奮興佈道家對華人教會的塑造 / 梁家麟

撮要

奮興佈道家對華人教會造成深遠的影響，是毋庸置疑的事實;但其正負面的影響若可，過去卻鮮有系統化的討論。本文旨在探討奮興佈道家廣泛出現的原因、奮興佈道的形式及其背後的策略、奮興佈道家的共有特徵，以及奮興家對中國教會所造成的影響。作者說明奮興家的出現，除了有民族主義的因素外，一般華人牧者的質素與形象的低落，也是其中的主因;但奮興家的存在，卻又倒過來加深了對駐堂牧者的形象的眨抑。作者最後指出，華人教會存在著的超宗派主義、以奮興佈道作為教會復興的主要形式，以及堂會被福音機構領導等現象，皆可溯源自奮興佈道的傳統。

ABSTRACT

The contributions of Chinese Revivalists to the contemporary Chinese Church are well known, but have lacked of systematic and detailed studies. This paper aims to investigate the reasons for the emergence of revivalists in the early twentieth-century China, their common features, evangelistic strategies and methods, and their influence on the Chinese Church.

Besides nationalism, the writer shows that the low quality and low public image of pastors in the local churches is one of the substantial factors for the emergence of revivalists. Ironically, the existence of revivalists did not promote church pastors’ public image but rather depleted it further.

In the last part of the paper, the writer argues that some of the contemporary Chinese Church’s phenomena such as the emphasis on supradenominationalism, the use of revival evangelism as a means of church revitalization, and the domination in the ministry leadership of evangelistic organizations over churches, can trace back their origin to the revivalistic tradition.

原載於《建道學刊》11期（1999年1月），頁105-157。