# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S807
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Intersynodical and Doctrinal Matters 807

Re Chinese Term Question
(Unprinted Memorial 7)

‘It is with a heavy heart that the undersigned calls your atten-
to the following and asks for a hearing and action.

Synod knows that both Shangdi and Shen are used in our
Missions; but does Synod know that, according to all known
se history, Shangdi has always been and still is in the eyes
counted millions of Chinese heathen the proper name of
ecific Chinese shen, or god, the chief shen, or god, of their
eon; that, therefore, Shangdi is and has been through all
hinese history an idol name with idol connotations?

“I. Synod knows and believes that “all the gods of the heathen
‘are idols,” Ps.96:5; that the LXX translates these words: “All
e gods of the nations [heathen] are demons,” and that the Holy
FSpirit puts His stamp on this translation when through Paul He
“writes: “But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice

swever, does Synod know that our theological faculty of the
“Hankow Seminary actually writes: “China has no pantheon but
| pandemonion”? It indeed immediately adds: “of which [pan-
monion] Shangdi is not in any intelligible sense the head or
rimus inter pares (father of gods and men), but which rather
stands over against Shangdi as a different and inferior order of
eings”; but this does not mend matters. For since all the gods
yf the nations are idols, or demons, and their worship a worship
‘of demons, therefore all the shen, or gods, of the heathen Chinese
“are idols, or demons, and their chief shen, Shangdi, is their chief
idol, or demon, and their worship of him is a worship of the chief
f idols, or demons, or devils. Since, then, Shangdi is China's
chief idol’s name and ever will and must remain his name, it surely
is an idol name with idol connotations, and as such its use for
“God is forbidden by Scriptures. Ex. 23: 13; Hos. 2:17 f.
“" " TIT. Since 1938 Synod also knows that Shen is the Chinese word
‘for God and god and that even the Shangdi Bible and our Cate-
chism use Shen not only for the false gods, but also for the true
God when they translate phrases like “the true God,” “the God
‘ of gods,” etc., into Chinese.

IV. Finally, Synod knows that the Synodical Conference
Committee, after unanimously stating the sound principles by

the words Elohim and Theos from Hebrew and Greek into other
languages, disagreed in the application of these principles to
: Shangdi, four members of the committee declaring that “on the
basis of the evidence submitted by both parties to the controversy
- [the Shen and Shangdi parties] we are of the opinion that the
« present practice in regard to the use of Shangdi in the Chinese

they sacrifice to the devils [demons] and not to God, ” 1 Cor. 10:20.

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which we must be guided in our choice of terms when translating .