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The Oberlin Band was a group of Christian missionaries in China from Oberlin College in Ohio. Members of the Oberlin Band worked in Shanxi province from 1882 until 1900. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the 15 missionary men, women, and children of the Oberlin Band were among the foreign missionaries executed by order of the provincial government or killed by Boxers and soldiers. The missionaries of the Oberlin Band were associated with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), also called the American Board. ==Background== In the 19th century Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio was prominent for its reformist social agenda and Christian fervor. Oberlin was the first American college to regularly admit African-American students.〔(Constructing Black Education at Oberlin College )〕 Its abolitionist activism led one historian to call Oberlin the "town that started the Civil War."〔Brandt, Nat (1990). ''The town that started the Civil War''. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-0243-X.〕 After the Civil War, Oberlin turned much of its attention to the spread of the Christian gospel of salvation around the world. "Let us arise..." said one theologian, "to grapple...with the stupendous work of supplanting the...empire of Satan".〔Thompson, Larry Clinton ''William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion'' Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009, p. 12〕 Christianity and civilization were believed to be synonymous by many in the Christian world. "We contend that a true Civilization cannot exist apart from Christianity," said a missionary journal.〔Thompson, p. 13〕 Thus, a missionary could foster the blessings of both Christianity and civilization in the non-Christian countries, the largest of which was China, ruled by the Qing dynasty. "Three hundred to four hundred millions of souls are here crowded together () nine-tenths of these multitudes are still unreached by the gospel." Underlying the enthusiasm for missionary endeavor was the theory that it was essential to convert the world to Christianity to anticipate the coming of the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ foretold in the Bible.〔Brandt, Nat ''Massacre in Shansi'' Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994, p. 22-23〕 The idealism and social and religion activism of Oberlin made it a major contributor to the missionary enterprise around the world. Oberlin graduates such as William Scott Ament had joined the ABCFM and were living and working in China in the 1870s as part of the effort to bring the gospel of Christianity to all peoples. Protestant missionaries were not resident in Shanxi province in inland northern China until the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876-1879. During the famine, caused by a drought, missionaries distributed food in the province to an estimated 3.4 million persons. Even so, according to some estimates five million people, one third of the population in Shanxi, died in the famine.〔''China Famine Relief Fund Shanghai Committee'', pp. 1, 88, 128, 157 https://archive.org/details/cu31924023248796, "Epidemic Chinese Famine" http://www.faculty.kirkwood.edu/ry/ost/Famine.htm, accessed 6 Dec 2012〕 Roman Catholics had long been resident in Shanxi and a few Chinese had become Catholic, but Protestants and Catholics customarily did not interact even though their respective missions and churches might be in close proximity to each other.〔Brandt, 1994, pp. 29-30〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Oberlin Band (China)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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