Thinking About China

By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News Magazine

America’s sudden recognition of the People’s Republic of China has raised many questions. For example …

• Was it morally right to end relations with our longtime ally and friend, Nationalist China?
• Was it consistent for America, preaching a hard doctrine of “human rights” to sinners in Africa, Latin America, South Korea, and the Philippines, to recognize Communist China, a “human rights ” sinner whose transgressions probably equal or may even surpass Russia and Nazi Germany?
• Should such moral considerations be set aside for the sake of a potentially profitable business opportunity—selling to the teeming Chinese market, which Time magazine described as “one quarter of mankind”?
• Are we being naive (again)allowing US technology to empower a giant communist country, a declared ideological enemy of freedom?

Another, even larger question looms for Christians: does the new “open door policy” in China mean that Christians there will have more freedom to worship, witness, and live for Jesus Christ? Does the thawing out of US-China relations offer a new missionary opportunity to evangelize the world’s most populous nation?

However we may feel about political aspects of the China situation, Christians are obliged to consider first these Kingdom questions.

There is some hazard in speculating about China today. It is like a landscape hidden beneath swirling banks of fog. Presently, we in America have only a glimpse of this vast landscape. So we need to be cautious about drawing too many conclusions too firmly and too quickly.

The condition of Christ’s Church in China is uncertain. It seems that a solid nucleus of believers has survived the anti-Christian years of Chairman Mao. An encouraging sign is the large number of young Christians (new converts, according to Rev. Dr. Robert Coleman, the only United Methodist member of The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism). Apparently Chinese Christians have triumphed “in spite of dungeon, fire and sword.”

This has happened before. Over past centuries, the Church of Jesus Christ has been invigorated repeatedly by persecution. Just as a grapevine, drastically pruned, bears more heavily, so Christ’s Church usually develops more vigor when opposition arises.

The hard years under Chairman Mao probably scared off many nominal churchmen … leaving a majority of battle-toughened believers who are ready to die for Jesus. Some of these Chinese Christians ought to come to America as missionaries! We need to meet and hear some people for whom the faith is precious unto death, ridicule, and exile. Such “frontline Christianity” stands in marked contrast to American religion, which the Wall Street journal described in an article commenting on the Jonestown cult massacre:

The decay of religion [in America] is unmistakable. The appeal of the cults expresses the profoundness of the human will to believe, the longing for the certainty of faith. The last place anyone would look today to fill this longing is in any of the mainstream religious denominations. They have little time for faith, being preoccupied with such issues as how to govern South Africa.

Apparently China is opening itself to the outside world in a remarkable turnabout from Mao’s isolationism. Yet it remains to be seen whether this new “openness” will include freedom to preach Jesus Christ as the only way to God (John 14:6). In India and elsewhere, intense nationalism makes it harder now for Western missionaries to come and stay permanently. China’s communist government is pragmatic but not soft-headed, so it will probably not offer a wide-open-door to professional Western missionaries.

In all probability then, Chinese Christians, not Americans or Europeans, will be carrying the ball to evangelize China’s unsaved millions. For Westerners, the future role will probably be mostly that of helper and cheerleader. Does this mean the end of missionaries? No. Rather, it means that God will be needing many missionaries of a different sort.

Today, China seems eager to receive technical assistance from abroad. This means that many Western technicians will be living and working in China—setting up computers, building modern factories, etc. Their salaries and expenses will be paid by governments or by large multinational corporations.

Some of these Western technicians could also be missionaries—mature Christians who might enter China as technical specialists and then engage in missionary work as a divinely-appointed sideline. They could witness personally to their Chinese fellow-technicians. They could serve as coaches, cheerleaders, and helpers for the native Christians who will be carrying the main burden of evangelizing in China. Such “new breed” China missionaries would follow an ancient, honorable pattern. St. Paul supported his own missionary endeavors by making tents while he was preaching and teaching in Corinth (Acts 18:1-4), and Paul was the greatest Christian missionary of all time.

Western technicians, functioning as “tentmaker missionaries” inside China, would have many advantages. The high cost of their salaries, transportation, and maintenance would be paid by others. This would free precious missionary dollars for recruitment, training, and assistance to the technician-missionaries- and also to Chinese pastors and evangelists, who may now have greater freedom to travel outside China. Technician-missionaries would have contact with many Chinese who might not be reached by more conventional missionaries operating out of church-sponsored schools, hospitals, mission stations, etc. (if these were permitted by the Chinese government—and this seems doubtful).

This concept of adjunct missionary service, utilizing Christians with secular technical specialties, would put into practice that grand old Protestant doctrine, the “priesthood of all believers.” It would offer laypeople a frontline responsibility for missionary evangelism, and the vitality of the Lay Witness movement shows how effective lay evangelism can be.

A recent report from Singapore suggests how Western technicians who love Jesus Christ might serve Him inside communist China. A Singapore doctor opens his home each week for Bible study and prayer. An American visitor was invited one day last summer. He found the doctor’s small living room jam-packed with 25 doctors and medical students, mostly Chinese. They spent about two hours intensely studying the Bible and its application to their lives.

“It was obvious,” recalled the American, “that there was great spiritual power in that home church. Who can guess what impact all these growing Christians may have for Jesus Christ?”

Transfer this scene to the People’s Republic of China. Multiply it by 1,000. Who can guess the results in eternity?

“We are on the brink of something new and daring,” says Dr. Coleman, who is Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary and a former member of the Good News Board of Directors. “It looks like this may be a time in God’s providence when He is getting ready to move in a new way—something unforeseen only a few years ago.

“Its exact form is not yet clear. But there will be greater opportunity for the penetration of China with the Gospel. In this, the Apostolic pattern of evangelism seems suddenly all the more contemporary! Paul, the tent-making Apostle, found sensitive hearts seeking God. Then he poured his life largely into them as a nucleus for the growth of an energizing Christian fellowship.

“I see this same pattern as the secret of evangelizing China today.”

To move as the Spirit leads, evangelizing China will require bold, creative missions leadership for the UM Church. What will be needed?

First, missions policy-makers must believe zealously that people outside of Jesus Christ are lost and perishing eternally, and that the central purpose of missions is to “rescue the perishing.” How? By emphasizing always Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. This eternal message does not change, even though missionary methods do.

Second, missionary recruiters must seek out mature Christian laypeople who are also experts in computer operation, business management, electronics, physics, chemistry, industrial development, communications—and a hundred other skills which abound in America and Europe. The Holy Spirit is capable of locating such people. Under His guidance, our missions leaders could recruit Christian technicians, train them in person-to-person evangelism and Bible teaching, then help them get to China under either corporate or government auspices.

Third, our missions leaders must sustain these missionaries-not with insurance, pensions, and medical supplies (these would be provided by secular employers), but with spiritual guidance, nurture, and patient, loving personal encouragement.

Fourth, among the millions of Chinese living now in exile outside mainland China are many fine Christians. They can be the evangelical leaders as they reenter China to win it for Jesus Christ. An example is the young Chinese medical student who took the American back to his hotel after the home church meeting mentioned above. The student said he was anxious to go back into China—as a doctor and as an ambassador of Jesus Christ.

Mission leaders in America will need to work closely with these “diaspora” Chinese,[1] whose nationality and language offer great natural advantages.

Fifth, mission leaders will need to work closely with those who are even now preparing to evangelize China. Many such groups are identified in the now-available Good News “China Packet. ” Another example is the thriving OMS International-affiliated Seoul Theological Seminary in Korea, where Asians are preparing for the evangelization of Asia.

Sixth, soon China will be sending thousands of its brightest young adults to study in America. Someday they will be among the leaders of new China, and God will bring them to us! What a strategic opportunity! If some encounter Christ in our midst, He will return with them to China, where He will use them in strategic ways and places.

United Methodists live in every sizable US metropolitan area, near almost every US university or college, so we have an unmatched opportunity. We can help evangelize China right in our homes.

Here are six practical suggestions. Many United Methodists have been waiting and hoping for the UM Church to step out creatively and boldly in world evangelization. There will be no shortage of dollars, prayers, or personnel for those mission leaders who catch a glimpse of God beckoning from China, “come and help us.” (Acts 16:9)

[1] Chinese living in dispersion outside of mainland China.