Nation, sacrifice and Protestant church in China.

This essay traces the language of sacrifice used in a series of articles in the Protestant church magazine Tian Feng in the early 1950s to explore the ways in which sacrifice was demanded of Christians by church leaders, both to create an autonomous, indigenous church freed from imperialist association, and in service of the new nation. It explores the biblical tropes utilised to link sacrifice and nation, and the role of the Korean War in catalysing demand for physical martyrdom alongside ideological sacrifice. The essay suggests that the radical vehemence of the period masks continuities in theological expression with the earlier twentieth century and that much closer attention needs paying to the Chinese construct of 'nation' and its historic connotations in addressing the question of Chinese Christian nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]