| This thesis is for the purpose of reconstructing the exact history of the Border Service Movement of the Church of Christ in China.The Church of Christ in China was established in 1927 to realise the "Indigenous Church " and to emphasize that Chinese Christians should be responsible for the general affairs in China. During the the war between China and Japan, the Church of Christ in China successively sponsored activities such as the relief of the refugees, the service of the wounded soldiers, etc. At that time, national political and cultural center moved to the west, the Church of Christ in China set up the southwest Christian mission Regions and of which the most important part is the Border Service Movement. The Border Service Departement got down to work at the end of 1939, building up three service regions and a good many service agencies in the minority regions in Szechuan and Sikong , launching various services mainly about medical, educational, improvement of living level and evangelistic work.. These activities had promoted social economical and cultural development of these areas and greatly contributed to the development of the southwest ethnic regions. Reserch of the border areas combined with the on-the-spot services has yielded fairly fruitful result. Because of new religion policy and the complex home-and-board situation after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the movement ended in 1955.On the basis of the all-rounded study on the procedure of the Border Service Movement, the author of this thesis tries to answer these following questions: first,what is the relationship between the Border Service Movement and the Anti-Japan War ;second ,what is the tangible achievement and social repercussion of the movement ; third, what is the movement's particular significance of the history of the Christian movement of modern China.The author holds that the Border Service Movement is the result of the internal requirement of the indigenization of the Christian and the historical background of the "fighting the enemies and rebuilding the country". A great deal of work which had been carried out for the tribes people in west Szechuan and Sikong by the Border Service Department had achieved relatively great successes and found a comparatively strong echo in the society.However, on a whole, if considered the great upsurge of the "borderland exploitation and construction", the movement's contribution is rather limited, except that its organizers and its implentmental plan had developed a school of its own. Furthermore, if comparing the fruit of the movement with the objective declared, the movement can even be regarded as a failure. However, the border construction should be a comprehensive all-or-some borderland-oriented project focused on economical construction and coordinating with the politics and culture. As a Christian association, the Border Service Department could not take on the heavy responsibilities of the border construction. Nevertheless, allowing for mumerous difficulties at that time, the positive results gained by the Border Service Department was of rear feat. Meanwhile, as the most creative and constructive new church work during the period of Anti-Japan War, the Border Service Movement was an event of extremely great historic significance in the history of the Christian Movement in Modern China. For one thing, it was a kind of practice of theological trend of thought about Social Gospel during the war period in certain regions, and it had enriched the content of Social Gospel . It had enormously changed the the former strategy of city-focused missionary work and switched the core to the borderland. Next, it had accelerated the practical course of the indigenization of Chinese Christian, obeyed and served for the demand of Chinese society .The movement was initiated by the Chinese Christians, and it had been put into effect in Chinese borderland.lt is still an active try to reform the activities of Christian missionary work in the regions , with considering... |
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