Epilogue

A Letter to American Readers

Dear American readers;

“China is a sleeping giant,” Napoleon said. “When she awakes, she will shake the world.” And we have seen this prescient nineteenth-century observation come true. After occupation, division, isolation, famine, and plenty, the nation has definitely awakened. Sometimes Americans are confused about how exactly to perceive modern China. Is it a military threat? How do we deal with their currency manipulation? Is it immoral to purchase products made in China? While the politicians debate these issues, people of all political parties and religious beliefs should emphatically agree on this: China’s human rights violations should not be tolerated, overlooked, or swept under the rug.

I created ChinaAid in the attic of my Philadelphia home many years ago. Our organization is still going strong, and I’d love for you to join us in our efforts to promote freedom and the rule of law in China. All Americans should be able to rally around freedom. Chen Guangcheng is the perfect example of this great country supporting and celebrating someone who had enough courage to stand up to his oppressors. Though he is not a Christian, Guangcheng knew that forced abortion policies are hurtful to women, morally corrosive to society, and deadly to the most innocent of victims. Americans have embraced him since he arrived in New York, and he has been honored on many occasions.

Recently, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Chen said, “I’m often asked what the international community can do to help promote democracy and rule of law in China. I sincerely hope that people around the world will lose their fear of offending China because it’s rich and powerful. I want people to stop turning a blind eye to the abuses that people throughout China are suffering. . . . Don’t do anything on the basis that China’s rulers will be pleased or not pleased.”

ChinaAid provides training, financial support, and legal defense for people like Chen. In fact, in the past ten years we have supported over a thousand persecuted prisoners of faith and freedom. Our associated attorneys travel thousands of miles across China, file legal challenges, provide criminal defense, and even file applications to stage public protests. They do this at huge security and political risk to themselves.

Are we always successful? No. In fact, we lose most of these cases. Since China is still ruled by the Communist Party, judicial independence simply does not exist. However, if you ask those who were defended, they will tell you our success rate is 100 percent.

Let me give you one example. On July 29, 2012, Pastor Jin Yongsheng, a house church leader in Inner Mongolia (a region in northern China), and twenty-four other believers, including his wife and two daughters, were providing health education to the public when local authorities intervened. Pastor Jin was viciously manhandled, beaten, and injured, then fined and sentenced to fifteen days administrative detention. The authorities claimed that pastor Jin “was engaged in proselytizing in the name of rendering medical service by measuring people’s blood pressure.” The authorities also raided his church and confiscated many items of church property, including Sunday offerings. ChinaAid sent an attorney to request administrative review in accordance with Chinese law. The government denied the request. We lost the first round.

But ChinaAid continued to support Jin. The attorney filed an administrative lawsuit against the local Public Security Bureau officials for violating the law and failing to protect citizens’ religious freedom. In November, Jin informed us they had encountered significantly less persecution after the media exposure resulting from ChinaAid’s reports and the attorney’s legal defense work. Moreover, provincial and municipal PSB officers made a trip to his home and apologized for violating the rights of Pastor Jin and his house church. They even returned about $2,000 USD that was confiscated in the raid!

In a bold step toward building goodwill and trust with the PSB and local government, Pastor Jin decided to withdraw the pending administrative lawsuit against the PSB. Pastor Jin and his church have been greatly encouraged by this battle and now have much more freedom to worship both in their village and in the surrounding area. More importantly, the persecutors now understand that Pastor Jin is not alone, that harassing him means people all over the world will fight back.

This story effectively demonstrates, I think, why the conventional way of measuring success might not apply in China. It is also an example of the kind of action atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Falun Gong, and Christians should all support. Religious freedom, it can be argued, is our first freedom, and it lays the foundation for all other basic human rights.

If you are a fellow brother or sister in Christ, however, you realize ultimately the Chinese people need our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to make some observations that may be helpful as we go about the work of spreading the gospel in China.

First, it’s important to slow down. Americans like to see things get done instantly—instant food, Twitter, and “shock and awe” military campaigns. I once saw an ad in a major Christian magazine with the slogan “one dollar, one soul.” Apparently it cost one dollar to purchase a Bible in China, which could convert one Chinese soul—or so the equation of instant gratification went. Some Americans go to China for a “short-term mission” and leave behind a kind of Americanized Chinese Christianity—with believers who can only pray in English. Unfortunately, the fast-food approach will not work when talking about life-and-death decisions of salvation. It’s even counterproductive. The “Four Spiritual Laws” (a very helpful tool used by Campus Crusade for Christ) is not a magic marketing book or business model to harvest souls. Instead of looking for a quick fix, I encourage you to learn about the Chinese people and their culture. China’s history is almost twenty times longer than America’s, so it may take some time, but it’s worth it. It took my American teachers years before their living and interacting with Chinese students bore spiritual fruit.

Second, genuineness is a valuable social currency with the Chinese. Chinese culture, especially after sixty years of communism and wave after wave of class struggle, is desperate for trust. Many of my classmates were more willing to share their personal secrets with American teachers than with fellow Chinese students because they were so caring and seemed to be trustworthy. I will never forget being invited to the foreign expert regiment building where our American teachers lived. We students talked, laughed, and joked like little children.

On one of those weekends, I walked into the apartment of a teacher who’d been in China for at least three years. He was playing his guitar and singing, and he suddenly began crying. He told me he was missing his home and parents in California. I was so touched by his confession and emotion. Chinese professors would never weep in front of their students. Because of our American teachers’ honesty and openness, we felt total freedom—including the liberty to grab anything we wanted from their refrigerators. That’s love!

Third, let’s resist the urge to promote a certain brand of theology. I once met with a famous American evangelist in a five-star hotel in Beijing. “How many Chinese Christians,” he asked, “have the spiritual gift of speaking in other tongues?” While I am not personally against that doctrine and practice (and have even had this experience), I could tell that this secondary issue was his main concern, and that made me uneasy. A few years later this minister wrote a book about how to speak in tongues that was distributed by the tens of thousands through underground Chinese printing networks. Now this issue has become one of the most divisive issues in Chinese churches.

When I enrolled at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1997, I was handed a form asking me to declare my Protestant denomination. My eyes glazed over as I looked over the list—there were two hundred options! Fortunately the list included “Independent,” which I checked. That was one of my first experiences of culture shock.

Instead of getting bogged down by these little things, choose to live out the true gospel of grace and truth. Show care and concern for others, and present the truth of Jesus in the context of love. Sometimes this can be done with a small handwritten card, a home-cooked meal, or just a visit. My in-laws were very touched when two American teachers showed up at their doorstep in a remote village. These Americans were traveling by bicycle on the dusty roads. They prayed for my wife’s family members and other villagers. They might have been the first “big nose” visitors that village had ever seen. After they left, both of my in-laws came to Christ.

The end of the matter is this: Chinese people don’t need Christianity without Christ. They need logical and intellectually compelling truth. Don’t be afraid of the difficult questions about the purpose of life or how man is going to find it in a materialistic, trustless society. Let us grapple with the claims of Christ on these issues—but don’t stop there.

The Chinese heart needs to be touched—brought to life—with magnificent acts of true sacrifice, love, and service. Doing this with sincerity will speak volumes—but don’t stop there.

Chinese hands need to experience the good news in practical actions that help others. We have learned to live for our financial well-being. Though we want to help others, this is considered a noble waste of time. The Cultural Revolution stopped our hearts cold, making us hesitant to help others. Why? Because doing so requires trust. When we see the gospel transforming communities large and small, from healing a marriage to helping orphans and those with HIV, we see a vision of true love.

Most of you won’t be able to go to China. You can still reach out to the 150,000 Chinese students and scholars on US college campuses. You can do this by demonstrating a healthy marriage, building real friendships, and inviting them to investigate the teachings of Christ for themselves. When the gospel impacts their lives, they will influence their countrymen. This is a great strategic investment, because many of these students will serve in key roles in Chinese society.

Consider visiting ChinaAid.org to find out how you can write letters to the persecuted church, sign petitions for justice, send messages to authorities, and donate money toward spreading the gospel and fighting for the persecuted in China.

Sometimes it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the size and strength of the no-longer-sleeping giant of China. Start small. Do something. Be faithful, loving, and courageous. After all, God’s people have faced giants before.

Love, 
Bob Fu