自养与本色之深入：1929年世界经济危机冲击下的华北基督教

1929年世界经济危机发生后,西方基督教差会被迫减少对华传教事业经费,裁减传教士人数,对华北基督教产生重要影响.华北教会为此提倡受托主义,鼓励教徒捐献,并减少职员薪金;同时,教会为减轻经济负担,还组织各种义工训练班,注意培养义务工作人员为教会服务;教会学校与医院在差会经费减少的形势下,通过裁员减支、增收学费与住院费及向政府、社会力量请求援助等多种形式维持运营.此次经济危机有利于增强中国教会及教会机构的自养,破除教徒的依赖心理,推动了中国教会的本色化进程,但不能从根本上使其摆脱对西方经费的依赖.

After the 1929 world economic crisis,the western protestant missions were forced to reduce enterprise funds as well as the number of missionaries,which had great impact on Christianity in North China.Adopting stewardship principles,the Christianity encouraged Christians’donation and reduced the staffs’salaries;The Christianity also paid special attention to or-ganizing various training programs for volunteer and cultivated voluntary church staffs for church service to lift the economic burden.In addition,the church schools and hospitals cut down on expenses,raised tuition fees and hospitals’charges and re-quested assistance from the government and society in order to relieve missions’tight funding.The economic crisis was favora-ble to the self -supporting of China’s church and church institutions,reduced Christians’dependence and promoted the indi-genization of Chinese church.However,China’s church still largely relied on funds from the West.