The Study Of Protestant Church In Occupied Area Of North China During Sino-Japanese War

After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Japanese Army occupied vast areas of China and supported many traitors to install puppet regimes in all occupied areas. Due to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the structure of politics, economy and culture in occupied areas had changed greatly, and so had social order and ordinary people’s lives. This thesis is focused on the study of the development of the Protestant church in this period in occupied areas of North China. Taking an American church in North China as a case, I’ll describe the history of the Protestant church in the areas under the control of Japanese Army and discuss the changes in the relations between the Japanese Army and Puppet Government, Protestant church, missionaries and Chinese Christians caused by the war.The Methodist Church in North China originates from1869, when some American missionaries came to Beijing from Fuzhou and began preaching Christianity in North China. Before the Sino-Japanese War, the Methodist Church used a triple-emphasis approach of establishing churches, schools, and hospitals in its mission work. As soon as war broke out, the mission fields of the Methodist Church in North China were all occupied by the Japanese Army. The political situation and social order of the places changed greatly as well.The Chinese Protestant churches, which after the outbreak of the war, announced in succession their support of the Nationalist government, and actively organized non-violent anti-Japanese activities to protect their motherland. Western churches and missionaries in China also joined in the humanitarian activity to relieve refugees in war zones and other areas. On occupying North China, the Japanese army fostered and set up different forms of Puppet Regimes and management organizations one after another, in order to strengthen their control of the occupied areas. In terms of religion policy, the Japanese intended to take advantage of Chinese religious groups and sent Japanese religious organizations to China. However, the Japanese took cautious approach toward the Protestant church in North China, especially toward the Western Protestant church.During the war, members and properties of the Methodist Church in North China all suffered great loss. After North China was occupied by the Japanese, churches and missionaries chose to stay and took all sorts of measures to relieve refuges. American missionaries even condemned the violence of the Japanese Army. However, considering their situation and safety, they expressed their real thoughts not in public in China but in home-letters and reports to the American Church. War had widespread effect on the Methodist Church in North China, but to different degrees in different places. The activity of churches in the war area stopped at one time. On the contrary, the cause of the church took on an air of prosperity in the places that weren’t affected by the war, such as eastern Hebei Province.Under the protection of the American government and cooperation with the Japanese Army, the Methodist Church in North China succeeded to be out of trouble and back on the road to high development growth. Although Western missionaries consciously tried to keep away from politics, some Chinese Christians of the Methodist Church resisted against the aggression of Japanese imperialism in various ways. Meanwhile, the Methodists of China united from three denominations to one, following the union of the American Methodist Church in1941. Another factor is that the economic and personnel crises of the wartime churches had particular impact on the churches’mission strategies and activities, and the trend of indigenization in the churches progressed during wartime.As the international situation rapidly changed in later1938, Japan and Western countries were drifting toward war, so the Japanese Army in North China formulated many different policies to suppress the Western Protestant Church. At the beginning of1939, the Japanese Army launched the Anti-British Movement, a broad movement against West countries in general. Many Protestant churches chose to cooperate with the Japanese Army in order to continue their preaching, but the Anti-British Movement impacted Western churches seriously.After the occupation of North China, the Methodist Church still continued some of its pre-war activities; moreover, in response to wartime needs, new developments appeared in evangelist training and mission methods. The church also invested a relatively large amount of resources in education and medical care, in order to deal with the needs of the local society. The Methodist Church took on an air of prosperity before1940. After the Anti-British Movement, the Japanese begun to control western Protestant churches, by draw up education plan and employ teachers in school of western church.After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Army introduced a policy of cleaning the western missionaries from North China Protestant church, intending to transform and control Chinese church. With the guidelines made by Japanese, the Chinese puppet government carried actively out the policy and took all measures to get rid of western missionaries from Chinese church. For this reason, Chinese churches stripped down completely relations with western Protestant churches. In addition, the western Protestant church school and hospital were forced to be separated from each other as well. In this case, the triune pattern of preaching, education, and medical treatment was destroyed. However, However, the transformation to western Protestant church brought out a demonstration effect on North China.