Читать книгу The Church in China in the 20th Century - Chen Zemin - Страница 4

Richard J. Mouw

This important book of essays makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the recent history of the church in China. The fact that the first essay was published in 1939—a decade before the Communists came to power— points to the importance of this collection as a documentary history of the life of the Protestant churches during seven decades of significant—and frequently turbulent—changes in Chinese life and culture.

What adds greatly to this book, however, is that the author, Dr. Chen Zemin, is a dedicated Christian leader who has experienced much of this history first hand, having celebrated his 101st birthday in October 2016. He has served as a pastor, a composer of hymns, a teacher, a theologian and a historian. And in all of this he has played a key role in church-state relations, as well as in representing Chinese Christianity in a global context.

I made the first of twenty-plus visits to China in 1994, shortly after being appointed to the presidency of Fuller Theological Seminary. I met Dr. Chen and became one of his admirers, and over the next decades I witnessed personally how Dr. Chen has mentored a number of scholars and church leaders who have themselves made significant contributions to the cause of Christianity in the Chinese mainland.

Dr. Liu Rumin, my fellow editor of this volume—who did the hard work of collecting and in several cases translating these essays for an English-speaking audience—is a prime example of how Dr. Chen’s mentoring has borne much fruit in Chinese Christianity. He has taught systematic theology and New Testament at Nanjing’s Union Theological Seminary, and is engaging in research and teaching in Germany, where he received his PhD degree from the University of Heidelberg. Like his mentor, Dr. Liu Rumin serves, through his own important scholarship, as an important voice for the Chinese church in global settings.

This volume also features an Introductory Essay by Dr. Raymond Whitehead, a distinguished Canadian theologian who taught for a number of years at the Nanjing seminary, where he was a colleague of Dr. Chen’s.

In preparing this English translation of Dr. Chen’s writings for publication, I have been able to draw upon support from Fuller Seminary funds specifically designated for partnering with China’s “Three-Self” churches. I also received much technical help from several people, and I am particularly grateful to Shi-Min Lu, a PhD candidate in Fuller Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies; she supervised the final typing of the manuscript, with particular attention to the consistent use of Chinese characters throughout.

In 1984 my distinguished predecessor in the Fuller presidency, David Allan Hubbard, led a delegation of trustees and administrators to China, making direct contact with church and seminary leaders in the “Three-Self” churches. That pilgrimage was the beginning of an exciting learning experience for the Fuller community about how God has blessed Chinese Christianity’s sustained efforts to be obedient to the Gospel. In that learning experience Chen Zemin has been one of our important teachers. The publication of these essays means that his teaching ministry can now be expanded in the English speaking world.