China: The Lonely Remnant

First of Two Parts

Until twenty years ago, says Hong Kong educator Timothy Yu, Christian credibility among the Chinese in Asia ran so high that non-Christians, impressed by the innovative establishment of schools and hospitals as well as churches, frequently professed to be Christians to gain public esteem. But that day is gone. The Cultural Revolution a few years ago saw Christian fortunes plummet to their lowest depth in two decades of Communist domination of mainland China.

Not only were all church services banned and church buildings confiscated and converted into political centers and commune shops; the Red Guards also diverted all remaining Christian schools to other purposes, burned and destroyed many Bibles, and brought the era of institutional religion to an end. They defamed missionaries as spies employed by Western imperialists preparatory to an intended American invasion of China. They said that Christian orphanages were centers for indoctrinating Chinese children, and that church buildings cloaked imperialistic spy activities. The Communist party organ Red Flag in August, 1969, openly stated that “building of the kingdom of Christ on earth” is as incompatible with the world ideals of Communism as is fire with water. A draft of the new constitution for Communist China, to be sure, permitted freedom “to believe … or not to believe in religion”; but it allowed freedom only to “propagate atheism.”

Whatever may be said about a better day for Christians in Red China, the fact remains that the visable church has now been eclipsed. In the aftermath of the Nixon visit a few political showcase churches, as in Peking, are being tolerated. But even here the sermons are officially approved. Evangelical laymen, however, serve small groups of worshippers unofficially as spiritual escorts and leaders in order to reinforce biblical vitalities. Almost everywhere church buildings stand empty or are used as storage depots.

Some Christian believers consider it safe to read the Bible only in the privacy of the toilet. In many places Christians will not even talk to fellow Christians about spiritual things except on spontaneously arranged outdoor picnics, to be certain their conversations are not bugged. The “better not write” counsel of some Christians to relatives in the free world indicates that foreign mail may encourage official surveillance, and their pointed failure to include written information about house churches indicates the possibility of censorship and fear of local reprisal.

A teen-ager who applied to attend a Hong Kong seminary was turned down. Recently, after several years had elapsed, he sought to escape, and he was captured and imprisoned. In another instance, after police authorities had put her husband under house arrest so that they would be notified about all his movements, a Christian wife insisted that she be included, since she felt her own activities and associations were already under surveillance.

In recent months as many as a thousand attempts a month have been made by “freedom swimmers,” whose average age is twenty. Half of these either are caught, are shot while fleeing, or drown. Many have some concept of God, and a few are Christians, although they report that the introduction of the commune system in 1958 has virtually erased Christian memories. Chairman Mao was the culture-god of communist China, and the socio-economic revolution was the new religion, though the present political detente and Mao’s encroaching senility suggest possibilities of change.

Although no visible church remains, mainland China indubitably shelters an invisible Church. Assuming that only one in four now remains of the two million Protestant Christians there at mid-century, Professor Yu would estimate their present number at 500,000. They are at best an isolated, harassed, and lonely remnant, deprived of corporate community and witness. But they attest the inability of Communism to satisfy all the needs of man. Christ Jesus remains an incomparable treasure for multitudes who would rather risk their bodies than lose their souls.

The Gospel is nowhere openly preached except occasionally at small outdoor picnics to which neighbors or friends may be invited. Small groups meet in Christian homes for prayer or Bible study, but there is little desire to join group to group lest this invite the attention of authorities. Some house fellowships are hardly aware of similar groups in the same city.

Funeral services for a believer provide an occasion for displaying the Christian flag (exhibiting a large white cross), and the corpse is often arranged with a hand clasping a well-worn Bible. Conversions have taken place at such gatherings.

Christians will sometimes saunter out for walks and converge along the way, now and then gathering on hillsides for an informal evening hymn sing and prayers and sharing. The worship service that gathers believers together is usually a communion service held in connection with a meal served at the home of one or another of the Christians, in some places at night in connection with the evening meal rather than at Sunday dinner.

Chinese are noted devotees of group calisthenics, including shadow-boxing, and evangelicals sometimes combine these exercises with spiritual sharing. Sometimes they invite friends on picnics and use the occasion for witnessing. If they witness to an unsympathetic person, however, they may be officially invited to brain-washing sessions, and if they resist these propagandistic pressures they will be sent to labor camps with oppressive work loads and meager meals as their lot. For no known reason, not a few Christians are unemployed.

In the past year or two, slits have been opening here and there in the bamboo curtain. There is now a shift of emphasis from the attribution of all evils in the world to the United States, the white race, and Christians especially. The sallies against the United States are somewhat moderated, and as a result those against the white race are cloudier. But has hostility toward Christians changed? Has the day ended when public billboards defame Christians as champions of social injustice and as seeking to enslave the masses?

Considering the vastness of China, information about the fortunes of Christianity is at best spotty and in some cases subject to differing interpretations. In the absence of comprehensive data, one must settle for a correlation of piecemeal reports by old China-hands, former missionaries with contacts, refugees from the mainland, and Christian returnees with a temporary visa. Yet even Christian relatives and friends returning to Hong Kong after visiting mainland China are reluctant to spread information that may incriminate or endanger their kin. Their Christian acquaintances in China urge discretion: “If anybody asks you, say you don’t know.”

CARL F. H. HENRY

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