Hangzhou, China

What follows is my reflections on teaching the History of Protestant Thought in my second engagement in China, outside Hangzhou. My students are working on their bachelors and masters degrees in Theology.

On the bullet train from Beijing to Hangzhou we sped along at 220 mph. Standard fare was sold out so I bought a first class ticket and lounged in a large red easy chair sipping tea and snacking on munchies. The trip was a pure delight. I reached Hangzhou early and decided to lay low and rest for a couple days before checking with the school. Hangzhou is huge, one of the many giant cities, population: umpteen million, bursting-its-seams in China. I didn’t know where to stay, so I blindfolded myself and threw a dart at a city map. I landed right smack dab in the middle of the garment district. There isn’t 5 square miles in all of China where more buying and selling of garments and fabrics occurs. From my room on the 6th floor I looked out the window. On the streets below, going and coming in every direction, were carts hauling bundles of every size — from that of a nap sack to a Volkswagen. The bundles were awkward, clumpy burlap and nylon wraps being carried and conveyed by every means imaginable. Homemakers traveling to Hangzhou from other cities of China could be seen lugging their bargains in the same streets where corporate tycoons where wheeling and dealing. (I thought my brother-in-law Geevy probably had his man somewhere here working deals).

On Sunday, I set out for the school located in a church an hour out of the city, with my guide and interpreter. Getting a taxi to take us one hour into the countryside was no small feat. And here was my first clarification about Chinese culture. All dealing between parties in China works on the same principle of the internal combustion engine. Heat is generated, an explosion occurs, the energy released from the explosion is channeled so as to motivate – move the process forward and then this process is repeated over and over until the deal is sealed. And women are equal players in this method with men. The demur Chinese damsel is a myth! “Hell hath no furry” better describes this species in this context. Chinese street ethics is one of controlled conflict. Nothing is gained by reason and easy agreement or consensus. Conflict and opposition with burst of fury and anger, real or imitated, are necessary to get the job done. (I think Hillary Clinton would do well to take a page from my observation). A few times I thought my young female interpreter, in order to bring the cabi to submission, was going to box him up around the ears but then I realized this was business as usual. I don’t smoke, but I was thinking as I road along in the back seat a bit anxious by the furry of retorts exchanged, that I could use a smoke to relax.

The countryside village where the school met for classes it was nothing like the situation outside of Beijing. Zhejiang province is the richest of all China. Inside the adjunct teaching building of a large beautiful church on the edge of Dragon’s Gate (the birth Place of an Ancient King some 1700 years past) the school enjoyed spacious modern classrooms, living quarters and dining facilities. But none of these belong to the housechurch seminary group I had come to serve. They were merely granted the use of the space by the local church group. Local believers in the village called Dragon’s Gate had aligned with a wider movement spreading through China roughly translated as The Truth Church and built the large beautiful church you see in the picture.

When the authorities discovered they were building a church in this famous mountain retreat town, home to not a few elite tourists, they showed up at the site and forbade them from continuing to build. But when they left, the church proceeded to lay the bricks. When the authorities showed up again they were angry and fined the church 70,000 rmb and forbade them again. The believers paid the fine and proceeded. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The full story detailing the reversals and challenges these believers met along the way toward bringing their vision to completion is amazing. Now the pastor’s dream is to build a formal full- fledged seminary in the facility adjoining the church.

My teaching experience in Hangzhou/ Dragon’s Gate was equal to my Beijing experience. As the week progressed, the confidence of the students strengthened. Here again I encountered a zeal and devotion the likes of which can scarcely be found in the church of Christ anywhere at this time. In my class of about 27 students there were 8 from the far Northwest near the Mongolian border. In this area Islam remains very strong and also the authorities continue to repress Christianity except for the very few Government churches that exist. One student spoke of her mother, who for 25 years has been visited by the authorities in her home and many times arrested and a few times suffered beatings. A young man in the class residing 20 miles from Mongolia who graduated with honors from the best university in the northwest turned down a job to be the superintendent of the middle school district in his city so as to spend all his energy building and pasturing house churches. His father’s brother is the most prominent Inman in the district and the family has turned against him and cursed him. His uncle, the head Imam in the area is known as possessing magical gifts and powers reputedly similar to those Pharaoh exhibited when he turned Moses staff’s into a snake. Using his magic he placed a hex/curse on his nephew and his marriage so that they would remain childless which seemed to be succeeding for last 6 years until this year the couple succeeded in conceiving and then to the jubilation of the believers in the area the couple gave birth to a beautiful baby boy shortly before I arrived. All the students had stories and not a few had collided with the authorities either they themselves or their parents. All who were studying, equally divided between male and female, were studying to be effective missionaries.

The entire house church movement is driven by a mission ethic. Going into the ministry means becoming a missionary, learning leadership skills, organizational skills as well as gaining a Biblical and theological understanding of the church’s message. One woman pastor I heard about has 4000 members under her care in umpteen housechurches, each with 15 to 20 members meeting in homes scattered along the China – Mongolian border. The lay base of this church movement, cradled in homes and explicitly shaped as a missionary endeavor, is the secret of its success. “Jeannie” [the church once trapped inside a government controlled and supervised organizational structure] has escaped from its captivity and cannot be put back into the bottle and the leaders of the housechurch movement know this and are becoming increasingly free and bold in the face of the political leaders.

China is changing! The emerging greatness of the nation is being met with an emerging church also great in zeal, spiritual strength and potency- a rapidly growing church. I could not help thinking “China’s emerging power and greatness is being paralleled by the emerging power and growth of the church and this phenomenon has occurred in history before. Our own American climb to greatness as a nation in the 18th, 19th century was accompanied by Great Christian Awakenings that swept across the land. But in this setting great ostentatious evangelical revivals are not possible nor perhaps fitting and advantageous. The subtle development of the church inside small home settings, diversified, decentralized, nondenominational befits the political situation and is I believe truer to the primitive impulses of the Christian way. Where are the heroes, the great charismatic personalities, the dazzling movers and shakers effecting Christian religious change? At the risk of sounding sacra religious inverting the meaning of the demoniac’s godless retort “my name is legend and we are many” describes this godly phenomena. The few authorities still true believers, the one’s who still brew and drink the ideological monopolistic kool aid are saying in frustration to themselves, Where is the head of this thing,? Where is its heart? feet and hands? that we may take possession of it and bind it?

This second session, my lectures were better. I found the students hungry to understand the Church’s historical truths in a way which transcended the passing on and memorization of information – their typical mode of learning. I taught them ideas and insights and connected the dots between the truths that gave birth to the Reformation and the changes that came along in the wake of the 16th century. I showed that Luther was a radical thinker and his grasp of the Gospel was revolutionary.

One fellow in the class, the senior alpha male among his peers who sat on the very corner in the back row, daily challenged me. His nickname was Socrates. Each class he brokered questions regarding my teaching. In good humor I consistently took him on, but with restraint. On the last day he held nothing back feeling that my interpretation of Luther was giving away the store and failing to do justice to the law and the Bible – quoting Matthew 5:17. I was ready for him as those of you who know my religious exodus of past times might guess and I began working through his complaint ultimately ending my response with John 5:39, Galatians 4:1-7 but not without opening the meaning of Romans 3 – where it asserts that faith establishes the law.

On Sunday, two days later, when I was about to leave he sought me out and said he needed time to talk. With considerable humility he proceeded to confess that the organizing matrix for his understanding of Christian truth was now undergoing serious revision. He went on to state that Luther’s insights had got inside his thinking and things were not coming back together as they once had. I could see he was standing in a new discriminating relation to his faith and Scripture. Socrates, the man with rhetorical questions seeking to foil me, was caught in the grip of a new insight and in the end he couldn’t quite get the old wine back in his original wine skin. I love this experience and have a special feeling for this man. Before leaving both of us agreed we needed to take a picture together. (Which unfortunately was taken on Sunday before I left when many of the students were missing away for the weekend.)

By the time I had completed the course I was utterly exhausted lecturing 6 hours a day and working mornings and evening besides preparing my work and engaging students one on one. Assured of no responsibilities for Saturday and Sunday I was preparing my mind for a little repose before traveling on. As it turned out I was pulled into a full schedule of events on Saturday and Sunday. Speaking before the church congregation on Sunday morning, a surprise invitation/demand, a last minute SOS was sent for my interpreter who showed up to take her place along side me on the platform in an old sweat shirt, tired, not too happy to be summoned, but proceeding to deliver flawlessly, although I fear by then sick and tired of hearing my voice and unraveling my strange use of words. My Sunday homily “By the Providence of God Dragon’s Gate [the name of the town] Becomes the Door of Grace [the formal name of their Church] – the victories of the past are but the Prologue to the future.

Stay tuned for my next Report # 3 coming out of Calcutta [Kolkata] India – Calcutta Bible College on the campus of the William Carry Chapel established by him in 1804.

And if you are so moved do not hesitate to send a little donation to the address below. My entire fall Asian endeavor is my free will offering underwritten by family and friends as much as possible. Soon several of my History of Protestant Thought lectures will be available online.

In friendship and warm regard,

Dr. Daniel