1807-2007: Two Hundred Years of Gospel Advances in China

 

I

 

In May12, 1807, a young English missionary who had just turned twenty-five years of age, boarded a ship in New York that was headed for China. After an arduous voyage that lasted over 100 days, the ship finally sailed into the billowing South China Sea. Submerged in this young man’s thoughts were memories of a comfortable life in his past and longings for home. At the moment, he was filled with passionate devotion for the gospel work. As he gazed at the shoreline with expectancy, the sea wind blew around his clothes and his curly hair. He felt something pounding in his heart, and let out a deep sigh, “China! Oh, China!”

This was Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, and the pioneer of Christianity’s fourth attempted entrance into China. Yet to this young man who let out his yearning for China, this country was not a wide open door but an ancient megalith.

In the previous 1,000 years, missionaries had endeavored three times to sow seeds in the crevices of this huge rock. Not because of the deterioration of the seed, but due to the strength of the megalith’s assimilating culture, these attempts all failed.

Two hundred years before Morrison arrived in China, a Jesuit, Alexandre Valignani, attempted to reach the inland of China from Macao several times but failed. In 1606, Valignani, whose trek from Italy to China had taken close to three years, as he gazed upon this prohibitive land, mournfully uttered on his deathbed, “Rock! Oh, rock! When will you open up for my Lord?”(Lin)

This cry reverberated from the seventeenth well into the nineteenth centuries. Finally, Robert Morrison with his flesh and blood came knocking against this megalith called “China.”

 

II

 

Shortly after, this very rock cracked into pieces and was conquered. The break came about not through the missionaries’ flesh and blood, but by Great Britain’s gunboats. What conquered her was not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the opium imported by the British East India Company and the greed of man nourished by opium profits.

Thus, in recent generations the Chinese readily accepted the Marxist dictum, “religion is the opiate of the people.” The shame-filled modern history of China has been a persuasive footnote to this insulting belief.

“Christianity=Vehicle of Imperialist Invasion” has become a recognized equation. The official history textbooks of China continue to quote this today. A famous contemporary intellectual analyzed this assertion as follows: “Christianity was closely allied with foreign commerce backed by gunboats. Therefore, in the minds of the Chinese, this religion which professed to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ became an invader’s instrument. … The Chinese had no other choice but to link Christianity to foreign military threats. … If Buddha came to China on a white elephant, then Jesus Christ flew in on cannonballs” (Jiang, 36).

Since “Jesus Christ flew in on cannonballs,” it naturally follows that all missionaries who came to China to preach the gospel would be branded as “invaders” wearing religious clothing. The May 1995 issue of Outlines of Chinese History published by People’s Publishing Company, Beijing, describes the foreign missionaries’ actions and behaviors in China in early years:

“The foreign churches in China are becoming increasingly vicious. Not only do they plunder land and property, focus on trifles, and interfere with the jurisdiction and administration of the officials, they also elevate themselves as the local authorities. They illegally organize armed groups, buy off local rogues as their accomplices, and oppress the common people. Among many of the so-called ‘Christian folk’ are the wicked landowners, criminals, shysters, and local riffraff. Under the shield of foreign missionaries, they ‘commit all kinds of crimes.’ They wantonly extort, exploit, cheat and plunder innocent people, usurp their women and properties.

When the people rebel against their tyranny, missionaries use the allegation of ‘religious crime’ to exact huge sums of money from local people, forcing the people to pay. As a result, villagers unanimously blame the Christian church as the source of all evil. During droughts, farmers would angrily sing, ‘There is no rain, the ground is parched; the churches have blocked the skies'” (Jian, 408).

All in all, it appeared that other than the “revolutionary power” of the Boxer Uprising, there was no way to thwart the advance made by the foreign missionaries to end the “increasingly treacherous condition” they created. In May 1900, with the Empress Dowager’s indulgence, the Boxers, led by Manchu courtier Zaixun as the commander general, initiated the hatred movement to massacre foreigners, especially missionaries and Chinese believers. During this movement, fifty-three Roman Catholic bishops and priests were killed along with 18,000 Catholic believers; 188 Protestant missionaries and 5,000 Chinese converts were slaughtered. The vindictive killing was the most severe in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Northeast China (Wang).

This “movement” directly led to the League of Eight Nations’ war against China. At the end of the war, the victorious Allies forced the Manchu (Qing Dynasty) government to sign the “Xinchou Treaty,” in which one of the items stipulated that the Manchu government was to make installment payments lasting thirty-nine years and totaling four hundred fifty million Chinese ounces of silver. With the principle and interests all totaled it would be close to one billion ounces. The Manchu government made the concession that: “With all resources of the land, we will try to appease all the nations.”

 

III

 

During the time when the Manchu soldiers and the Boxers were torching the churches, hospitals and schools in the capital, all foreign missionaries and Christian converts fled, taking refuge in the legation quarter at the Dongjiao People’s Alley. Among them was a Chinese convert, Wang Zihou, who had with him his pregnant wife and their five or six year-old daughter. One day, Wang climbed up the ladder and saw outside the walls the billowing smoke and devastating onslaught. He heard gun shots and the cursing of soldiers and Boxers. As he came down from the ladder, he said to his wife, “We would be better off taking our own lives than to be mercilessly slaughtered.”

On June 22, 1900, Wang Zihou’s body was discovered in the garden of the Su Emperor Mansion; he had hung himself. A month and three days later, on July 25, 1900, his wife gave birth to a son, named “Tie” (Iron).

This “Iron” became a giant in Chinese church history, Wang Mingdao. A Chinese saint, he spent a quarter of his life imprisoned by the Communist government. He was a God-given beacon and blessing to the Chinese Church in the twentieth century.

Two years after the birth of Wang Mingdao, another giant of Chinese Church history, Song Shangjie (John Sung), was born in Fengji Village, Putianxian, Fujian Province. Twenty-six years later, in 1927, on board an American ship en route to China, Dr. Sung threw overboard all his gold medals and honorary certificates he had earned in America. For the remaining days of his life, he traversed more than half of China. In the 1930s, this evangelist brought about a major revival in the Chinese Church with his life as a burning torch igniting other lives. This servant of God died at the age of forty- three.

IV

 

In the last century of Chinese history, we can say that the 1900 Boxer Uprising stemmed from anti-foreign sentiment supported by the Manchu princes and involved an uneducated local militia.

Later, another anti-Christian wave was led by a group of New Thought intellectuals closely related to the May Fourth Movement in 1919. These intellectuals, like the Boxers before them, also clinched their “fists” in favor of Marxism and the Omnipotence of Science and the progress of mankind on this earth. They vowed to deal a heavy blow to the anti-scientific, mind stifling, youth intoxicating Christianity. In their maxim was this radical statement:

“Religion exists outside the realm of the human race. Man exists where there must be no religion. Man and religion cannot co-exist” (Wang 270).

The “religion” referred to here was not just any religion, but Christianity.

The following are other anti-Christian quotes from some scholars and famous persons at the height of the Movement:

_ Wu Zhihui: wanted to “delete the name of God, and banish the soul of the spirit element;” “If there was a God, I would pull down his pants and curse him: You villain!”

_ Zhu Zhixin: “The historical Jesus is insignificant; the Jesus of new idealism and of Leo Tolstoi are but temporarily usable stuff; … Jesus’ hypocritical actions do not match his words. He is a narrow, self-serving intolerant and vindictive idol.”

_ Chen Duxiu: “There is no evidence of the existence of spirits and gods in heaven or on earth. All religions are deceptive idols. Buddha is a fraud, and so is Jehovah God. … they ought to be demolished.”

_ Hu Shi: “Based on all sciences … we have no need of any supernatural sovereign or creator. Based on our knowledge of the biological sciences, … we understand better that the supposition of the existence of a good-willed sovereign being can not be established.”

_ Li Huang: “By our own power and by mutual human collaboration, we can ensure a bright future. Why do we need to ask for God’s mercy? … Why do we retreat to beg for his forgiveness? Can we not redeem ourselves through our creative power and diligent efforts contributing to society? … We should actively engage our hands and minds to bring about the betterment and improvement of society. We should not passively gaze upward, praying to an unknown God” (Jiang).

Chinese intellectuals today, in a different tone, still continue to reiterate these frivolous, shallow, foolish and even blasphemous statements. We also used to make similar ignorant statements before we came to know Christ. Now is the time for self-examination and repentance.

V

 

However, neither the Boxer anti-reli-gion movement nor the intellectual anti-Christian movement was able to impede the Gospel advances in China. For God’s ways are higher than man’s ways and His thoughts are higher than man’s thoughts. Through persecutions, the Christian church was tried, purged to become purer and greatly strengthened. Faced with the intellectuals’ reasoned rejection of the Gospel truth, preachers began to better understand that only the truth of the Gospel itself can conquer. The growth of the Christian church bears the evidence of God’s mighty hand saving souls in China without ceasing. The number of converts rose from slightly more than 113,000 in 1900 to about one and one-half million in 1949.
 

VI

 

Yet God permitted even greater tribu-lations to come upon His Church. Beginning in 1952, the Church passed through “the valley of the shadow of death.” God’s own presence, “His staff and His rod” were a constant source of comfort for His children. One letter written by mainland believers to overseas Christians states:

“In the past forty years, imprisonment has become the way of witnessing for tens of thousands of Christians. Many have suffered tremendously in prison for twenty to thirty years and some have been martyred for the Lord. Those not imprisoned were the old and weak, women and children. They have been subjected to prejudice, political harassment, financial deprivation, surveillance by neighbors, and alienation from relatives and friends. Their children were not allowed to receive any educational benefits or obtain employment. They were treated as unfit for marriage.

In the midst of such grave hardship, we have cried out to the Lord in tears, ‘May You turn Your face away from our sins and hear our prayers!’ We have been reminded of our sins and repent! For years we loved the world and the love of the Lord was not in us. We repent of our unseen pride, boastful attitudes, covetousness, jealousy, impure thoughts and adultery.

Our churches have engaged in much factionalism, politics and rivalry. Now both inside and outside of the prison, both Christians and churches repent together. For forty years, all of us have continually sought God’s forgiveness. For ‘without holiness no one will see the Lord’ (Hebrews 12:14). In great calamity we now realize, ‘Judgment begins in the house of the Lord’ (I Peter 4:17).

We diligently study the Bible and have come to know the power of every word, and that every verse is life. We have begun to delight in meditating on the precepts of the Lord day and night. We read in the morning and we read in the evening. We carry the Bible in our pockets so that we can study it at any time. We do not let His Word depart from our lips nor from our hearts. His Word is the source of life and the river of living water.

We pray at all times and have come to realize that prayer is a Christian’s breathing. In the morning when we wake up to the callous reality, we pray for peace for the day at the opening of our eyes. We derive our strength from God. We pray in all places, calling on His name. We fast and pray and single-heartedly bow before Him.

We break into small groups in our gatherings, … our fellowship meeting is our opportunity to meet God. His presence is sweet as honey and rich as precious ointment in our gathering even in the midst of our suffering. He gives strength to the weak, rest to the weary, joy to the sorrowful and comfort to the brokenhearted.

We learn to endure, knowing that ‘those who endure to the end will be saved.’ We practice obedience and cast aside the flesh and worldly wisdom, for we are aware of the fact that ‘the weapons with which we fight are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds’ (2 Cor. 10:4). We understand that ‘everyone must submit himself to the authorities. For there is no authority except that which God has established’ (Rom. 13:1). But in matters that are contrary to God’s will, we also understand that ‘we must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).

Our path has been full of hardship, bitterness, deprivation and shame. It has been filled with weaknesses, bewilderment, vacillations and wavering. It has been a path of exhaustion, soaked with blood and tears. Yet God’s compassion has paved our way, His mercy is with His helpless people. He has repeatedly proven His amazing grace towards us, so that we may see the grace of Jehovah in the land of the living. We sow in tears on this path and reap with shouts of joy. By the power of Christ, we have overcome time and time again on this path. We have a new song every day” (Proclaim). 

VII

 

Why has the number of Chinese Christians increased fifty fold in less than half a century, to over 50 million? The answer lies in the perfect will of God for China and the power of the Gospel. Only when the Gospel seed was buried in the soil moistened with the believers’ blood and tears, did a lush forest of new lives emerge.

(Author’s note: Someone asked me questions related to the above when I was in a meeting in the South part of the States, and I shared: “The proof from Biblical revelation and the happenings on Mainland China indicates suffering is the secret of the Christian church’s growth.”)

Shall we share this “mystery” with the Chinese Communist government? They have caused trouble and suffering for the church for decades, dealing hardship to the Christians, which have only resulted in manifold growth of the Chinese church. Once they comprehend this unique method for growth for the church, will they change their tactics, and allow it to develop in comfort and freedom? Would the results then be that the combination of the sinful environment and human weakness leads the church to shriveling and corruption?

VIII

 

Two Hundred years-1807-2007. As we position ourselves in the year 1997, we look towards twenty-first century China. Any intellectual with a newborn Christian life must examine his relationship with his country and his people as he embraces his Gospel mission. He will carefully consider ways to share the sweet taste of the Christian life with his kinsmen in the next decade.

He may very well have been one of the patriots who agreed with the slogan: “Save the Country with Science,” or one who advocated: “Save the Country with Democracy.” But now that he has been saved through Christ, he does not merely chant the slogan, “Save the Country with the Gospel,” lest he confuse the genuine Gospel audience. The Gospel message is to save men and their souls. Transformed lives and nature may bring about national democracy, freedom and prosperity; but as we understand it, these are merely “by-products” of the Gospel.

IX

 

China, yesterday, today and tomorow, is, and must be God’s China. The Lord Jehovah said, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31).

The time has come for the Lord to make a covenant with the people of China. God’s “covenant” with us is this: “I will put my law in their minds and write it in their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:32-34).

The Lord Jehovah will be the God of the Chinese; the day is coming when the people of China will be His people. The day is coming when the Chinese people “from the least to the greatest” will all know God.

“Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are His. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him” (Dan. 2:20-22).

Notes
Consult The Memorabilia Collection of 170 Years of Christianity’s Entrance Into China, editor, Lin, Zhiping, Taipei: Universal Light Pub. Co., 1977.
Jiang, Menglin, Western Trends, quoting from Critiques on Recent Religions in China, by Ye Renchang, p. 36, Taipei: Song of Songs Pub. Co., 1993.
Jian, Baizan, ed., Outlines of Chinese History, Revised, vol. 2, P. 408, Beijing: People’s Pub. Co., 1995.
Wang, Zhixin, The History of Chinese Christianity, p. 231, Hong Kong: Christian Literature Pub. Co., 1979.
Ibid., p. 270.

All quotes from Critiques on Recent Religions in China (Loc. Cit.).

Quotes are from Proclaim Magazine, May/June issue of 1997, Petaluma, CA: Chinese Christian Missions Pub. Co.

-Pine Wang, from China, is chief editor of Christian Life Quarterly. This article was taken from Christian Life Quarterly, June, 1997, Vol.1 No. 2, 1997, pp. 5-9.