The youth of Red China outnumber the total population of the United States and Canada. They have a god who promises them freedom if they will follow him and destroy all other gods. This contemporary poem which they have put to music reveals how completely they believe and obey him:
We worship no god, nor temples build,
Chairman Mao’s love is greater manifold.
Gods we destroy, and temples tear down,
Better than gods we worship the One Man.
Mountains may shake, earth may quake and we are not afraid.
But we dare not forget what the Chairman said.
This is more than a form of personality cultism, in which the Communists excel. It is idolatry—replacing the Creator with a creature. It is worshiping a man-god rather than the God-man.
For centuries the majority of the people of China have been Buddhists. But today millions have replaced the worship of Buddha with the worship of Mao Tse-tung. This is true even in Tibet, which less than twenty years ago was one of the strongest Buddhist countries in the world. Buddhist idols have been replaced by Chairman Mao’s portraits. Quotations from Chairman Mao hang from every wall. The Dalai Lama or Buddhist god-king of Tibet has been supplanted by the Communist man-god.
Under Mao’s all-seeing eye, peasants run a miserable school system with a curriculum primarily made up of a study of the thoughts of Mao. Students who have grown sick of the “little red book” dare not discard it. It is the padlock that chains them to their Chairman, and it must be carried everywhere.
School opens and closes with the reading of the thoughts of Mao; thus members of the “locked-in” generation report to their Chairman at the beginning and end of each day. Mandatory meetings to read, memorize, and discuss Mao’s thoughts are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To ensure that the student reflects only upon Mao’s thoughts, most of the old Chinese cultural and traditional works have been destroyed.
Overwhelming egotism is an essential part of a man who dares as much as Mao Tse-tung. He thinks of himself as a Communist messiah and promises his followers a utopia, a kind of present heaven on earth. He chains his people to himself by telling them that truth is what he makes it. This farmer turned god has exalted himself above all others. In no other state in history has a mythmaker so efficiently controlled a brain-washing apparatus directed at such an enormous locked-in audience.
This strange Communist messiah who mouths the anti-religious dogma of atheistic materialism nevertheless insists that faith is more important than reason. He assures and reassures his hypnotized followers that his doctrines are correct, not because they are based on reason, but because he cannot err. If one’s reasoning fails to converge with Mao’s word, it is reason that errs.
This man-god of China is at best a transistory creature. Recently Chairman Mao has given more power on the political stage to his wife. For nearly twenty years this curiously obscure figure remained in the background. Today Chiang-Ching, as she prefers to be called, has dared to step into the eye of Communist China’s political storm, and as one of her husband’s principal troubleshooters she wields great power. She is now the chief interpreter of her husband’s thoughts and is therefore the patron saint of China’s literature and art. As an adviser to the Cultural Revolution Committee, she has also gained a voice in military affairs. Her sudden rise to power is more than a matter of personal ambition and female vanity. The aging Chairman realizes that he is growing frail and has few leaders he can trust and so he has thrust his fourth wife to the forefront. It is altogether possible that Chiang-Ching with her increasingly loud voice in the affairs of state may fulfill the Chinese proverb, “When the hen crows at dawn, the nation is in peril.”
What is more certain is that Chairman Mao’s months of tyranny and terror are drawing to a close. His breath is in God’s hands, and by God’s permission alone he lives. One is reminded that two thousand years ago King Herod basked in a glaring light of idolatrous glory similar to that which Mao enjoys. Herod sat on his throne in royal apparel and rehearsed in brilliant oratory all he had done for the crowd: “And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost” (Acts 12:22, 23).
Down through history the kings and the Caesars, the Nebuchadnezzars and the Herods, the Hitlers and the Maos, have played the dangerous game of being God, and in the end they all have lost. As for the people whom these powerful figures manipulate, they are a fickle crowd. Herod’s grandstand cheered him only because they wanted his financial nourishment. The very crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with the song, “Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord,” later mocked him and cried: “Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas!”
Chairman Mao knows the fickleness of human nature, of course, and he has used it well to his own ends. For years he built into the people of Red China a confidence in his close friend and associate Liu Hsiao-Chi, and he urged the nation to elect his friend their president. The Red Chinese responded to the order of their man-god with the patriotic cry, “Comrade Liu for president! Comrade Liu for president!”
But the day came when President Liu’s popularity became a threat to Chairman Mao. The Chairman had only to make use of his power of manipulation and the fickleness of the multitude: soon the chant of the people changed to, “Down with the traitor Liu! Down with the traitor Liu!” President Liu toppled from his pedestal of glory to a place of disgrace. Where is he today? At best held in house confinement, at worst in prison or dead.
As one sees the spiritual darkness of this great nation, an inward cry keeps pounding on the heart. “Why this locked-in generation, Lord? Why can’t we get in or they get out? Why?”
Is it because we his children have been disobedient when we should have been obedient? Self-centered when we should have been world-centered? Silent when we should have been outspoken? Divided and denominationalized when we should have been united and Christ-centered? Were we indifferent and aloof when we should have been compassionate and loving? Did we, the Church, fail? If so, is our failure a factor in China’s present darkness?
We know that God is longsuffering with the folly and arrogance of men. We also know that his judgment must fall upon those who deify themselves. But can we take comfort in Chairman Mao’s inevitable death or downfall? Can we call ourselves Christians and rest while China’s millions continue without the Gospel? Are all the keys in the hands of Chairman Mao? Or do nations or individuals hold keys that might help open bolted doors?
What about the millions of Chinese who do not live in Red China? Chinese people have the instinct of the homing pigeon. They have a desire to return to their land to die. Is this perhaps a key? If so, all possible must be done to reach the millions of Chinese living in the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, and elsewhere with the message of salvation. Furthermore, we must help them see their responsibility to carry the message of Life to Red China when her god is dead.
And how about the key of prayer? If Biblical history proves anything, it proves that God is sovereign and that in answer to prayer he freely moves the hearts of kings and changes the history of nations. With strengthened faith one recalls the prison experience of the old fisherman Peter. King Herod laid violent hands upon Peter and cast him into prison. To make certain that his prisoner would not escape, he had him placed in the inner prison with sixteen soldiers to guard him. Understanding the seriousness of the king’s command the guards chained two of their squadron to him so that day and night he was held by unbreakable lock and chain.
The dramatic story of his escape is told with great simplicity. Luke is anxious for us to learn that what is impossible with man is child’s play to God. Further, he does not want us to miss the lesson of the importance of prayer in the release of this locked-in one. The apostle records, “Prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God” (Acts 12:5). It is a mystery but also a fact that an all-night prayer meeting in Mary’s home (Acts 12:12) directly affected God’s action in frustrating the desires of a wicked king and setting Peter free.
Is it not time for Christians to stop accepting China as a hopelessly closed land of godlessness and slavery? Is it not time we began exercising the privilege and authority of prayer for the breaking of moral and ideological chains that have kept an entire generation locked in? Could it be that God is waiting for his household to act—in the most powerful way his children can act? Is the most populous nation in the world a matter of little prayer concern to us? Or will it be said of us, “Prayer was made without ceasing … for China”?
