# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1935_S180
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

168 Proceedings of 'Thirty-Sixth Regular. Convention,

15. We recommend that the overture of the English District

recommending that the Director of Foreign Missions live in the ©

Foreign Mission field be referred to the Board of Foreign Missions
for study and recommendation.

Action of Synod. ;

This report was adopted, and its recommendations were enacted
into resolutions.

Concerning the request of the Australian brethren for help in
opening a mission in New Guinea, Committee 13 reported: —

We recommend that the plea of the Australian Lutheran Synod
be referred to the Board of Foreign Missions in conjunction with
Dr. L. Fuerbringer for further study and with authority to grant the
request of the Australian brethren, if possible.

Action of Synod.
‘This recommendation was adopted.

Report of the Chinese Term-Question Committee.
(Memorial 309.)
Your Committee, elected to study the controversy concerning the
Chinese Term Question, begs leave to submit the following report.

The Terms Defined.

The Chinese Term Question concerns itself with the problem:
“How shall the words God and god be rendered in translating the
Bible into Chinese?” and, “What word shall be used for god in doing
mission-work among the Chinese?” The two words available are
Shangdi and Shen.

Shangdi, literally translated, means “Ruler on High.” The word,
taken in its literal sense, is not unfit to designate the true God, par-
ticularly if, by church usage, it acquires the meaning “Supreme
Being.” The objection to Shangdi is that it is the name of the chief
idol of the Chinese.

The word Shen is used by the Chinese to designate any being
which they worship as a god. It can with equal propriety be applied
to the lowest deity, the kitchen shen, and to the highest deity the
Chinese know, the idol Shangdi.

It will be seen that Shangdi is a proper noun, which denotes just
one god, while Shen is a common noun, denoting any and all gods.

History of the Term Question.

The controversy dates back to the very beginning of modern mis-
sion-work in China. Ricci, the first director of Jesuit missions in
China, who entered the country in 15838, took Shangdi as the name
for God because he believed that “the ancient Chinese had known the