See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/356492690

HEROES OF THEIR FAITH: THE BLOOD OF THE CHINESE MARTYRS BECOMING

THE SEED OF THE CHURCH.

Research Proposal · June 2021

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.25415.62885

CITATIONS READS
0 77

4 authors:

James Uzziel Cagas Varquez Christopher Reblingca

Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology
3 PUBLICATIONS   0 CITATIONS    2 PUBLICATIONS   0 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Cherly Mediana Cherryl Ann Jengania

Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology
1 PUBLICATION   0 CITATIONS    1 PUBLICATION   0 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

SHADOWS, SPECTERS AND SHARDS: THE PEOPLES STRUGGLES AND THE GUERRILLA RESISTANCE IN PAGADIAN DURING JAPANESE OCCUPATION, 1942-1945 View project

HEROES OF THEIR FAITH: THE BLOOD OF THE CHINESE MARTYRS BECOMING THE SEED OF THE CHURCH. View project

All content following this page was uploaded by James Uzziel Cagas Varquez on 24 November 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

HEROES OF THEIR FAITH: THE BLOOD OF THE CHINESE MARTYRS BECOMING

THE SEED OF THE CHURCH.

A RESEARCH PAPER

Presented to the Faculty

of the Department of History
College of Arts and Social Sciences
Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology
Iligan City

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements in HST070
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN HISTORY

CHERRYL ANN ROXAS JENGANIA

CHERLY G. MEDIANA
CHRISTOPHER REBLINGCA
JAMES UZZIEL C. VARQUEZ

June 2021
 2

Thesis Statement
The alienation caused by the turmoil in the closing years of the Qing Dynasty made
Christianity favorable to the common people, but this development in the late dynastic
period meant that Christians persevered through decades of persecution, which only
strengthened their “fides” – faith in Latin, their conviction from within that became their
standing in the coming Chinese Communist Party in the future. And in their experienced
in the past, they’re molded to willingly sacrifice their own blood that has become the
means of privilege to participate in having the seed of the church, but only in the future
can we only know of what happened in that seed, of whether or not it is growing,
multiplying or dying.

Statement of the Problem

“It is the substantiation of the things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Faith, the means and only stronghold of having to stand against times of hardship,
turmoil, discord, unexpected tides, and even during the Qing Dynasty’s most gruesome
historical record, the Boxer Rebellion. In this statement, we will see the Chinese natives
and converts of Christianity has become the change of target (the first target has been
the missionaries) of the Boxers, that are individuals of armed and violent xenophobic,
anti-Christian, and anti-imperialist insurrection in China between 1899 and 1901.
The blood of the slain martyrs had become the means of the seed of the church,
to which more natives has been converted in their past state of alienation that they have
in such heathen land, a land that has been strongly influenced by Confucianism,
Legalism, Taoism, and etc. And also, the alienation of the time of the rebellion, this
alienation made them departs from the common status that they are in, to which they can
be creative, they can find their meaning of life…
Thus, this study aims to provide a spiritual and dialectical-historical narrative
regarding the heroes’ “individuals” of their faith, and also the blood that has become the
means of having churches, and the spread of Christianity in China, we have come up on
questions that answers the whole study:
1. How did Christianity start in China and why were Christians eventually persecuted
especially going through the later Qing period and the coming of the Boxer
Rebellion?
2. How did the Boxer Rebellion affect the Christian’s livelihood, culture and the
standing of their faith in spite of the persecution, the violent attacks, and the death
of other unconverted Chinese natives?
3. How did the martyrdom of many Christians lead to the establishment of a growing
Church in the Qing period?
 3

Literature Review

As this literature review unfolds the horrific and faith-strengthening of the “Heroes
of their Faith: The Blood of the Chinese Martyrs becoming the seed of the Church” starts
by discussing the Alienation: Christianity in China, by which we see the entrance that
made such religion or “faith” to be favorable among the common people. And through the
growth of it, we have seen the uprising of the Boxer Rebellion, a secret society known to
embarked on an operation to drive all foreigners; armed and violent, anti-Christian, and
anti-imperialist insurrection in China. The aftermath of its rebellion will also be conversed,
and as we go through, we also will see diverse outcomes and objectives; seeing result of
the Martyrdom that led to a dynamic and dramatic “faith-renewing” scenario of the growth
of the church in China. And as all the factors combined into one into entity that produced
the totality of its notion, we see the Hegelian Dialectics beginning to take part as the base
of discourse that holds the different points and factors in writing this body of review-this
history. Adding into this notion, we have a Simulacrum that takes the part of the framework
(Conceptual and Theoretical) to be made as one. As this paper will put into account the
dialectical-historical narrative that can be seen in the following subheads:
Alienation: Christianity in China
Entering into the German Ideology was a bit odd of taking, because we are putting
the west and applying the essential notion of it in the realm of the eastern realization, and
the eastern history. But having this into account, was the beginning and understanding of
Christianity in China without the first plot of alienation. “The theory of alienation was
outlined by Marx in those of his works which were published in German-French
Yearbooks, and it was extensively developed in Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts;” (Petrović, 1963, p. 419). But the main premises of this theory were that
private property of “alienation” that every it was defined in man and his consciousness
having it as erroneous. According to Marx, alienation is separation of the worker from
himself. (Petrović, 1963). As Marx in this following quote:
As a radical separation from all other modes of activity philosophy
appears to its representatives as the only form of “species activity”, i.e.,
as the only form of activity worthy of man as a “universal being”. Thus,
instead of being a universal dimension of all activity, integrated in
practice and in its various reflections, it functions as an independent
(“verselbständigt”) “alienated universality”, displaying the absurdity of
this whole system of alienations by the fact that this fictitious
“universality” is realized as the most esoteric of all esoteric specialties,
strictly reserved for the alienated “high priests” (the “Eingeweihten”) of
this intellectual trade. (1970)

In having this quotation was a confirmation of the “radical separation” of the notion
of alienation to which it forms a subjectively longings of having to be drawn out from such
situation, or even to have a “whole system of alienation” that has been realized as a fact
of a “universal realization” – but by taking this justification was to put into perspective the
amount of alienation that brought all the pagan native-Chinese to accept Christ, and be
 4

transferred into a realm salvation, demesne of taking in Christianity. And as we go

forward, the spread of Christianity in China was altogether not just a “Sovereign
Arrangement of the God above” Romans 8:28, as what others would say. But of the factor
of alienation.
Giving the birth of a hole within their being, was the acceptance of Christianity in
a vast pagan world but such entry of that religion was on the Nestorian Age and the
Mongol Mission, in 635-1368. (Baum & Winkler, 2003) It was a preaching of Christianity
in India that paved the way of the smuggled “preaching” going to China. But as factors
point out the related factors to which it enables to have its little breakthrough was of a
little evidence that in a sparse of its documentation. Nevertheless, “Only a handful of
Christians could have conceivably been Han Chinese. Thus, we are probably justified in
judging Nestorian Christianity in Tang China to have been a marginal religion, not central
to the processes of Chinese history and society.” (Bays, 2012, p. 11)
As Bays continually lays the new notion of historical happenings that was on the
embarking on a fate of spreading Christianity was on the Jesuit Mission of the early
Modern Times. Such embarkation was the constitutional key of transition in the world’s
movement of the Christian Faith to spread along the lines of non-western culture and
lands. And in the avenue, we see the first cross-cultural experience of both worlds, and
the extension of land and the unprecedented move of Christian missionaries and the full-
blown breakthrough of the gospel. (pp. 17-21)
The fact of alienation was the acceptance of Christianity under the boring control
of the Paganistic and Buddhistic culture that was imbedded into their lives and of that
situation, the spread of Christianity, especially on the Protestant Beginnings when Robert
Morrison translated the Bible into Chinese. Catholicism and the native converts that has
been the goal of every missionary that was propagated to spread the “Truth” and the
“Gospel. As what Robert Morrison’s conviction has to say “One reason Morrison spent so
much time on his dictionary and his Bible translation was the instinctive ingrained
Protestant conviction that every people need to have the scriptures in their own language;
indeed, his formal instructions from the LMS were a manifestation of that conviction.”
(2012, p. 44) As the Bible being translated into the native language, the growing forth of
the flower and its blooming is on a rise, granting a little growth each day. A slow yet
progressive growth. As what he had predicted, a ten-fold increase will suddenly immerge.
Lastly, the question alienation was also being discovered when the decline of the
dynasty started to be seen extensively, and the student volunteer movement pave the
way for ideologies to be instilled in everyone’s minds and hearts. And by the time of the
end of the century, the rise of the Reformists, Revolutionaries, and especially the Boxers
were the main threat to all Christians and of their ever-growing faith and church-
establishments. But such threat, turned into a dialectical strength of faith and revival:
Even more surprising, the elite class and officialdom was showing
more respect for missionaries and Christian institutions than had ever
been the case before. The bleak outlook of the Boxer summer gave way
to renewed hope among missionaries and Chinese Christians alike that
at last China might be turning toward Christianity. Indeed, in retrospect
we see here in the immediate aftermath of the Boxer tragedy the
 5

beginnings of China’s “golden age” of Christian expansion and self-

confidence. (2012, p. 87)

Boxer Rebellion
“Boxers” well-trained young men, because of the martial trainings that they have
practiced, and this is when the Righteous and Harmonious Fists started to be known and
have began its origin in the historical context of the rebellion in China. For this reason,
the opportunity of fighting back to the westerners’ encroachment upon them and of the
colonialization to which the fanning into spirit, a different spirit had immerged in such act.
(Esherick, 1987) “According to an oral history informant from the Tianjin area,
contemporaries called the Boxers the tongzijun or tongzituan, “youth army” or ‘youth
militia’” (Cohen, 1997, p. 114). It was also the traditions of possessions and invulnerability
by which it can be traced way back in the past but has been modified and took meaning
in another way, a special way of knowing and giving meaning to against the arms and
weapons of the West. (Esherick, 1987, pp. 54-59). And as we advanced to the popular
culture and the peasant community the “Sects, Boxers, and Popular Culture” started to
commence and such factor gave the rise of the Boxer Rebellion.
Once these two changes had come about, the stage was set for the
Boxer movement. The Boxers' "heterodox" practices charms, spells,
invulnerability, and spirit-possession were perfectly understandable in
terms of the popular culture of the west Shandong peasantry. They could,
accordingly, be easily accepted by such large numbers of peasants that
an enormous popular movement could spread over much of north China
within a matter of a very few months. Furthermore, the integration of
these new Boxers into the village community was pre-figured by
measures for community defense that were already beginning in this
region. That these Boxers should appear as community defenders not
only helped them gain acceptance in their own villages, but also
facilitated the important measure of official tolerance that the Boxers
were to gain. In the late nineteenth century, officials and peasants alike
were seeking new measures to defend the nation against the growing
threat of Western imperialism, and that new threat provided the final
precondition for the rise of the Boxer movement. (p. 67)

As the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1900, who ruled China for more than two
centuries because of the succeeding Opium wars and the unrest-lessness of conflicts
with its intrinsic turmoil that cannot be solved, the rise of the Boxers started its
monumental leap into the history of China. “The Boxers feared the threat that the growing
number of foreigners in China represented to a culture more than three thousand years
old.” (Thompson, 2009, p. 8)
The Boxers’ posters and broadsheets appeared everywhere in northern China. A
sample gives the flavor of their appeal to a beleaguered people:
 6

Foreign devils come with their teaching, and converts to

Christianity, Roman Catholic and Protestant, have become numerous.
These [churches] are without human relations, but being most cunning
have attracted all the greedy and covetous as converts, and to an
unlimited degree they have practiced oppression, until every good official
has been corrupted, and, covetous of foreign wealth, has become their
servant. So telegraphs have been established, and machine-shops have
been a delight to their evil nature. Locomotives, balloons, electric lamps,
the foreign devils think excellent. Though these foreigners ride in sedans
unbefitting their rank, China yet regards them as barbarians of whom
God disapproved, and He is sending down spirits and genii for their
destruction. The first of these powers which has already descended is
the Light of the Red Lamp, and the Volunteer Associated Fists [Boxers]
who will have a fight with the devils. They will burn down the foreign
buildings and restore the temples. Foreign goods of every variety they
will destroy. They will extirpate the evil demons, and establish right
teaching—the honor of the spirits of the sages; they will cause their
sacred teaching to flourish. The purpose of Heaven is fixed; a clean
sweep is to be made. Within three years all will be accomplished. (p. 8)

A Boxer in Tientsin. This is one of the few photographs of a Boxer decked

out in his ceremonial garb (National Archives, 1900).
 7

And as it intensifies through the galloping emergence of time, their hatred and
wrath were purely poured on the destruction of foreigners, especially on the attacks of the
missionaries and preachers all around China that has been sent by the young movement
in America and in UK that have sounded the call to preach the gospel, and establish
churches. With the attack in the Christian Community in Liyuantun Village, and the
characterization because of their slogan “Support the Qing, destroy the foreigners" ("扶
清滅洋 fu Qing mie yang" (Esherick, 1987, pp. 143-144). Their aggression was mainly on
foreign people who propagated for the gospel, and of that, the spirit of hatred has stirred
to be set a blazed. But in fear of such propagation and spread was also the cause of the
rebellion to act erroneously that the spread of the gospel was just a decoy for the entrance
of imperialism and to colonize China bit by bit, depicting the case of the country to be like
a cake, melon or a pie, that is to be shared and be carved by the imperialistic countries.
(Esherick, 1987). It was Imperialism for Christ’s sake, a leaven within the whole a lump.
“Kill all the foreign devils and make churches burn.” (Spence, 1990). What lies ahead in
such insurgence was the brutal anti-foreign and anti-Christian policy that from moments
on was the massacres of missionaries and native Chinese converts. A promise of
protection to all those who were invited in the provincial, but it was a trap, and a principle
that has been sown into, “One falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies,
it bears much fruit.” John 12:24, a futuristic seed of knowing the growth and the sprout of
the church in China. But in such sense of the move of the dialectics, it was also an event
of the notorious symbol of the Chinese anger, the Taiyuan Massacre. As Thompson
points out “Thompson points out that the widely circulated accounts were by people who
could not have seen the events and that these accounts closely followed (often word for
word) well known earlier martyr literature.” (Bickers & Tiedemann, 2007). Collectively, the
dead ones were known in history as the China Martyrs of 1900. (Thompson, 2009, p. 184)

The Effects of the Boxer Rebellion

The lens and the scope of its effect is broader that we thought, and since its wide
range of effects can be exhausting in dealing with the Boxer Rebellion, we must come to
its division of knowledge by pointing out the effects of the people in their livelihood, the
impact and change of culture. In the side of the foreigners, missionaries and Chinese
native converts had its question of their standing of faith, in spite of their persecution, the
violent attacks of the insurgence and the death to which it has been gruesome to some
historians and eyewitness to see the struggle, persecution and martyrdom of this faithful
slaves of God. The discussion of the foreigners and their struggles will be in an explicit
narration in the next subhead, Persecution and Martyrdom. It was also the cause of the
end of the last dynasty in China, the Qing Dynasty. As the uprising started in 1911, it
came to an end in 1912 and became a republic in its form. (History.com Editors, 2021)
As we come to the livelihood that has been distorted throughout the time of the
rebellion, the stripping of all things was also known to them as loot, an “orgy of looting” it
was characterized back then as the mind of sacking the entire China. (Bickers &
Tiedemann, 2007). The people in China were looted, and even burnt without mercy.
Talking about livelihood was not really the aim of the narrative because living in such
 8

situation is not living anymore, to such an extent hundreds of Chinese women and girls
committed to cut off their lives to escape the fate that they are ordained, such fate was to
be raped by Boxers, and even the Russian and Japanese brutes. (Cohen, 1997).
The change of self-image was a part in seeing the culture that has been change
during the Boxer Rebellion. A backward Chinese society was exposed during the time of
Boxer Rebellion, it was nothing but a historical phenomenon and even a cultural
phenomenon of the climax of reactionary countercurrents opposing reforms and holding
fast to the backward traditions of the Boxers. Such evaluation was really the need of a
change in its self-image, it was carried out in varieties in the areas of education, military,
and economy, and even indicated a will towards a constitutional government. (Lie, 2013)
According to the “revolutionary view of history,” the hypothesis is
based on the following points. After the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing
government carried out a variety of reforms in the areas of education,
military, and economy, and even indicated a will towards a constitutional
government. However, it did so in order to maintain its reactionary
governance instead of out of the purpose of achieving a constitution
based democratic government. Therefore, it was only inevitable for the
Chinese Revolution to break out in order to topple this reactionary
regime. (p. 68)

Persecution and Martyrdom

A cording relation with the effects of the Boxer Rebellion, the persecution and
martyrdom are put into a new set of narrative of what has been the extreme of such effects
of the insurgence, and the blood that has been spilled before, in the current and after was
a colossal part of history that cannot be taken for granted. But in coming into the narrative
of persecution is to be cleared on the persecution itself that the foreigners and the
Chinese native converts experienced before the rebellion, and after the rebellion, and to
what cause of decision of the Chinese to display their wrath, nature, and the other side of
who they are.
In the late 17th century, Christianity was banned in China by the Kangxi Emperor.
“Christianity had been a long-standing factor in the shaping of Western society and
culture, but it had a rough time adjusting in China. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi of
Qing Dynasty, a “controversy of rites” erupted. The Pope’s forbidding Chinese Catholics
to venerate Confucius and ancestors led to a “century of ban” for the religion in China.”
(Xiaowen, 2001). This gives a new perception that persecution itself did not start during
the Boxer Rebellion, it happened already a long time ago. But during the rise of the
rebellion, the spirit of persecution started to be uplifted and have put into the spirit of killing
the foreigners. It seems like the killing of the Christians in China was a long period of
burial-anger in exterminating the foreigners who inhabited their lands. Concealing their
feelings to which it erupted during the rebellion, and have cause a lot of destruction during
that time.
When there is persecution, surely in the context of rebellion, there must be killings,
massacres, in Christian language the term martyrdom was used to define such act of
 9

sacrificing and willingness to die on behalf of Christ, such act was because of the growth
of faith, and the savior’s person who made them willing to die. It has been also a cause
of strongly putting the truth in practice, 2 Timothy 2:11 “"This is a trustworthy saying: If we
die with him, we will also live with him." But as we come to the main primary source of
this subhead was to see the atrocity of the Chinese, not just mainly in foreigners but also
with their native Chinese converts that has become the target of their anger.
“The terrible story of the sufferings of our missionary brethren and sisters, ending,
as they did in so many cases, in cruel deaths, has been given so far as practicable in
order of time” (Forsyth, 1904). In doing so, chapter I of this book speaks of the rise of the
boxers in 1900:
This movement originated in the south-east of Shantung, and was
part of the effect of the taking of Kiao-Chou by the Germans. In intention
its object was to resist the foreign invasion of the country, and one of its
banners had the motto inscribed upon it, ‘Support the present dynasty,
and destroy the foreigners.’ Under the direct encouragement of Yu Hsien,
who was the governor of Shantung, the sect spread rapidly in his
jurisdiction, and it was one of their bands who was responsible for the
murder of Mr. Brooks. (p. 5)

And as the secrets amongst the people, the rapid spread and growth of the boxers
were quite alarming that it released the incapsulated feeling of anti-foreigner outburst and
to be reverencing the past and be attached of the backward cultural setting that they have,
and even of the mental state of the people was introduction of the hatred on foreign that
is consider by them as the real “devil”. But as this goes forward the outflow of the situation
could never be stopped anymore: “All these things have helped to swell the tide of anti-
foreign feeling which culminated in the disastrous outbreak, to portray which is the
purpose of these pages, in so far as it affected missions and missionary interest in China”
(p. 8)
The story of the ‘beginning of sorrows’ is most pathetic. That was mentioned a
while ago about the murder of Mr. Brooks was altogether the faithfulness to duty and
loyalty to his fellow-worker that cost his life. And as part of the first martyrs, the second
murderous outbreak occurred at Yungch’ing. Then, the massacre at Pao-Ting-Fu
because the first outbreak on any large scale was in the villages in Pao-Ting-Fu. Stories
of the American Presbyterian Mission was massacred, who belonged in that village
station. The following are the happenings in pages 22-29: The Murder of Pastor Meng,
missionaries burned alive, murders outside the walls, like Mr. Pitkin who were imprisoned
first and then murdered. (Forsyth, 1904)
The never-ending killings that happened in the Boxer Rebellion, series of
reflections and forecasts: “The weight of the intended blow fell on the helpless and
unoffending missionaries and their converts, especially in the province of Shansi.” (p. 486)
“Destruction of mission property was more widespread, and the death-roll of Christian
native was extended by additions from at least all northern provinces.” (p. 486)
 10

And as of the saying of psalmist: ‘If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up alive.’ This kind of
illustration was the restraining hand of the Divine Providence of what seemed to be
unrestrained during the purpose of such acts of the lawless men, there is still praises
being rendered for those bold and heroic stands that made such troops against the ‘fearful
odds’ … and in the sovereign mercy of God was seen, not only in the sparing of lives of
the foreign community, but also with those missionaries and their families. But the weight
of the outburst of persecution and killings was against the Chinese Native converts who
were turned in the latter part of the rebellion, in which their anger even led them to kill
their own country man. But as the center and vortex of storm suddenly starts to cease,
the signs of progress in relation to ideology and culture, the creeping of the marvelous
change is coming to a rise. And in such seeds of death, countless of them, the Great
Future Promise can now be seen, not in a far, but of to be grasp sooner or later. And the
great epoch, the arrival of the birth-pangs of a new era in China, and of the churches
spread, growth and maturity.
The Growth of the Church
Subsequently in the aftermath the period of the Boxer Rebellion together with the
Second Sino-Japanese War refers to be the golden age of Chinese Christianity, as
converts rapidly grew and churches being established in many regions in China. (Shan,
2009)
Paul Varg argues that American missionaries worked very hard on changing
China:
The growth of the missionary movement in the first decades of the [20th]
century wove a tie between the American church-going public and China
that did not exist between the United States and any other country. The
number of missionaries increased from 513 in 1890 to more than 2,000
in 1914, and by 1920 there were 8,325 Protestant missionaries in China.
In 1927 there were sixteen American universities and colleges, ten
professional schools of collegiate rank, four schools of theology, and six
schools of medicine. These institutions represented an investment of $19
million. By 1920, 265 Christian middle schools existed with an enrollment
of 15,213. There were thousands of elementary schools; the
Presbyterians alone had 383 primary schools with about 15,000
students. (Lazich, 2006)

Hegelian Dialectics
As perceived by the structure of the subheads and of the points that has been
narratively made, the question of the Hegelian Dialectics and its application was made to
be able in this review. But as of the typical notion of it was not really the emphasis and
being grasp by the researchers. It was not even a threefold manner of structure of which
we see a systematize stages of development being presented, but of the turning of the
contingent events and by the use of reason, the sublation of the of all points turns into
necessary, by which the material side of the scenery has been in the intellectual realm.
 11

The problem of the dialectics was of the general understanding of many people,
and the matrix of the triad was not really used by Hegel himself. Such terms of use in this
Hegelian Dialectics is not anti-Hegelian but of “Hegel” Himself, the reality and the return
of Hegel in its originality and complexity. To start with, the title itself was the idea of the
narrative: “Heroes of their Faith: The Blood of the Chinese Martyrs becoming the seed of
the Church” and such was the insertion of the alienation of the Chinese people, that was
the result of the void with which it was the start of the statement “boredom”, this is where
we see the Undifferentiated Unity - Alienation: Christianity in China. Now here lies the
main notion of the title “Heroes of their Faith” this is Differentiated Disunity that has been
seen through the course of the negation with which the subheads explain such negation
and of the explanation of the main notion of the title. These are the subheads that
contributes to the dramatic change of the dialectic: Boxer Rebellion, Effects of the Boxer
Rebellion, and the Persecution and Martyrdom. This was also the entrance of the
movement of the spirit that made the absolute conception of the title itself. And as the
martyrs poured their lives as a drink offering to our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the principle
that was stated in John 12:24. The growth of the church was because of the seed that
was being sown in to the ground and dies, such principle also depicts the guiding-
uniqueness of the spirit, that enabled the feature of the Differentiated Unity, as the
negation has been negated once more, the very feature of the Persecution and
Martyrdom has become the seed of the church and will eventually be as of the dialectical
process goes on, the growth of the church and its maturity, the full-grown man, the one
new man.
Simulacrum

Alienation

Heroes-
Faith

Seed and
Growth

This was also based by the Hegelian Dialectics that has been shown lately in this
review.
 12

Conclusion
As we aim through the course of the situation, the outstanding fact of this topic was
to let everyone know the realization that proves the spiritual strengthening of every
believer, the faith that made its way of changing their lives to be a martyr. The main point
of it all was to see the dialectical movements and patterns of history, of how “alienation”
redirects the course of their lives and having the “faith” of which makes the means of
stronghold and stand. The blood that has been shed, willingly laid down their lives of such
“wonderful person” and became the change of the process, and negates it into the seed
of the church, and ultimately, in the future, sees the growth and its maturity. A spiritual
dialectical movement of history. Truly, it is the move of the Spirit that made the idea, and
the absolute being immersed as the notion of this narrative. In delving in such depths, the
move started in such void of every native Chinese, the alienation of every people, the so
called “boredom” that they have experienced in the past. It was also of the early preachers
that made its way in China. And going through time, persecution starts to immerged when
the anti-westerners, xenophobic spirit (local), anti-Christian made its way in the minds of
the people, it was also the hatred deep within them and the anxiety of which it made them
realize that because of this so called “religion” or “faith”, their homeland will be destroyed
and the entire dynasty would collapse because of such backward of concepts. But it was
also the reason of backwardness that the unprecedented situation in history, the killings,
the massacres, the burning of Christians, and their native converts being attacked was
the exposing of the evil nature of man, the hidden nature that was suppressed a long time
ago. The anger, the hatred, the strife. Livelihood was smashed, a drastic cultural change
was seen, but the standing of their faith was getting deep. This was the absoluteness of
their hearts, the immovable, unshakeable, being standfast in God’s work, having such
vision of the price that they want to get in the future-the crown of righteousness, to
become and overcomer of Christ. “If we die with Him, we shall also live with Him.”. The
principle was also being hold on to every martyred Christians at that time. John 12:24 “As
the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies it bears much
fruit.”, and this was the basis that led to the establishment of the seed, and the growth of
the church, it was a new era when the Boxer Rebellion had ended it brutal-vicious spot in
history. It was a new dawn had risen in the church of which the spread, growth and even
the conversion of the Chinese had been like a wildfire penetrating the entire Chinese
lands.
By the narrative that which concludes the topic, it determines on how the Spirit
formulates its idea of how it moves throughout the dreadful situation in history. And it was
also the battle of the spiritual forces in the heavenlies, and the situation of the world,
especially China in the shaping of those times, the renewing of their minds, the dropping
of backwardness and the notion of progressive importance in history. But one thing in
mind that serves a gap in this topic and of the subheads that was being considered as
the limitation of the researchers was of the questions of growth, and maturity. It lies
specifically in the realm of futuristic move of the spirit, and the patience of the historians
in order to see and come up to the point of writing once again of what surely is the spirit’s
move in today’s contemporary China, a China that was being held in communism.
 13

Bibliography

Baum, W., & Winkler, D. W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London:
Taylor & Francis Group.
Bays, D. H. (2012). A New History of Christianity. Noida: Blackwell Publishing.
Bickers, R. A., & Tiedemann, R. G. (2007). The Boxers, China, and the World. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Ch'ên, J. (1960). The Nature and Characteristics of the Boxer Movement--A
Morphological Study. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London, 23(2), pp. 287-308 (22 pages).
Cohen, P. A. (1997). History in three keys: the boxers as event, experience, and myth.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Esherick, J. W. (1987). The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Forsyth, R. C. (1904). The China martyrs of 1900. A complete roll of the Christian heroes
martyred in China in 1900, with narratives of survivors. London: The Religious
Tract Society.
Foxe, J. (2009). Foxe's Book of Martyrs: Select Narratives. (J. N. King, Ed.) Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
History.com Editors. (2021). Boxer Rebellion. HISTORY CHANNEL.
Lazich, M. C. (2006). American Missionaries and the Opium Trade in Nineteenth-Century
China. Journal of World History, 17(2), 58-115.
Lie, J. (2013). China's Views of History: The Prospect of Changing. Journal of
Contemporary East Asia Studies, 55-76.
Liu, K.-C. (1989). Review: Imperialism and the Chinese Peasants: The Background of the
Boxer Uprising. Modern China, 15(1), pp. 102-116 (15 pages).
Marx, K. (1970). Marx's Theory of Alienation. (I. Mészáros, Trans.) London: Merlin Press.
Petrović, G. (1963). Marx's Theory of Alienation. Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 419-426 (8 pages).
Shan, P. F. (2009). Triumph after Catastrophe: Church, State and Society in PostBoxer
China, 1900-1937. Peace and Conflict Studies, 16(2), 33-50.
Silbey, D. J. (2012). The Boxer Rebellion and The Great Game In China. New York: Hill
and Wang.
Spence, J. D. (1990). The Search for Modern China. London: W.W. Norton & Company.
 14

Thompson, L. C. (2009). William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris,
and the "Ideal Missionary". North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers.
Xiaowen, Y. (2001, February 19). China Internet Information Center. Retrieved from
China Internet Information Center Web site:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/45466.htm
Zizek, S. (2012). Less Than Nothing Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism.
London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2020). Hegel in a Wired Brain. Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic.

View publication stats