Shanghai and Bust China Bible College

Chiang Mai, Thailand

It is the understatement of the year to assert that China is changing! In Shanghai the house church (so called “underground church”) is bold and confident and not afraid of the authorities. In spirit the city of Shanghai is a cousin to Hong Kong, they do not easily bow to Beijing’s cultural restrictions, if at all. Joshua, the adopted name of the founder and head of this missionary training college, China Bible College, is a professor from one of Shanghai’s many universities along with his wife, also a professor. Joshua’s horizons for training missionaries are nothing short of amazing. In America I would view such plans as suspect – seduced by visions of grandeur – but right now in China anything seems possible! If the Chinese decide to build ten high speed rails crisscrossing the nation hundreds if not thousands of miles they just do it! The current speed and breadth of development in China is mind-boggling. This same can do belief has penetrated the house church movement. Joshua is open about their aim to train and send out 10,000 missionaries within a few years and half of these he says will go to the Middle East. At present he has about 450 students after five years of laboring. If the Lord blesses next year the school will likely approach 1000 students.

This teaching opportunity had presented itself in September, after I finished teaching outside of Hangzhou, as I headed for the Shanghai Pudong Airport, my cell rang. It was the head of a new bible college. He introduced himself as Joshua. Through the grapevine he had heard of my work in Hangzhou and Beijing and wanted me to come and teach at his school. I had commitments at the Thai-Burma border and in India but after these were completed I agreed to phone him and try and work something out. After Christmas I flew from Bangkok to Shanghai.

On Sunday, January 2 my contact picked me up and we headed to church. But I was not prepared for what I was to encounter in this church meeting. The ‘church’ was inside a gated high-end condominium located in an upper crust neighborhood in south Shanghai. A spacious room on the lower level of a fine large apartment served as the meeting room for a hundred or so well dressed progressive, mostly thirty something young professionals. And many of these were new Christians or non-Christians seeking spiritual roots.

After my Sunday preach we drove to the ‘school’. I was expecting a school building. There was none! Again we entered a gated condominium. One of the well-to-do the believers, presently traveling abroad, handed Joshua the keys to his condo and his large living room became the classroom. Some students came and went but many brought their quilts and hot water bottles and camped out at the end of each day in the living room and bedrooms upstairs. Hot Chinese fast food was ordered in three times a day. I lectured from morning to night in this beautiful high-rise apartment with cherry wood floors. But there is one catch – the owner turned off the heat before leaving and so we did school in 37° F, bundled in big coats hats and gloves.

The students were young, many 17 and 18 years lacking intellectual experience and development needed to handle simple concepts. They were great at linear knowledge –gathering unambiguous information and memorizing but weak in elementary conceptual thinking. When I realized this I started telling stories. For every abstract theological idea I put out to them I invented a story to open up the meaning. My story telling penchant experienced a renaissance. I became intoxicated with stories but only as instruments to open up conceptual meanings. This made the time more fun and because it was so cold I juiced the stories building the aesthetic detail and pace often creating a little dramas that took considerable time to spin. My translators were pretty good and perhaps because they were so very young they threw all their energy into the task with zeal.

My lecture sessions, 20 in total, all 2 hours each, were all on The Seminal Evangelical Insight of Martin Luther and its Implications for the Reformation of the Church: Then and There, Here and Now. I simplified, simplified, simplified. I attempted to do what Luther himself commanded his ministerial preachers in training in Wittenberg to do “bare your breasts and give them milk” (this a direct quote). My hope and prayer is that many students connected with these evangelical insights of a bygone era in a new simplier, clearer way and this I believe occurred but “the just shall live by faith” in this world we cannot often see or rightly judge the fruit of our labors.

Now my Theologians Without Borders venture is over and I am returning to New York in a couple weeks. In all toll ,in the approximately 6 months doing this teaching I stayed in about 70 hotels and traveled on 30 flights as well as buses and trains. To say the least, this has been a rewarding endeavor and an epic journey. I would like to continue this work year after year if possible, (the Lord willing as James reminds us) but it is very expensive. Again and again I experienced what Thomas Friedman observed – the world is quickly flattening. Plus Asia can smell Yankee dollars a mile away and are astutely prepared upon your arrival to relieve you from the burden of carrying too many around with you. Under my breath I often muttered “if they only knew I was a lowly poor Baptist preacher not a foot loose and fancy free New York businessman I might catch a break”.

Thank you for your prayers and help when and where these were forth coming. Especially I thank my sisters and brother but a few others as well!

In closing I want to share one need with you. I promised a young seminarian named Jenny, that I would try and find some help for her. Jenny Bagh is a senior Masters of Divinity student in Kolkata (Calcutta) at the Calcutta Bible College that resides on the William Carey Church campus.

Jenny, a fine academic spirited cannot graduate this April 9 unless she pays her tuition now – 900 dollars overdue. She has been a brave, hard working student who has refused to let poverty and the absence of family support deter her. Since I left campus she has written to me five times for help confident that because I am from America I am sure to have access to money and can help her. Considering her need she is not much different than many I have encountered and wanted to help but in spirit she is different because she is so tenacious and persistent and she has great faith and courage refusing to consider the thought that she will not graduate even though she has nothing and the school has no way to help her. If anyone reading this is moved to respond on my honor I will expedite your gift to the treasure of CBC -Calcutta Bible College Mary who I know and correspond with regularly. In this appeal send your gift to Daniel Age, 154 Grand St., Suite 5-10, New York, New York 10013 (Mark it Jenny Bagh).

Sincerely,

Dr. Daniel