A while ago I was led to read several books about how the gospel of Jesus Christ is taking China by storm. I was absolutely flabbergasted that this was transpiring and how we never hear anything about it.
One of the books I read, was called China's Christian Millions, thoroughly researched and based on reliable documentation from the Chinese Communist, official church and house-church sources, as well as many personal interviews with Chinese Christians across China.
Some estimate close to 100 million believers are meeting - most in the mostly secret house-church meetings that are not really sanctioned by the government but they do have regular churches that are sanctioned and permitted by the government but they have certain regulations that must be adhered to,[such as no children under 18 are permitted to be taught about Christ] but many times those communist overseers in them are being converted and are more lenient.
A great many of these millions have been baptized in the Holy Ghost as well.
The price that has been paid by those who were punished and tortured and imprisioned to hard labor during the Cultural Revolution under Mao where all religious worship was banned, will make you appreciate the freedoms that we have to serve God as we see fit. But as with all things, God can make it work to good.
Just as God raised up Cyrus in the OT times and the Roman Empire in the NT times to fulfill his purposes, so God has used political leaders in China to prepare for the spread of the gospel. Mandarin was made the offical uniting language (there are 100s of different tribal languages), they built modern roads, railways and telecommunication systems. They attacked traditional religions, their superstitions and idolatry, as well as Confucianism, which is the traditional ideological foundation of China's intellectuals and civil servants.
There is so much I would love to share about all this, but will just share a couple of testimonies.
There is a move of God also among the youth in the universities. Some of the professors that had refused to compromise their belief in the supremacy of Christ over the Communist party suffered long imprisonments and survived these testing experiences and later returned to their posts in universities and colleges all over China. Deep in practical experience of God's faithfulness, they have had a tremendous impact on the younger generation.
One such man was Professor Feng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. For many years until his recent death he openly witnessed to young people in the church near Beijing University. He was one of China's top physicists and widely respected. He wrote a detailed book on the relationship of Christianity and science and insisted that when it was published in Hong Kong it should bear his name for he was fearless in his witness to Christ. One of the students studying at the university describes how he was changed by the witness of this professor:
"My starting point was that Marxism was useless. It justified the massacre in Tiananmen Square with its teaching that the end justifies the means. I wanted to make sense of that evil and to find an answer that could take away my anxiety and depression....All careful study of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianiasm, and Chinese classical religion had brought me hopelessly to the bottom of the tank where I couldn't move. So I headed off to a nearby church. To my surprise it was packed with more than a 1000 people crammed into the building. An even greater surprise was to see quite a number of my student friends. I had assumed I was the only one with doubts, but obviously not. What arrested me was a scripture reading from John 8.
I knew I had to get a Bible and ordered one from the church bookshop although they said it would take weeks to arrive. I went back to the university with my mind ablaze with the staggering possibility that Jesus Christ, who was a man, was also God. Then my quest was over! An older student who spotted me at church invited me to attend a meeting the following Sunday after the service, where a professor would talk about the Christian faith. "Say very little about it - he holds these meetings quite unofficially and the church authorities might not be too pleased to hear about it."
The professor was a nuclear physicist, very well known and reputedly one of the brightest minds in China. Everyone knew he had cut short a lucrative career in the US to return home in 1955 in order to help in the rebuilding of China. The party thanked him by making him dig ditches for 20 years. Now about 70, he was restored to his academic post. We students crowded into a small room. There were about twenty of us and he held us spellbound with his brilliant apologetics for two hours. He spoke about the absolute truth never changes. In order to be taken seriously it had to derive from a souce who is still alive, unlike Confucius, Marx, or Mao. The only giver of truth still alive is Christ Jesus. He spoke of the connection between love and truth and the example of unconditional love extended to us in Christ. He spoke of the power of love that can change people.
What really convinced me was the professor himself. There was passion and conviction in his words. It suddenly occured to me: "he believes every word he says." That was incomprehensible to me, being used to lecturers who hated what they had to teach. Coming from one of the most intelligent men in China it was impossible not to take him seriously. I suppose that talked sealed my conversion.
Now I had a faith that could tell me what God was like. As I learned to pray I gradually felt the hatred leave my heart. I found love there instead. I felt the fear leave me too. I am no longer concerned about going to jail. I even attend a house church which is forbidden in China. We meet secretly, sing quietly and discuss the Word of God in low tones. I am probably facing jail or at least a lifetime of discrimination. But I pray my testimony will be like Paul's when he faced trial. "For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain."
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Love and blessings to our "sleeping dragon" brothers and sisters who have awakened from the dust to find themselves in Christ.
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