Tai Ping The risk of misunderstanding and misusing the Christian message was made tragically plain in the Tai Ping rebellion in China. In the 1860s Hong Xiu-quan had received some instruction in Christian faith from Baptist missionaries, but, whether from mental disorder or deliberate intent or ignorance we cannot tell, he interpreted the message as proving that he was part of the Holy Family, the brother of Jesus Christ. He relatives were included in the scheme. They then rejected any further teaching by missionaries and set up their own movement, nationalist in tone, radical in policy, overturning the oppressive regime of the big landlords. Thousands joined, from very mixed motives, so that it became a general rebellion against the …show more content…
It is through the Son and the Spirit that people can be rescued from judgement and brought within the eternal life of Christ. He did not approve of the thinking of Augustine that sex is born in evil. He considered that war may be just if it is defensive and in proportion to the purpose and ending in a just peace. For one person to cover the whole territory of doctrine, the Trinity, the creation, the incarnation, the work of the Spirit, the life of the Church, the Christian life and purpose in society, this was exceptional. Today we may regard his work as too academic, with not enough room for the mystery and poetry of faith, yet it proved to be the primary teaching material for centuries of priests and novices. Tillich With Paul Tillich (1886 – 1965) we meet all the anxiety, all the loss of hope that came with two world wars, the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, when it seemed to thousands that the God they had known was wholly missing. Tillich was a migrant from Germany in the thirties, finding his home in the USA, where he taught theology in New York, Harvard and