the two. (For a more detailed critique of Mr. Liang’s theories, see another article by the author, “A critique of Liang Shumin’s theories of rural reconstruction.”) Cultivation of human talent also cannot rely on the spirit of competition and progress of western material civilization and individualism for its nurture, because these are completely based on a system of individual profit. If this didn’t lead to China’s becoming even more divided, it would lead to imperialism. To raise up the talent China needs today, only the spirit of Christian love is suitable and efficacious. So we should expand Mr. Wu Leichuan’s conclusion, and take the Christian spirit of cultivation of personal character as our principle for cultivating all the people for constructing the nation.

      Building on the cultivation of personal character as mentioned above, we need to consider the attitude people take as they deal with each other. Kindness, forbearance, and sacrifice are virtues and terms distinctive to Christianity. Kindness leads to forbearance, leading to sacrifice as its highest point. This spirit of dying on the cross is a historically unique example of the highest expression of love, and is the most praiseworthy virtue of Christianity. The building of new China absolutely requires many people who are willing to cooperate sacrificially, and the cultivation of such character is a big contribution of Christianity.

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