"Every inch of soil beneath my feet was red, glittering under the frail winter sun, as if it had been soaked with blood."
I jotted down this observation in my journal in the winter of 2005 while trekking on a narrow mountain path in China's southwestern province of Yunnan.
l had met a Christian, known among local villagers as Dr. Sun, a medical doctor. Following his conversion, he quit his position as the dean of a large medical school near Shanghai and came to the rural areas of Yunnan, healing the sick and spreading the gospel. After learning that I was writing a book about Christianity, he promised to take me to the mountainous villages, where he said I could discover extraordinary stories.
Dr. Sun and I set out on a month-long journey that took us deep into the mountains, first by bus and then on a small tractors along perilous mountain paths paved with small rocks. Then, we trudged along on winding red mud trails and reached a cluster of small villages hemmed in by tall mountains. According to Dr. Sun, there was a vibrant Christian community there.
The place reminded me of an old Chinese saying, "Heaven is high above and the emperor is far away," which refers to regions that are so distant and isolated that they seem to fall beyond the reach of both divine and secular powers. I wondered how it was possible for Christianity, a foreign faith, to find its way and grow in such isolated locations, where the vast modernization that was sweeping other parts of China had not yet reached. Peasants still eked out a meager living by plowing tiny plots of terraced land with hoes and shovels. Television was still a luxury, and many had never heard of refrigerators, not to mention computers or the internet. Medical care was almost non-existent -- for example, when one of the villagers fell sick, it took the villagers six hours to carry him to the nearest hospital. En route, on the bumpy road, he expired. The itinerary medical service of Dr. Sun was the only hope for the inhabitants of those remote villages.
In the subsequent days after I started talking with some of the villagers, my initial assumptions gradually changed. In a village inhabited by China's ethnic Yi people, locals led me to the muddy hut of Zhang Yingrong, an 86-year-old church elder whose peaceful and benevolent looks made me think of my late father. Zhang talked fondly about the London-based China Inland Missions that had sent their first group of missionaries to Shanghai more than one hundred and fifty years ago. Because modern transportation was lacking, these foreigners, with "blond hair and big noses," rode on donkeys, journeying for many days to reach the Yi villages, just in time to save the mountain people from a devastating bubonic epidemic, using Western medicine and their knowledge of modern hygienic practices. They also brought with them, in their inexact Mandarin translations, copies of the "Shengjing" -- the Bible. The Word of God, Zhang said, gradually penetrated the whole region by winning the hearts and minds of villagers who for generations had found solace in the chanting of local shamans and the worshipping of pagan gods. Another Christian leader, Reverend Wang who lived in a village across a river, recounted a similar tale about the blue-eyed missionaries who saved lives and spread the words of the Gospel. As the interviews progressed, I found a pattern -- locals had inherited their Christian faith from their parents and grandparents who had benefited from the teachings of a certain foreign missionary. Was the missionary English, French, German, American, Australian or New Zealander? They didn't know. To them, it was not important. Through the efforts of that foreign missionary, who had found a fertile ground to plant the seeds of faith, Christianity had taken root earlier than it had in other parts of China. Three or four generations later, Christianity was part of the heritage of each individual family and an integral part of local history.
The path of Christianity was also filled with strife and blood.
"Sometimes, devils often follow the footsteps of God to undo his work," a local Christian whispered to me, referring to the period in the 1940s when the Communists forced their way in there, and Mao Zedong's atheist ideology clashed violently with the Christian faith. A preacher, Wang Zhiming, led the Christian movement in the ethnic Miao villages after the Western missionaries had retreated from China. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Party denied him the right to pray -- he acted in defiance. As expected, he was arrested while leading a prayer session inside a mountain cave, and was brutally executed following a public condemnation meeting. His tongue was cut out of his mouth and his body was blown into bits.
In the Mao era, local Christians were not allowed to pray and attend church, and were forced to accept the Communist ideology. They complied but only a few openly denounced their faith. Some brave Christians gathered secretly for services. As a result, Christianity survived, and a few years after Mao Zedong's death, it came back again with a vengeance. Village after village became Christian territory. While Christians in China's major cities are greatly divided over the government-sanctioned churches, but villagers here are not so political. They attend Sunday service at government-sponsored churches but also participate in services held by family pastors. It is not uncommon to see families display Chairman Mao's portrait side by side with that of Jesus on their living room walls.
I live in the cities, where Christianity has also flourished in the post-Mao era but with a distinctive foreign identity. Many new converts, who are educated and well-off professionals or retirees, have embraced Christianity the way they do Coke-Cola or a Volkswagen -- believing that a foreign faith, like foreign-made products, has better quality. Here in the Yi villages, Christianity is now as indigenous as qiaoba, a special Yi buckwheat cake.
The trip piqued my interest in Christianity about which I knew very little and inspired me to write "God is Red" at a time when East and West are meeting and clashing on many fronts. In these remote corners, I have discovered a center point, where East met West, and although there has been a collision of cultures, there is now a new Christian identity that is distinctively Chinese.
The circuitous mountain path in Yunnan Province is red because over many years it has been soaked with blood.
Christianity in China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In The Land Of Mao, A Rising Tide Of Christianity Among Chinese ...
In China, you can be arrested for worshipping in your own house, if you haven't "registered" your religion with the government.
Many American Christian theocrats, like the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) re-interpret the US Contitution's 1st Amendment's "establishment of religion" clause to mean that America is a "non-denominational" Christian nation. Christian theocrats understand and hate the fact that the US Constitution actually guarantees Americans the right to be Buddhists, Hindus, or followers of any other non-Yahwistic religion; they know that the US Constitution forbids govt enforement of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Commandments! The only 3 Commandments secular law should punish people for breaking are the 6th (Murder), 8th (Theft), & 9th (Libel/Slander/Perjury). Do you want the US Govt to force all Americans to obey Commandments 1, 2, 3, and 4? Do you do know that Christians don't have to obey the 4th Commandment? We can work on the Sabbath (Friday sunset thru Saturday sunset) & on the Lord's Day (Sunday) all we want. "The Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath." - Jesus.
Fox News warns about Sharia but says nothing about radical Christian theocrats and NAR's agenda. Fox News devotees, the Hannitized, and the Dittoheads are being decieved. I prefer America over China but am very aware of, and am completely opposed to, the extreme Christian Right’s designs to force its religion upon all Americans via the State.
It amuses me that, while they criticize China for making churches register w/the govt, American Christians eagerly register their churches w/the US govt to get tax-exempt status.
It wasn't too long ago that a lot of Americans were worried that JFK would become the first Roman Catholic POTUS & let the Pope dictate American policy. Today, the USA has a lot of Christian theocrats who want an anti-science President who will support forcing one of several competing Christian Creationist doctrines upon all American public school students.
I got upset a while back when Fox News went on & on about China not allowing unions. Wal-Mart stores in China are unionized! There are 137 million Trade Union members in China! Fox News is anti-government, anti-union, & anti-science. I’d much rather live in China than live in the world Fox News wants the USA to be.
But, being raised in Hong Kong myself, I'm now Buddhist, lol! I like to think that in this small way I have unintentionally restored some balance.
I felt fairly jaded towards Christianity (at least fundamentalist Christianity) until reading the story of a North Korean refugee who credits the Baptists with giving him enough hope to live, after his escape from the North. I realized that, as the Dalai Lama so often says, different religions fill different needs for different people. There is no one-size-fits-all faith.
I do fear, though, an Africa-style development of Christianity in China, where Christian fundamentalism combines with local cultural wars and produces and even stronger sense of "we are different from you." If Christianity is going to continue to spread in China, I hope the larger, more open-minded synods can make a strong effort to de-fundamentalize congregations before it's too late.
I blame the Chinese Communist Party as much as anything, for driving churches underground where they inevitably fundamentalize further.
I really look forward to reading this book!
You're quite the scholar! Confucious never did say that...I did. But are you a wise scholar? Jesus is the strongest man...don't you think it would be wise to be friends with Him?
Muslims were crushed in China during the Dungan revolts, Christians were destroyed in the Taiping rebellion. The one positive to come out of the cultural revolution is the complete suppression and control of these dangerous cults. The "human rights" issues Westerners love to whine about are a small price to pay for the continued dominance of state atheism in China.
Wonder why it's Westerners who "whine about human rights???
Exhibit A for you, Connor Alexander.
Here's my theory though: Westerners live in decadent comfort and think it's actually justifiable going around telling other governments how to run their country.
Their interventionist policies should be thoroughly rejected by the rest of the world.
Anyway, just my observation! Fascinating discussion!
Go google Yuan Longping and come back with the same insane insult.
This is a religion that never helped its adherents to be moral. No wonder they have done these.
- Inquisition in Spain and Goa
- Crusades
- Ethnic cleansing of American Indians
- SIavery
- Lynchings
- The Anti Chinese league of the Americas
- Jim Crowe
- The HoIocaust. Read the antisemitic rantings of Martin Luther the founder of the Protestant movement that was the impetus for the Holocaust.
- Separate churches for blacks and whites in the bible belt.
- BIood Iibel. Read in Wikipedia about this.. OMG! What eviI!
And one doesn't need to read the Bible to see what Xian doctrine looks like in practice.