A Challenging Book With Multiple Layers of Meaning

I've recently been reading a book titled The Heavenly Man, the spiritual biography of a Chinese Christian leader called Brother Yun. I'm finding it scary, convicting, challenging and more. It speaks to me on multiple levels.

First and most obvious, it tells of his extreme sufferings for being an uncompromising Christian and a Christian leader. Like any authoritarian state, China's Communists tolerate no other loyalties among Chinese citizens than to the state. Christians' loyalty and faith in God squarely challenge this demand. Those who openly refuse to give this loyalty and who urge others toward faith in Jesus are persecuted, often with incredible cruelty and brutality. While Brother Yun details much of the brutality to which he was subjected, he avoids glorifying himself, doing it "pornographically", or trying to incite the reader to hatred. This is the scary level.

Then there's the amazing level of the book. A reader is continually faced with a choice. Is Brother Yun a wild-eyed liar making claims that are beyond crazy-outlandish? Or did God do amazing things in, to, and through Brother Yun? This isn't "just" claims of numerous healings. He mentions healing as happening, but briefly, almost in passing. Brother Yun speaks of a food and water fast that is physiologically impossible. He speaks of incredible escapes. Well, I won't keep going, except to say that I see no ground between the choices of lying lunatic or God doing amazing things. I choose the latter. And again I should mention that Brother Yun does not speak of such miraculous things in a self-aggrandizing way.

A Different World, Layer 1, Christians in the US live in a very different world than that of Chinese Christians! First, to us (US), government officials manipulating and changing zoning laws to suppress church growth or using Christian beliefs as probable cause to investigate anonymously reported child abuse allegations is persecution. And it is. In China, persecution is arbitrary arrests and detention, beating Christians to near death (or death), confiscating a family's means of sustenance (e.g. food, clothes, cooking utensils) and more. This, too, is persecution, but it feels like a different, stronger word should be used! Christians in the US do not know "real" persecution, but still should endeavor to retain our current freedoms.

A Different World, Layer 2, US Christians live in incredible prosperity, ease, and freedom; many/most Chinese Christians live in poverty (+/- a "dire"), have to work hard to survive, and live under government oppression. Knowing why God "permits" this is beyond my understanding. It is reality, and my whining at not knowing isn't going to change that reality. But, do I live my life as if it doesn't matter, it's some one else's problem? Or do I consider what responsibilities, what Divine expectations, might be attached to my freedom and relative prosperity? And I'm an ordinary person, with little influence. How can I, in any meaningful way, help my brothers and sisters in Christ? Prayer is significant, costs almost nothing, and requires little influence or outside contacts beyond having a relationship with God. Prayer is incredibly significant, but do my other means - material things, freedom - entail a further responsibility to act? I think the answer is, "Yes!"

And in this, "Yes!" lies, I think, at least part of the answer to the, "Why?" question. Christians in China have the same faith and serve the same Lord. And that same Lord is moving things and people according to His purposes. God did not create each of us identical. With our different personalities, talents and giftings, God places each of us in different places, with different challenges and ministries to be faithful in and to. Together we fulfill God's purposes, each playing an important and interconnected part.

I see an important lesson and questions for the US and Western church.

The lesson layer is a, "What if?" While the church in Europe and the US has lived in degrees of peace and comfort for centuries, there is no guarantee this will not change, even possibly drastically. So, what if "real" persecution starts in the US - actual violence inflicted or tolerated by the government? With centuries of freedom and ease, the church has organized itself and done what it does in ways that would bring swift destruction and dismemberment. In the US very many churches are large or huge congregations, have highly educated full-time pastors, and meet in special-purpose (often highly visible) buildings. In freedom, this can be very effective. If persecution came, however, the small number (relatively) of leaders, members' dependence on their training and dependence on special-use buildings would all make disrupting the church in the US relatively easy. In China the church has broad leadership, small groups that meet secretly and mobility. These combine to make it more difficult to disrupt the church: minimizing damage while forcing significant effort even to achieve that. I think it would be wise for the church in the US to broaden its leadership and add small home groups to the core of its congregational activities. Interestingly, this is, I think, what the church was like in New Testament times.