A friend of mine is a professor at a large university in eastern China. A communist party member, he had regularly attended a Bible class in Fredericton, where we studied the Gospel of John together, along with several other visiting professors and students from mainland China. When he returned to China, after completing a PhD in electrical engineering (his second doctorate), he decided to check out a local church. I later received an email: “I was surprised to see so many church-goers. The main room, which can hold more than 800 people, was full and I only got a standing spot in the overflow area. During the service, 98 people were baptized.” My friend concluded, “Jesus has gained a huge number of followers in China.”
Such evidence is anecdotal but certainly not isolated. A journalist with the BBC in Beijing recently observed, “On Easter morning, in downtown Beijing, I watched five services, each packed with over 1,500 worshippers. Sunday school was spilling onto the street.” By some accounts, there are more people at church on a Sunday in China than in the whole of Europe. Descriptors used in the western media include “explosive growth,” and “a spiritual awakening.”
This certainly stands in sharp contrast to the conditions of a few decades ago. In 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong condemned the West’s religious and philanthropic activities in China as “spiritual aggression,” and subsequently imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1977) churches were closed and religion was outlawed. In a comprehensive 2011 study A New History of Christianity in China, Dr. Daniel H. Bays, emeritus professor of history at Michigan’s Calvin College, describes Mao’s actions as nothing short of a “nationwide eradication policy for Christianity.”
A Divine Conspiracy
Mao’s restrictions have since been eased, and churches were allowed to re-open in the 1980s but some elements of the Chinese leadership apparently still view Christianity as a sort of Trojan Horse for western values. Arguably, the Chinese leadership these days is about as communist as American Republicans, so perhaps that horse has already left the barn.
Conspiracy theories pre-suppose orchestration by a determined, single-minded, omnipotent entity. This doesn’t sound much like the political West, but it does remind me of the God I worship, so any conspiracy associated with Christian faith in China is most likely a divine one. In fact, it’s a conspiracy centuries in the making. The first known Christian missionary to China is thought to have arrived from Persia around 640. Xian (famous for its Terracotta Warriors), is also home to the Beilin Museum which contains, among other things, a nondescript block of limestone bearing an inscription dating from the year 781. The words carved in Chinese and Syriac script tell of a supreme, triune creator who “veiling His true dignity, appeared in the world as a man.” It goes on to describe how this “Holy One” was born to a virgin and “set in motion the vessel of mercy by which to ascend to the bright mansion” by introducing life and destroying death.
The faith, service and suffering of Christian missionaries to China, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, over subsequent centuries bore much fruit and as a result the recent, pre-communist history of China is rife with the influence of native-born Chinese Christians in the areas of politics, education, medicine and social reform. Their lives and influence are recounted in histories such as Carol Lee Hamrin’s Salt and Light: Lives of Faith That Shaped Modern China, and Ryan Dunch’s Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of Modern China.
My favourite concerns Lin Yutang, the noted early 20th-century philosopher and apologist for traditional Chinese spirituality and culture. Renowned for his 1935 bestseller My Country and My People, Lin was the son of a Presbyterian pastor. Better yet, after initially denouncing his father’s faith as a betrayal of Chinese traditions, he later found his own faith after a life of study and reflection. In his own words: “I have dwelt in the mansion of Confucian humanism, and climbed the peaks of Mount Tao and beheld its glories, and have had glimpses of the dissolving mist of Buddhism hanging over a terrifying void, and only after doing so have I ascended the Jungfrau of Christian belief and reached the world of sunlight above the clouds.”
Rekindled Flames
Despite enthusiastic media reports, Chinese Christians are not all having an easy ride. Atheism is still de rigueur in the Chinese communist party and some Christians are still persecuted and even arrested. It’s a hard system for an outsider to understand. While the Chinese government allows and even encourages registered churches, it also forcibly closes those that have not been officially sanctioned. It’s religious freedom within tightly controlled limits. The state does not welcome underground churches or proselytizing foreigners.
Ironically, it was the crackdown on religious freedoms imposed under Mao’s regime that is at least partially responsible for the current resurgence, creating the system of unofficial “house churches” that, government restrictions notwithstanding, are such an important expression of Chinese worship today. As Dr. Bays describes it, “Talented and charismatic leaders emerged among the believers” during the dark years of persecution. He estimates that in Protestant congregations (all of which were house churches during the Cultural Revolution) the number of believers actually increased “by a factor of five or six” between 1966 and 1978, the time that religion was officially banned. Persecution as fertilizer for growth is a familiar theme in Christ’s church throughout the centuries.
Rather than a spiritual awakening, perhaps what’s happening in China today can best be described as a spiritual re-awakening. As secular materialism replaces both communism and traditional cultural values, more and more disillusioned Chinese are looking for deeper truth. As a result, it appears that Mainland China may now be in the process of reclaiming its own indigenous Christian faith, which has sometimes smouldered and sometimes burned brightly over the previous generations.
Superficial Observations, Deep Impressions
Last year I took a trip to China. It seemed like the right thing to do after receiving so many invitations from former members of the Bible class who had since returned home. I speak no Mandarin or Cantonese, and travelled alone, so this was a step of faith as well as a vacation of sorts. Over a two-week period I stopped in six cities and visited with 16 former Bible class members, their spouses and relatives. As a result, I was able to collect a few superficial observations based on my scant few days in a massive, complex and rapidly evolving nation. I also experienced God’s blessing, provision and encouragement.
Travelling too fast and light to carry a laptop, I jotted down a few highlights in a notebook as I went.
Treading carefully, and all too ready to “hide my light under a bushel” to protect the privacy of my Chinese friends, I was surprised and happy to be frequently invited (actually required) to pray out loud before meals; both in private homes and crowded restaurants.
I saw a sign in a public park that boldly proclaimed in English: “Prohibition of cross.” Aha! I thought … religious suppression! I soon found out that this was no anti-Christian message, but simply a fractured translation of “Keep off the grass.”
In one city I was invited to give a talk to a group of university students about Canadian culture. At the conclusion I was energized by the first question: “Do you believe in God?” And electrified by the second: “How would you convince me to believe in God?” And so in the mere blink of an eye, I crossed the line from pseudo-academic lecturer to proselytizing foreigner. Always stand ready to give a reason for the hope within you.
Anxious to confirm that the Wuchang on my train ticket would actually get me to Wuhan, I randomly chose a man at the railway station and explained my anxiety. His English was excellent and he seemed delighted to use it. This ultimately led to a visit with him and his fiancée in another city. Within the first few minutes of our evening meeting on a university campus, they asked, “Can you please tell us about God?” We spoke late into the night and I left them my Bible.
A former Bible class member, now the director of a research centre at a major university in central China, took time out of his busy schedule to personally accompany me to my next destination—an eight-hour round trip on his part. As we sailed along on a comfortable bullet train at 350 kilometres per hour in a pair of first class seats that he had paid for, he told me about the peace he used to feel while sitting in church in Canada. He also told me that he now reads the Bible to his son every evening.
I visited Sun Yat-sen’s impressive tomb in Nanjing. This socialist revolutionary and first president of the post-imperial Republic of China was author of the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy and livelihood). These were later adopted by Mao (who apparently had a different interpretation of the meaning of democracy). As I watched the constant stream of reverential visitors climb the 392 steps to Sun’s marble sarcophagus, I wondered how many knew about the Christian faith that shaped his reforms.
Normally a great worrier, I learned to trust God a little more. While I didn’t enjoy it when my luggage was taken apart due to the heightened security ahead of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it happened only once. Sweating in an under-ventilated computer lab while struggling to receive my blocked email, using a computer that only understood Chinese, I was given a cup of cool water by a smiling student. It eased my frustrations and reminded me that I was being well looked after. While dealing with a persistent cold throughout the trip, I was given the strength to get up each day and negotiate a disorienting series of airport terminals, train stations, buses and crowded city streets when normally I would just lie in bed. Friends in four cities bought medicine for me and I seldom had to carry my own luggage. My Chinese friends were extremely generous. In fact, it was only when I arrived back in Canada that I realized that not once had I paid for a single meal, taxi, train ticket or hotel room. My fat, sweaty money belt was never opened.
My heart is full for my friends in China. They are warm-hearted, intelligent and blessed materially by most standards, but many are early in their careers and are under great pressure to meet the expectations of employers and families. Competition is severe in the workplace. Supervisors are demanding. Materialism is rampant. Hours are long and the pace is exhausting. They live in cities that are crowded and restless, with skies often opaque with smog. A large gap between rich and poor (who live side by side in the cities) and militaristic diatribes against Japan (evidenced by television images of flags, tanks, missiles, jet fighters and navy ships) were the other tensions I noticed. My friends told me, “it’s hard to feel God in China.” I’m not sure what to do with all this except to keep praying and proclaiming as each of us is commanded to do.
I was able to meet up with my friend with the two doctorates and go with him to the church he had mentioned in his email. As we approached the building, we saw a crowd of people, young and old, sitting comfortably on the green grass, listening to the service over a loudspeaker system. We couldn’t even get into the packed building.
