At the Eighth National Conference of Chinese Protestant Churches, which closed on Sunday, or January 13, Chinese Christians discussed three main issues with zeal and enthusiasm. Namely, how the Christian civilization, as a Western civilization, was merged into the Chinese civilization, which posed the sole ancient civilization that was never suspended? What role has the Christian religion played in the past bitter history of the Chinese nation, and what role it is prepared for the great course of rejuvenating the nation?
Of the four global ancient civilizations, only the Chinese civilization has come down in a continuous line, without any interruption from alien cultures. When Christianity entered into China in its modern history, the nation was then reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society with the entire country being bullied and downtrodden by big powers at the time. Christian religion, destined to spread evangelicalism, was however made a tool for imperialism and colonialism to carry out cultural aggression against China.
Culture is the root of a nation in the final analysis, according to a university of Cambridge report on the history of China's late Imperial Qing dynasty (1644-1911 A.D.), and historians in the Western world have concluded, based on their researches regarding missionary activities in China in modern history, that the Western missionaries then believed that China could be converted to Christianity by uprooting this root to restructure its culture.
Such Christianity brought much misery and untol suffering to the people in China. Farsighted Christianity believers in China launched a self-support movement in the early 20th century in a bid to win honor or "dignity" for the nation, for Christian Churches in the country and for Chinese Christians.
After new China was founded in 1949, nevertheless, patriotic Chinese Christians, holding high the "Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches," cut off its ties with Western powers then and the Chinese Christian religion thus received a new lease of life. Genuine patriots were grieved over the poverty, backwardness and humiliation of the Chinese nation and became pleased with the emancipation of the Chinese people and achievements they had made, acknowledged Bishop Ding Guangxun, honorary chairman of the National Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of Protestant Churches in China and president of the Chinese Christian Association. Consequently, China's Christianity can "braze a new trail" by striking its root into the Chinese soil.
To date, a new trail or path has been discovered, but not with a plain sailing. China's Christian religion, however, is still facing a new test in the entirely new situation. Some external forces, however, not reconciled to China's peaceful emergence or willing to see the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, attempt to penetrate into the country with altered tactics or tricks.
Whether the Chinese Christianity is capable to withstand pressures or penetrations, adhere to the correct orientation and go on integrating Christianity into the Chinese civilization? The unanimous consensuses reached at the recent conference is that Christianity can be adapted to the basic national conditions of the Chinese society, with Christians to become the Salt, the Light and the east in society, as Jesus admonishes them, and to "glorify and honor God", so that the Christianity will be accepted by the splendid Chinese culture and turned into a religion to the welcome of people in China.
Confronted with the raging, sweeping tide of diverse ideologies and cultures in the contemporary world, China will go all out not only to carry forward the cultural awareness of the outstanding national tradition but to absorb good, beneficial elements of Christian civilization in the West.
The report delivered at the Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress convened last October calls on figures from the religious circle and religious believers to play an active role in promoting China's socio-economic development. The definite response of Christians in China is that they, too, are duty bound to contribute their share to the socio-economic development.
By Ye Xiaowan, director-general of the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA), and translated by People's Daily Online
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