Beijing, China

Dear friends and family,

In this report I want to share with you my first experiences teaching the History of Protestant Thought outside Beijing, China. Over a year ago Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary contacted me and asked me go to China and teach students who are working on their bachelors and masters degrees with MBTS through an extension program. Pastor/ Ph D’s are still a little hard to come by in the East. I will be teaching in various locations from September to December. The students I taught in China are in the China Gospel Fellowship, a particular strand of the widespread house church movement now growing quickly all over China.

On September 3, my interpreter took me meet the pastor of a house church outside of Beijing, with about 300+ active members. His name is pastor Zhang, he is also the founder and principal of a college he created to train teachers, pastors and missionaries. Zang has been preaching and building congregations all over China for over 30 years and more importantly everywhere he goes, before he leaves, a new house congregation emerges.

To sit and talk with him one doesn’t get it. He is a low-key, fussless, matter- of-fact guy, by all appearances average in gifts. He doesn’t come across as a powerhouse, smiles freely and is not overly verbal. It is clear that experience and faith has taught him to work, suffer the authorities, and keep building and organizing. God has blessed this man’s work and maybe its partly because he naturally down sizes himself. Outside Beijing he and his co-workers purchased land and built the little facility you see below.

The entire structure complex is shaped into a court with a open yard in the middle with the bordering structures on each side housing the dorm rooms, kitchen, dinning room, class rooms shower stalls and toilets. The entire length doesn’t exceed 120 feet long and maybe 80 feet wide. Everything happens in close quarters. Women’s lodging on one-side men on the other (no hot water so showers are very cold).

When I arrived and took possession of a guest room on Sunday 4th I didn’t realize exactly what I was in for. The entire week unfolded with a fussless order beginning at 6 am worship. I looked for visible leadership but really couldn’t find any. The principal was not there. Everything just happens, meals, worship, classes, leisure time (where among other activities washing clothes by hand occurs in the large row of facets along a trough bordering one end of the quad.) During the time I was there, I scarcely encountered any “staff” around.

I lectured 6 hours a day and the students exercising their destiny to become leaders made everything happen on time with as little leadership fanfare as can be imagined. In class when I referred to a passage in the Bible they would find it and read in unison with perfect cadence. It sounded like a well drilled regiment of soldiers marching in order. They started the classes with prayer one student would say the prayer and as s/he prayed there was a very slight pause between each phrase during which the entire group responded with a resounding Amen. They pray with gusto without pretense of piety and sang with spirit and power. Most of all they were about their studies, 110% present and accounted for! On God’s earth these are truly some of the most devout, non fanatical, mature and graceful Christians I have ever encountered! Most of the students are the sons and daughters (about 50 – 50 male female all in their 20’s) of believing parents – house church pioneers who have truly suffered not a little for their faith. The students are different then their parents – China and the house church has changed and is changing but their devotion is of the same sterling quality of their mothers and fathers.

From the beginning of the week they began to extend their confidence to me and opened up to learn to the historical and Gospel centered ideas things I was teaching them. As the week proceeded they sought me out to work through all kinds of questions some theological, some about the church’s relation to the government and how I thought they should relate to the authorities when they collide, others sought me out to talk with me as a pastor. By the time the end of the week came I was using every waking hour talking with them or buried away reworking and fine tuning my material for the next lecture discussion. When Friday night came they went out and bought a big fish and cooked it up and presented it to me because they finally figured out I was not a pork, chicken and beef guy. After the meal most of them wanted to humble me at ping pong – their national sport. Even so I almost held my own against their medium players which pleased some of the ladies. When Saturday morning came and I was to leave a group came to my room and wanted to talk before I left and we kept going tell my driver’s wife’s became a little discouraged about the prospects of her shopping plans so we ended and they sent me off with an out poring of gratitude and love.

The following are a few of my lecture topics which I worked on with them.

1. The Collision of Two Kinds of Authority: Struggling With The Dual Challenge Exchanged between Luther and Charles the 5th at The Diet of Worms in 1521 -Then and There and Here and Now. Luther said something important to Luther but Charles also said something to Luther both have taken on a history]

2. Luther’s Breakthrough and Its Ramification for the re formation of the Christian Religion

3.Luther’s Theology of Glory vs. The Theology of the Cross: The Weighty Seeds of Thought and Insight Given to the Church at The Heidelberg Disputation in 1518

4. What Luther and Calvin Joined Together Later Generations Have Put Asunder – well Sort of, Kind of, Sometimes, More or Less, all to often! [When Spirit and Spirituality Take on a Life of Their Own -What then?].

5. “The Children Ate Sour Grapes and It Set the Children’s Teeth on Edge”: Three Reformation Models of Church – State Relations Time Travel From the 16th Century to Barmen, Germany 1934.

If you would like any of these lecture/discussions simply email me and make your request. Within a few weeks they will be available. For the few who do not have access to email let me know by sending a letter to me at 154 Grand St. New York, New York 10013 USA. Some one is checking my mail and will send you the material.

Because the seminaries & colleges I am serving this Fall 2011 are fledgling under financed endeavors I have given my services, travel expenses and all and opted to attempt to raise my own backing. If you are so moved to help just send something to my office in New York [the above address] But do not conclude this letter is a fundraiser. This is just me keeping you my friends and family abreast with my work. Some how this is coming and will come together. As I write this I am off to Calcutta, India for another hitch. My second China report should reach you in about one more week.

In friendship and warm regard,

Dr. Daniel