Vol. 9, No.3 nternatlona• July 1985 etln• Resources for Mission Research .What is past is prologue," Shakespeare tells us in The Tem­ pest, and his words are inscribed on the east pedestal of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. Too often those engaged in mission have hurried on to,new projects without consulting the wisdom of past experience, and all have been the On Page poorer for it. In this issue, we call attention to a few examples of the multitudinous resources available for mission research, to en­ 98 Theological Mass Movements in China able us to understand better our path to the future. K. H. Ting K. H. Ting tells how Chinese Christians were often caught short in evaluating the revolutionary changes through which 104 Resources for China Mission Research China has passed in recent years. He shows how theological mass Martha Lund Smalley and Stephen L. Peterson movements in his country opened up deeper appreciation for Paul A. Ericksen worthwhile traditions of China's past, as well as for the gospel's Archie R. Crouch joyous reception among the poor and the oppressed. David E. Mungello As promised in our last issue on China Mission History, we are featuring four additional reports on projects of China Mission 110 IIAnd Brought Forth Fruit an Hundredfold": Research. Clearly, what missionaries and Chinese Christian lead­ Sharing Western Documentation Resources with ers have learned from the joys and pains of their experiences will the Third World by Microfiche illumine future Christian witness in China and in many other Harold W. Turner places. Harold W. Turner describes a pioneering project at the Selly 114 Noteworthy Oak Colleges to share mission documentation resources from Western countries with third-world nations that need to have 115 Crisis Management in the Event of Arrest, closer access to source materials about their own history. Disappearance, or Death of Mission Personnel There has been growing concern about the numbers of mis­ United States Catholic Mission Association sionaries who have been arrested, killed, or abducted. The United States Catholic Mission Association shares its guidelines for han­ 117 The Legacy of C. F. Andrews dling such crises, so that others can prepare for those emergencies Eric /. Sharpe that, we all pray, will never happen, but might. Eric J. Sharpe recalls the legacy of a most unconventional 122 Dissertation Notices missionary, C. F. Andrews, who took the people of India to his heart and was in turn taken to their hearts. 126 Book Reviews The rich tapestry of mission history in many lands merits our continuing investigation. This is the prologue to the unfolding 144 Book Notes drama of future mission. of Isslonary• • search Theological Mass Movements in China K. H. Ting he year 1949 was a special year for China. From one ing the revolutionary ranks, did move away from the church and T standpoint the United States "lost" China in that year from faith. and, from another, in that same year the Chinese people got their Second, there were some in the church who refused so stub­ liberation. For us Chinese Christians that liberation marks the bornly to be impressed by the new arrivers on the scene that they beginning of a process in our church known as the Three-Self began to advance not only theological but highly political argu­ Movement. I will have other opportunities to discuss that move­ ments to negate liberation and New China. The world is the realm ment. For the present I will try to describe how Chinese Christians of Satan, they said, condemned to imminent destruction. The have striven to find their own path in the theological undergirding Christian is not to love the world and whatever is in it, even that of their faith. which is lovable. Those who accept Christ and those who do not There were two things which greatly jolted us Chinese Chris­ constitute an absolute contradiction, with no common language tians upon liberation. First, through direct contacts with revo­ between the two. Human beings are evil and a person who does lutionaries, we found them on the whole to be very different from not confess faith in Christ can do nothing good, and the better Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang officials, and far from the cari- his or her conduct the more truly he or she is Satan masquerading as an angel. The animal with two horns and the red horse referred Bishop Williams Memorial Lecture to in Revelation are actually representations of the Communist party. On the basis of this hermeneutics New China will be short­ Bishop Ting delivered this lecture on Sept. 23, 1984 at Rikkyo (St. lived. The church is holy and without blemish and, therefore, Paul's) University, Tokyo, under the sponsorship of the Bishop needs no change and should reject all criticism and self-criticism. Williams Memorial Fund of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican-Epis­ The right/wrong question or the good/bad dichotomy is not God's copal Church of Japan). The NSKK established the Fund in 1977, concern. What God is concerned with is not any ethical distinction and its resources have been provided by a continuing fundraising between good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice, effort in Japan, supported initially by a very substantial contribu­ because God is opposed not only to human evil but also to human tion from the American Episcopal Church's Venture-in-Mission good. The doctrine of the security of the believer ensures to those Program, amounting to one-third of the present assets of the Fund. elected by Christ the freedom to do anything, while others are Bishop Ting was the 1984 Lecturer of the Fund's Memorial Lec­ condemned no matter how good their work is. This provided the tureship Program, the Inaugural Lecturer of which was Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey in 1979. The Fund also operates a Visiting Re­ assurance of God's acceptance of a Christian, even if he or she searcher Program for younger scholars from the developing coun­ should commit all sorts of crimes against the new life the people tries to do further study at Rikkyo University and other institutions had only recently entered into. That is antinomianism and, in the in Japan. early 1950s, was the main theological weapon used by those in church circles who were determined not to be reconciled to the fact of New China. It won some Christians for a time, but was cature of them made by some missionaries and Chinese church disgusting to many more Christians, and drove some of them leaders. They were certainly not the monsters and rascals they away from the church for good. were said to be, but quite normal human beings with idealism, These two facts set Chinese Christians thinking. On the one serious theoretical interests, and high ethical commitment. For hand, while being truly impressed by the conduct and deeds of the liberation of their compatriots, many of them sacrificed their the revolutionaries, many of us found it impossible to take leave all. To serve the people was not only a slogan but also the life of Christ but chose to say with Peter, "You, Lord, have the purpose of many of them. They have taken over from ancient words of eternal life. Towhom can we go?" On the other hand, Chinese sages the teaching that they are to be "severe in mak­ antinomian reactionism actually wanted us to stand and work ing demands of themselves" and "sad before the whole people against the people's liberation movement with all its goodness are sad and happy only after the whole people are happy." Many and beauty, and that was certainly an ethically indefensible al­ . practiced mutual criticism and relentless self-criticism in order to ternative. Caught in between, Chinese Christians all over the make themselves useful to the revolutionary cause. And, al­ country started to do theological reflection on their own. It was a though they had no high regard for religion at all, they did not mass movement seeking theological reorientation, entirely spon­ attempt to persecute or liquidate religion either. Here I am, of taneous, involving tens of thousands of Christians in restudying course, talking about the true revolutionaries, and neither the the Bible in relation to social changes around us and in discussion, pseudo-revolutionary ultra-leftists of a later decade, nor the dis­ oral as well as written. I recall that in sixteenth-century Germany appointing party members whom the rectification movement to­ the Reformation also' impelled the posing of "new thoughts" day aims to reform. In discovering these true revolutionaries, the Chinese Christians were both happy for seeing in them the hope against "old thoughts" in many households, as recorded by for the future of China and fearful before the haunting question T. M. Lindsay and other church historians. But I do not know if whether or not there was still any ground for the existence of there were many phenomena in church history that were com­ Christianity. Indeed, at that time anumber of Christians, in join- parable. Perhaps history has traditionally been written so much as the feats of leaders and geniuses that any mass movement, least of all a theological one, would not have been given impor­ tance. But in China, in the early 1950s, theology came out of the K. H. Ting is President of theChina Christian Council. Thisaddress is reprinted, with permission, from Bishop Ting, RikkyoUniversity, and China Notes (New theologian's study and became a tool in the hands of lay men York), 24, no. 1 (Winter 1984-85).