毛大龙：短暂的一刻
2022-03-17 07:50阅读：
“For One Brief Moment: A Chinese Reformed Seminary’s
Attempt To Re-establish and Prepare for ‘Liberation’,
1944-1950”
On 2 April 1944 Watson Hayes died a prisoner of war in a
Japanese concentration camp in Weihsien Shandong. Venerated by
three generations of Chinese theological students as
赫士牧师,
Watson McMillan Hayes had been in China as an American Presbyterian
missionary for 62 years. The founder of the North China Theological
Seminary (NCTS) located in Tenghsien Shandong, China’s largest
theological school in the inter-war period, the protégé of B. B.
Warfield had set a high standard. Now he was gone, the foreign
professors at his Seminary all scattered. Would there be anything
remaining of his original vision for a cu
lturally aware, academically rigorous and spiritually passionate
education for aspiring pastors? This paper takes off where I left
the story of the North China Theological Seminary in
China’s Reforming Churches: Mission Polity and
Ministry in the New Christendom and
continues the narrative[1]
through the turbulent postwar period, until it was swallowed
up in 1952 by Bishop Ting (丁光訓)and his
henchmen. It also describes how brave Christian believers prepared
for their so-called “liberation” by the atheistic Chinese
Communists.
On Monday morning, 8 December 1941, the long ordeal began. As
one of the NCTS professors described it, “Between 9 and 10 a.m.,
right while we were in our classes, the commander of the
local Japanese garrison, accompanied by interpreters and an
armed guard of some thirty men, called at the school
compound and took over control of all gates.” All four
hundred students were sent home in the next ten days. “Our staying
on through it all in face of real danger” Old Testament Professor
Martin Hopkins[2]
reported, “calmly dismissing the students, and providing
them with travel money home when it was not certain whether we
would have enough left for our own use, made a deep and lasting
impression on them. Many expressed their appreciation with tears in
their eyes as they said farewell to us.”[3]
In April he and the other Americans on the NCTS faculty were
sent to Shanghai and eventually repatriated.
A year later Martin Hopkins was the first to return.
Leaving three days after Christmas 1943, the trip took four
month less a day to finally reach West or “Free” China. On the
journey he completed a commentary on Proverbs.
His initial assignment was to bring humanitarian aid in a war
zone working for the Church Committee for China Relief. He spent
eight months under appalling conditions travelling throughout
Southwest China, centered in Kweiyang. But his commitment was to
theological education. On Christmas Day 1944 he arrived at the
Chungking home of NCTS graduate Calvin Chao[4].
Chao had teamed up with former NCTS Vice-Principal Chia
Yu-ming[5]
and together they shared a vision for training pastors.
After eight months on the road Hopkins was refreshed by a Christmas
Day celebration with a tree and candles. The celebration was
short-lived, two days later the wife of Chia Yu=ming died of cancer
and Hopkins was called on to take the funeral. Chia, Hayes’
student, exemplified strength in the midst of loss.
By mid-February 1945 his Spiritual Training Seminary reopened
with twenty-five students for the spring term. In addition to
lecturing Hopkins became Seminary treasurer coping with student’s
board costs in a time of volcanic currency fluctuations. Citing the
Biblical [6]threefold
chord not easily broken, Hopkins described their relationship:
“Pastor Chia, who is sixty-five years old, is really a rare
spiritual genius – teacher, preacher, evangelist, pastor,
theologian, writer of devotional books and hymns. We use his own
hymnbook in the chapel services at the Seminary, a book of over 500
hymns which are characterized by deep spirituality and
Scripturalness. They are a real tonic to the soul. Calvin is a
young man under forty, a persuasive orator and evangelist, untiring
in his zeal for preaching the Word. He is especially popular with
college students, among whom he has done an outstanding piece of
work. On the faculty there have been three of my own students at
Tenghsien, and these have done excellent work, and have introduced
into the Spiritual Training Seminary some of the Tenghsien
spirit.”[7]
All this was preparatory to one of the great events of
pre-liberation Chinese Christianity, the July 1945 conference in
Chungking which 160 students from forty of China’s sixty
universities attended and Chinese InterVarsity was founded. Calvin
Chao was IV’s first secretary with CIM missionary David
Adeney[8]
working closely with him. Adeney had been sent from England
by CIM Director Bishop Frank Houghton when reports of the summer
had come. Adeney arrived in January 1946 just in time for the
winter InterVarsity conference. “I will never forget the tremendous
enthusiasm among the several hundred students who gathered.” he
later wrote.[9]
“There is a deep longing on the part of students for the
pure Gospel as set forth in the Word of God.”[10]
It has been often stated that that remarkable student
awakening prepared the Chinese church for the forthcoming
fire of affliction.
Hopkins was still committed to the vision of NCTS. “The chief
thing,” he wrote, “in the future will be the training of native
evangelists for we can never overtake the task merely with
missionaries. This is why I am so deeply interested in this
Spiritual Training Seminary, and in the reestablishment of our
North China Theological Seminary as soon as possible. Just the
other day a Lutheran missionary, when he learned that I was
connected for years with the NCTS, volunteered the remark that the
three best workers in their mission were Tenghsien graduates, and
generously added that the NCTS had trained men better than their
own Shekow Seminary. Our men, he said, stick to the job and know
how to endure hardness and shepherd the flock.“[11]
The end of the war on 14 August 1945 and the cessation of
hostilities in China caught everyone by surprise with its
suddenness. As Hopkins waited for a plane out of Chungking for
Shanghai reports began trickling out of Tenghsien. The Communists
had cut the train lines in many places and there was open warfare
between the followers of Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek. He
arrived in Shanghai 18 November and proceeded north to Hsuchowfu,
the nearest safe place to Tenghsien. “I received a royal
welcome … Being the first Protestant missionary that had returned
to this whole section …It is a strange situation and they do not
know how to cope with it.”[12]
The news from Tenghsien was not encouraging. “Up to December
14 the property was in reasonable shape and could easily been
repaired” he reported. But then the Communist offensive swept into
the city and many fled. Among those fleeing were the only
foreigners who had stayed. Dr and Mrs Alexander had escaped from
Nazi Germany and were hired to run the Presbyterian Hospital in
Tenghsien, maintaining it throughout the war with exemplary
professionalism. Their home was shelled as the city was invaded.
With a weak heart, his second evacuation this time to Hsuchow,
proved too much. “I was very fond of him and his wife and his death
was a real personal loss and grief to me”[13]
Hopkins mourned.
Instead of
retreat the capture of the city and the destruction of NCTS
property brought renewed commitment. “In the midst of the
uncertainties and perplexities caused by the fall of Tenghsien one
thing stood out clear in my mind and that was the need to keep our
faculty together as good teachers are very difficult to obtain in
China now. So with the teachers and a small group of students we
opened the North China Theological Seminary here on March 6, in
borrowed buildings with a limited amount of borrowed furniture. The
teachers and students sleep on the floor as beds are out of the
question. We are thankful to have electric lights and to be able to
get coal for cooking at a fairly reasonable price.” The latter part
of March he attended, with the Board secretaries from New York and
Nashville, a meeting of the Mission Survey Committee to consider
ways and means of reopening the work in the China Field. One day
was given to meetings with Chinese delegates from various parts of
our field. There were some very stirring reports of how these
leaders had carried on during all these hard years.”
Hopkins was now joined by a former Tenghsien missionary, Ken
Kepler[14],
recently returned from the United States. On 20 April they
travelled to Tenghsien to make an assessment, having obtained
travel passes from the Communist General. Col. Harris of General
Marshall’s group took them in his special train. Hopkins was
distraught as he surveyed the damage: ”the attack in Shantung and
North Kiangsu is one of the severest blows that Mission work has
ever received in China. It is a cunning piece of diabolical
strategy directed by Satan, the arch-enemy of God and man. He has
attacked sound evangelical Christianity in one of its
long-established and strongest citadels. The Presbyterian Mission
work and Chinese churches in Shantung and North Kiangsu were among
the strongest and soundest in all China, with the North China
Theological Seminary in the center of both, and for twenty-six
years sending at a constant stream of well-trained Bible-believing
workers into the field. And the same was true of the Mateer
Memorial Institute in Tenghsien, which stood out unique as a
thoroughly Christian High School.”[15]
But there was another attack on NCTS, this time from America.
The Seminary had been founded in 1919 as a protest by Chinese
students against Western liberal missionaries.It had a wide ranging
theological influence. In 1927 when the theologically mixed Church
of Christ in China (CCC) had been formed, four South Shantung
presbyteries had stayed out of the union, remaining as the China
Presbyterian Church[16].
Now Lloyd Stanton Ruland at the China desk of the Board of Foreign
Missions of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in New York saw an
opportunity to combat separatist influences and bring NCTS into the
theological (i.e. liberal and ecumenical) mainstream.[17]
Ruland was not popular with theological conservatives,
needless to say. But his big mistake was to underestimate the
strength of NCTS’ American Council, set up on 28 December 1942 in
Philadelphia, and consisting of a blue ribbon board of prominent
(and powerful) Presbyterian laity[18].
The chairman of the American Council of NCTS was Clarence Edward
Macartney, minister of First Church Pittsburgh, and a doughty
defender of theological orthodoxy. On 11 June 1946 former
Tenghsien missionary Harry Romig and Council members T. Edward
Ross[19]
and Charles Shinn travelled to New York and met with Ruland.
Their discussion focussed on title to the property, registered by
Dr. Hayes with the American Consulate for “the American
Presbyterian Church.” Ross concluded his report: “My impression is
that Dr. Hopkins and the those associated with him in China should
be urged to rally the forces of the conservative in the Chinese
Church, the missionaries from the Southern Church and others
interested in maintaining a sound testimony,”[20]
Because NCTS was sponsored by both the Northern (PCUSA) and
Southern (PCUS) boards the support of the latter proved a
counterweight to Ruland’s machinations. On 27 May 1947 the
“Southern” Secretary C. Darby Fulton wrote: “There is no question
that the NCTS is the preferred institution so far as our group is
concerned. We do hope, as you do, that the NCTS may not develop in
the direction of a narrow hyper-conservativism, but will continue
as a strong center of orthodox Presbyterianism in which our
Presbyterian missionaries, USA and US, can cooperate happily with
our Chinese brethren.”[21]
Two years later the Council met with Fulton and Ruland and
subsequently told their supporters that “we found that we were
unanimous in the conviction that N.C.T.S. must be preserved as a
distinct unit in the evangelization of China, that its unique
doctrinal position as the unwavering exponent of the entire
Reformed Faith must be guaranteed for the future through whatever
safeguards may be required, and that its prestige in China and
among its American supporters would be strengthened by having it
continue as an arm of the Chinese Presbyterian Church receiving
some help from the established Presbyterian Mission
enterprise.”[22]
Squabbling over property titles seems, in retrospect,
ludicrous as by now not only was Tenghsien out of range due to
Communist occupation but Hsuchowfu was also surrounded by their
rapidly advancing military. Thanks to funds provided by the
American Council, the Seminary bought a picturesque and large
estate on Lake Tai four miles outside Wusih
(无锡), a city midway between Shanghai and
Nanking. The first four days of July 1948 four railway box cars
moved the entire school, its students and faculty, and as many of
the belongings and furniture that could be salvaged, and set up in
their new location. And that autumn another former faculty member
returned. On 12 November 1948 Alex MacLeod, returned to NCTS in
Wusih having recovered from five years of incarceration by the
Japanese. “He was welcomed by many old friends but particularly by
Dr. Hopkins who has been carrying the burden without much human
assistance” Horace Hill reported to American NCTS supporters. “His
return will do much to raise the standard of the Seminary but we
continue to hope that the former quota of four missionary
professors will be granted by our two Foreign Mission
Boards.”[23]
The Communist armies relentlessly pursued their seemingly
unstoppable course, crossing the Yangtze River on 21 April 1949.
The Eighth Army (八路军
Ba-lu Djun)
entered the NCTS compound and pointed to its sign
dismissing the word “theology” as “mythology.”[24]
With the fall of Shanghai a month later NCTS students were
coopted for a victory parade. But there was much anxiety on campus
due to previous experiences. Ten students were allowed to graduate
on 30 May. “We said ‘good-bye’ with strong feelings, commended one
another to God’s care, and promised to pray for each other in the
uncertain and troubled days to come.”[25]
MacLeod left shortly thereafter for Shanghai, taking
advantage of the prevailing chaos to travel anonymously with the
required permit from the new authorities. “These are times in China
when it requires high courage and consecration to follow the call
to service in the ministry of Christ’s Church.”[26]
MacLeod’s own future at NCTS was uncertain and in August he
asked the faculty whether he should return to Wusih or join his
family in Hong Kong. “It is a very hard decision to make for I
should love no work better than that of teaching at the Seminary,
but I also love my family in Hongkong who cannot now return
here.”[27]
The faculty responded in a grace-filled letter written by
Martin Hopkins as their secretary: “All realize the gravity of the
present situation and though we plan to open on Sept.
9th as announced there is no guarantee that we
can continue till the end of the fall semester, All appreciate your
willingness to return to Wusih and your loyalty to the Seminary and
to God’s call you to labor for the upbuildijg of His Church in
China.”[28]
Thus freed, MacLeod left for Hong Kong, never to return to
the land of his birth and the ministry for which he felt God had
prepared him.
That autumn term in 1949 proved to be, in Martin Hopkins’
words[29],
“one of the quietest and best sessions of the seminary … very
different from what we thought might be the case in the summer when
everything was so uncertain.” During the first week in
December, Pastor Chia Yu-ming returned to conduct special services
and “his messages were greatly used and blessed.” There was a
fortnight’s break in January and on the 27th the
Seminary reconvened for what turned out to be the final “normal”
year of studies. “Before graduating, the fifteen graduates of the
1950 class of our North China Theological Seminary were concerned
about where they were going to work, but there is not a single one
who has not been located, and more were in demand if they could
have been obtained.”[30]
Signs of renewal and revival were abundant in NCTS and among
its graduates. “A spirit of earnest prayerfulness prevails
among the students” Hopkins reflected[31]
at the time. At the Spring 1950 meeting of the South
Shantung Synod of the Presbyterian Church in China he reported that
“There are great numbers of inquirers who come up before the
sessions for examination and baptism, ranging from 200 to as many
as 1,000 in one remarkable instance.” In the summer of 1950 he
visited his daughter in language study in Beijing: “While there” he
wrote pn his return to NCTS, “a large meeting of the China student
Inter-Varsity Fellowship was in progress, with Pastor Chia Yu Ming
as one of the leading speakers. Meetings were held three times a
day and at each session there were from 600 to 1,000 in
attendance.”[32]
Unlike Wang Ming Dao, Chia chose to cooperate with the
Communists, working with them in the setup of a new ecumenical
theological institution.
On 25 June 1950 the Korean War began and soon “volunteers”
from China crossed the Yalu River, and there was a steady erosion
of freedom for Christians in China. On 1 November 1952 eleven
theological institutions, theologically ranging from
“fundamentalist to conservative evangelical to liberal,”[33]
were forced to join the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary
with K. C. Ting (丁光訓) as
Principal. A Sino-Soviet Friendship Society was organized on campus
and all students had to join. It was a time of testing
The next three decades would prove the mettle of the church
in China. The Chinese church, instead of shrinking or disappearing,
emerged from its fiery furnace more resilient than ever. It is
today (as many observe) an
evangelical church,
its theology deeply grounded in its high view of Scripture. The
theology taught in the NCTS has stood the test of
time.
[1]
See also
赵曰北，《历史光影中的华北神学院》（香港：中国国际文化出版社，2015年
[2]
Martin Armstrong Hopkins (1889-1964) (PCUS China,
1917-1951). His aunt, Mrs J.J.Kelso, left a substantial collection
of family correspondence to the Archives of the United Church of
Canada (CA ON00340 F 3135).
[3]
Martin A Hopkins “Dear friends”, September 1943 (UCC
Archives),
[4]
Calvin Chao (1906-1996) founder China InterVarsity and
China Native
Evangelism
Crusade (C.N.E.C.)
[5]
Chia Yu-ming aka Jia Yuming (1889-1964)
studied at Tsingchowfu under Hayes 1901-4, pastored, going to NCTS
in 1924. In 1930 went tor Ginling Women’s Theological Seminary,
Nanjing, founded in 1936 Spiritual Training Theological Seminary,
Nanjing/Chongqing/Shanghai. In 1954 V-Chair, Three-self Patriotic
Movement.
[6]
Ecc. 4:12: “And if one prevail against him, two shall
withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly
broken.”
[7]
MAH to Dr Fulton and Betsie Hopkins, 4 January 1945,
later mimeographed and circulated (UCC Archives)
[8]
See Carolyn Armitage’s Reaching
for the Goal. Wheaton: OMF Books, 1995.
101-2 and also my C. Stacey Woods and the
Evangelical Rediscovery of the University
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.
137.
[9]
Adeney, David, China: Christian
Students Face The Revolution. Leicester:
InterVarsity Press, 1973.
[10]
MAH to supporters 4 January 1945, page 15. (UCC
Archives)
[11]
MAH to supporters 4 January 1945, page 19. (UCC
Archives)
[12]
MAH to supporters. 17 May 1946, page 1.
[13]
MAH to supporters. 17 May 1946, page 2.
[14]
Kenneth Kepler (1906-1999) 2nd son
of Asher, first general secretary of the CCC; graduate Princeton
University and Seminary, served under PCUSA in China and then PCUS
in Taiwan retiring in 1970. His fear that NCTS would be taken over
by the CCC led him to teach in Shanghai’s Kiangwan China Bible
Seminary in 1947.
[15]
MAH to supporters, 17 May 1946, page 6
[16]
A letter of 12 Nov. 1950, written by MAH as English
Secretary of the NCTS faculty, to Ruland with just a touch of
irony: “There is a real live Presbyterian Church in S Shantung and
N Kiangsu, though small in numbers and weak in material goods. They
have passed through great trial of affliction for more than a
decade, but are not discouraged. They need the prayers and
financial support of the Churches in America, and are just as
worthy of it as larger and more pretentious organizations.”
[Author’s archive]
[17]
Lloyd Stanton Ruland (1889-1952) graduate of
Westminster College (DD 1932) and McCormick Seminary in 1916.
Served intermittently in China to 1926, first at Ichow. Called to
West PCUSA, Binghamton, NY 1927-1938 Became China secretary in 1938
as colleague to Robert Speer.”“In 1946 he led the post-war
deputation to China returning a few months later, hopeful of the
future of missions in China. As one of his colleagues has put it:
‘It was his tragedy that this was not to be. The situation
deteriorated and the problems thickened. There were many and heady
decisions to be made, involving the great work and the beloved
missionary colleagues; and these were the special inescapable
responsibilities of the China Secretary. He felt it all very
deeply. One may well say that he himself was a China casualty.’”
Obituary, Wm P Schell, Board of Foreign Missions
(PCUSA).
[18]
Kevin Xiyi Yao has a brief section on this postwar
network in his conclusion to “The NCTS: Evangelical Theological
Education in China in the Early 1900s” in Kalu, Ogbu, Ed.
Interpreting Contemporary ChristianityL
Global Processes and Local Identities.
Grand Raoids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008.
185-6.
[19]
Thomas Edward Ross (1867-1963), Ulsterman, chartered
accountant, with brother established a firm in 1898 which in 1973
merged as Coopers & Lybrand; founding elder Ardmore PCUSA, 41
years.
[20]
Ross, T. Edward. “NCTS memorandum of interview
concerning the disposition of property in China” 14 June 1946.
[Author’s archive]. Ross presented the T. Edward Ross collection of
Bibles to the Univ of PA the next year.
[21]
C Darby Fulton to ANM, 27 May 1947. [Author’s
archive]
[22]
Horace G, Hill to “friends”, 12 August 1949 [UCC
Archives]. Horace G. Hill Jr. provided leadership for 30 years for
the NCTS American Council. He was Secretary-Treasurer of Atlantic
Oil Refining Co and lived in Berwyn, PA.
[23]
Horace Hill to NCTS supporters, 16 December 1948
[Author’s archive].
[24]
A. N. MacLeod. “A Letter from China”
Revelation (December
1949) 506.
[25]
ANM via PC(USA) service, 15 October 1949. [Author’s
archive].
[26]
ANM via PC(USA) service, 15 October 1949. [Author’s
archive].
[27]
ANM to NCTS faculty, 9 August 1949. [Author’s
archive].
[28]
Faculty to ANM, 14 August 1949. [Author’s
archive]
[29]
MAH to “friends”, 30 December 1949.[UCC
Archives]
[30]
MAH to friends, 28 August 1950.
[31]
MAH to “friends”, 30 December 1949. [UCC
Archives]
[32]
MAH to friends, 28 August 1950.
[33]
As described by Wickert, Philip L.
Reconstructing Christianity in China: K. H.
Ting and the Chinese Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2007. 108
