Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1935 · 36th Convention, Cleveland › Page 170
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1935, Page 170

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

170 Proceedings of Thirty-Sixth Regular Convention,

of using the idol name Shangdi as a term for God were published
right along. Our own men were bound sooner or later to have their
attention called to the matter and forced to take sides.

This is exactly what happened in 1924. At a conference of our
missionaries a paper was read: in which the question was discussed
from a purely linguistic angle. It was pointed out that the Shangdi
Bible involves itself in an inconsistency in translating the word God
sometimes with Shangdi and sometimes with Shen, but that no such
difficulty would result if the term Shen were used exclusively. By
a vote of eleven to two the conference thereupon resolved to drop
Shangdi and to use only Shen in their preaching and in their printed
literature. But the minority refused to be bound by this resolution.
And the controversy was on.

During the next four years, as the debate continued with in-
creasing bitterness, the doctrinal question “Can the name of an idol
be used in the worship of the true God?” became the main issue.
Finally the Mission Board told the missionaries, as may be gathered
from a letter of July 26, 1928, that, while all of them had full permis-
sion to use Shen in their own teaching and preaching, no missionary
could be allowed to refuse to use and explain mission literature that
used the term Shangdi and that those who for conscience’ sake could
not work according to these regulations were permitted to resign and
to return to this country.

Thereupon two of the missionaries resigned. Several others
failed to return to China when their furlough had expired. Your
Committee would not be understood as saying that these men did not
return because of the ruling of the Board, although the prospect of
returning to a mission-field rent with strife may not have appealed
to them. Be that as it may, our mission lost the services of eight
men who would now. be at the very peak of usefulness if they had
returned. ;

Needless to say, our present missionaries preach and teach ac-
cording to the rules laid down by the Mission Board. As far as we
know, they use Shangdi and Shen in conformity “with prevailing
Protestant usage.” .

But the controversy has now invaded our own home circles. That
many of our people are disturbed by the thought that the name of an
idol is used for God in our mission-work is shown by the fact that
overtures requesting the Synod to reverse the action of the Mission
Board were presented at River Forest in 1929 and at Milwaukee
in 1982. In.1929 the position and action of the Mission Board were
endorsed.

At the Milwaukee convention the committee to which this matter
was assigned reported that-the questions underlying the controversy
were too intricate-to admit of adequate study and solution in the time