Nuggets of Gold
A clandestine house church Bible study in the late 1970s.
One key aspect of the persecution endured by Christians during the Cultural Revolution was the destruction of Bibles. There was soon a famine of God's Word in Zhejiang, although believers in other countries prayed and were willing to attempt audacious things to help their brothers and sisters behind the Bamboo Curtain, foreshadowing the twenty-first century—when South Korean Christians attempted to reach their counterparts in North Korea by floating 'Scripture balloons' across the border—concerned believers in Taiwan tried to float gospel tracts and Bibles across the Taiwan Strait to Zhejiang and other areas of east China during the 1970s.
The Bamboo Curtain that descended on the Chinese Church continued to obscure the view from the outside world throughout the 1970s, but morsels of information occasionally emerged from Zhejiang. Stories that offered a glimpse into what was happening to believers in the province gradually increased as restrictions were slowly relaxed.
Several overseas Chinese Christians visited their relatives in Zhejiang, which provided a rare glimpse into the state of the Church at this time. Most reports since the 1950s had been grim and heavy accounts of mass arrests, martyrdoms and long prison sentences for church leaders, so stories about the normal functions of church life were eagerly digested by Christians around the world, who for years had been fervently praying for God's family in Zhejiang. One visitor shared:
"During the prayer time we all remained seated with our heads bowed. Those wearing caps had to take them off. Anyone who wanted to pray stood up and prayed aloud. One after the other they prayed as led by the Holy Spirit, and they all said 'Amen' together at the end of a prayer.... Their prayers, mingled with praise and thanksgiving, were mostly concerned with confession, with themselves, their families and others, and with their daily lives....
Every sentence came from their hearts, and their supplication was based on the sure knowledge that God hears their prayers. The way they prayed revealed their incomparable faith in God. They know that they have to trust Him in their lives, and that to trust in themselves makes failure certain." 1
In 1974, while still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, one Christian returned to a rural area of Zhejiang to attend her mother's funeral. She reported:
"Brethren collected pieces of wood to make a coffin. They invited more than ten young men to form a band and more than 20 others formed a choir. They prayed and sang at her home before going to the cemetery.
More than 80 people joined the funeral procession. The choir sang the hymn, 'To God be the Glory' while they walked toward the cemetery. When they passed by the village school, their singing made many students, teachers and peasants come out and watch. They wondered why they sang so joyfully when their relative had died.
In the service, people stood around the grave to pray and sing. One of the Christian laymen witnessed to the crowd. He preached louder and louder, seeming to sense God's presence and strength on him. He said, 'Jesus Christ our Lord is with us. Although our flesh dies, we will be resurrected in Him. We live here as strangers and one day we will return to our Father. I am not sad for her death. I am happy and at peace for she has been received into heaven with Jesus Christ.'" 2
When the preacher's voice increased in volume, some of the believers cautioned him that saying too much would land him in trouble. The zealous brother, who had already spent much time behind bars for his faith, replied, "We are believers, and we must witness for Him and not fear prison! God will take care of us."
Supernatural Power Wins Many to Christ
Prior to the expulsion of foreign missionaries in the early 1950s, the Church in Zhejiang had largely grown through solid Bible teaching and zealous preaching of the gospel. Few missionaries or Chinese leaders at the time taught or demonstrated the power of the Holy Spirit like the first Christians in the New Testament. Many Christians believed in cessationism—the doctrine that the era of spiritual gifts and miracles ended when the last apostle died. For more than a century the Evangelical churches of Zhejiang had mostly agreed with this belief, with occasional exceptions to the rule.
During the 1960s and 1970s, however, Christians in Zhejiang were stripped of all outside props and were separated from foreign influence. Instead, simple-hearted believers were forced to cry out on their knees to God, and He answered their prayers. God baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and supernatural miracles reappeared, not in a contrived manner, but as a genuine and transformative reality that met the needs of desperate people whose lives had been crushed by decades of oppressive rule.
In 1976, a Chinese believer managed to migrate to the United States from a village in rural Zhejiang, and described how an entire Communist production brigade had turned to Christ, despite the tense atmosphere. She shared the following insightful testimony:
"In that particular production brigade there were two or three families who were unusually zealous for the Lord. They were willing to pour themselves wholly into prayer for the salvation of the entire brigade. They helped everyone who needed their help, and the non-Christians in that village were exceedingly moved. They felt it was great to be a Christian, so they, too, believed in the Lord....
Wherever Christians are active, the devil is also extremely active. At one time there were many in that village who were possessed by demons. Not a few were mentally ill, too. All the Christians prayed for them and they were healed, and the demons were expelled. There was real power in the prayers of the Christians.
When they prayed for the demon-possessed, the demons fled, but if a person did not confess their sins thoroughly, the demons returned to them, and they became re-possessed. But if the whole family prayed sincerely and wholeheartedly, and the demon-possessed person confessed their sins thoroughly, the devil fled and never returned....
In a neighboring village the mother of the secretary of the Communist Party was a Christian. She was once very sick and sought help from doctors everywhere, but they could not help. As a final resort she asked friends to invite Christians to her home and pray for her. The believers prayed regularly for two months, and finally she was healed. She became an earnest believer, and the Christians began attending meetings at the cadre's home!" 3
The result of these demonstrations of God's power was that multitudes of desperate people throughout Zhejiang were attracted to the gospel, and the Holy Spirit ensured that once again the plans of wicked human beings to destroy His work were doomed to fail.
The same Christian from Zhejiang shared how the house churches managed to arrange fellowship and how they were fed by God's Word during the Cultural Revolution:
"Usually those who lived near each other got together. Someone would get the word around, and we would all gather together. Often there were no preachers available, so we didn't have anyone to teach us. Not many of us could preach, but many elders from the pre-Revolution days assumed the responsibility of preaching. Whenever an elder came to a village, word of his arrival would spread, and the Christians would come together for Bible reading, prayer, and fellowship." 4
God's Wrath Leads Many to Repentance
On a number of occasions in Zhejiang during the 1970s, peculiar incidents of God's wrath befell persecutors of the Church, leaving unbelievers in no doubt that the Living God had punished those people for their evil acts.
In one village, a group of poor Christians were often prevented from gathering by a female officer, who seemed to hold a personal grudge against the body of Christ. One day, fed up at being harassed and deprived of fellowship, the brothers and sisters in that village prayed, asking God to turn the situation around and to stop the woman interfering. The Heavenly Father heard their prayers, and a short time later
"The legs of the female officer became paralyzed and she couldn't walk, so she couldn't come to disturb them.
The police chief at that place had a pig at home which suddenly died for no reason. Then within a week another pig died.... Nobody dared reprove the chief for his actions against the Christians because he was such a ruthless man. But God used the mouth of his wife to do this. She said to him, 'Look what you have done. What does people's worship have to do with you? You are ignoring your own affairs, and always interfering with others. Look at this. Two pigs have died. You really did it!' The chief couldn't say a thing in response, but from that time on he never bothered the believers again." 5
Similar displays of God's wrath fell upon persecutors in other areas of Zhejiang during these crucial years when the Spirit of God was purifying His Church and preparing it to bring in a great harvest. One cadre who constantly cursed God suddenly developed an ulcer inside his mouth and died. In another bizarre incident, the tongue of a Public Security officer reportedly "hung out of his mouth down to his chest. He went to various hospitals in Hangzhou, but the doctors told him, 'This sickness is incurable. We have never seen such a problem before.' He couldn't eat or speak." 6
Later, somebody told the man, "You have cursed God. You had better beg Mrs. Zhou to pray for you. If she doesn't pray for you, I'm afraid you will die." The man wasn't humble enough to visit Mrs. Zhou himself, but he asked his wife to visit her and ask for prayer.
After welcoming the officer's wife, Mrs. Zhou asked her, "Is your husband willing to repent of his sins and blasphemies? If he is ready to repent, tell him he must show his willingness by coming and seeing me himself."
The man's peculiar condition worsened, until he finally cast off his pride and visited the Christian woman's home. She preached the gospel and asked if he was willing to repent of his sins and believe in Jesus Christ. He nodded his head and she prayed for him. While she was still praying,
"His tongue slid back into his mouth. News of this incident spread far and wide. There was no need to preach the gospel there. All the people came and wanted to listen to the Word of the Lord. The Lord Himself came to save.... They hurried to come, and were thirsty.... They wanted to understand His saving grace and learn the Way of the Lord Jesus. All this was God's own work." 7
Back from the Brink of Death
A rural house church meeting.
In another part of Zhejiang, a woman with an incurable disease was perishing quickly. A doctor declared she was about to die and instructed her family to move her body to another room. Mustering her last ounce of energy, the woman sat up in bed and called out, "Jesus, save me!" Within hours she was completely healed. The doctor was shocked, and news of the miracle soon spread throughout the district, convincing many of the truth of the gospel.
In another village an old man lay in bed, having suffered from a serious leg infection for years. Blood and pus constantly oozed from the open sores, and even his own children wished he would die to ease his pain. He was scarcely able to sleep at night, and continually scratched his sores in a bid to ease his discomfort.
News reached the village about the woman who had been healed by Jesus, and the sick man immediately begged his nephews to take him to her house. With tears in his eyes, the desperate man said:
"'Auntie, I heard that when you were about to die, a doctor named Jesus came to bring you back to life. Where is this doctor now? Please call him to heal this pitiful man!'
The woman laughed and said, 'Jesus is not a doctor who carries a medicine box, and I can't really tell you much about Him. I only know that when I called out His Name, I was healed!'... She then cried out, 'Jesus, I ask you to come and have pity on this old man!'
After crying out to the Son of God several times, the emissions from the old man's sores stopped flowing, and within two days he was healed!" 8
News of these remarkable healings spread like wildfire throughout the rural communities of Zhejiang, but few people understood the gospel at that time. Many just thought the Name of Jesus had supernatural power and was a kind of magic potion for people's illnesses.
One day a believer's four year-old son drowned while swimming in a river, and his body was recovered and placed on the floor in the middle of the house. The entire family knelt down around the body and prayed with great fervency, "Jesus, save this child! We have heard that you heal many sick people and we deeply believe you can bring this dead child back to life." As the family continued to cry out to the Lord,
"Suddenly a witch who lived nearby shrieked, 'Your Jesus has come! Quickly, come and see!' The roomful of believers immediately opened their eyes and saw the child sitting up, but they did not see Jesus. Then the witch said to them, 'When you shouted 'Jesus' loudly, a man appeared whose body shone brightly and whose face was full of love. He placed His hands on the child's head, and he got up. Your Jesus is truly amazing. He is the true and Living God. From today I renounce my previous beliefs and I now believe in your Jesus.'
She then asked several brothers and sisters to go with her to destroy her idols, incense altar and all the artefacts used in her superstitious worship." 9
Prayer Causes an Earthquake
An extraordinary incident occurred at Lishan village after a baptismal service was interrupted by the Public Security Bureau in 1973. Dozens of new believers had gathered, eager to display their faith by obeying Jesus' command to be baptized. Because of the large gathering, participants were told to meet at several places around the village before proceeding to the river at midnight for the baptismal service.
The local authorities were alerted to the plan and paid 90 thugs to hide nearby. They collected wheelbarrows full of manure which they intended to use to mock the Christians by floating it downstream once the baptisms commenced. They also prepared a mound of stones to throw at the new converts as they emerged from the water.
The believers of Lishan discerned that something sinister was being plotted against them, so they immediately knelt down and prayed to their Heavenly Father. They cried out, "Lord, have you not been given all power in heaven and on earth? You blinded the eyes of those wicked people in Sodom. Lord, we ask you to use your unlimited power to perform a miracle and deliver us today."
As the brothers and sisters prayed, the Holy Spirit fell upon them. They felt they should not wait until midnight to start the service so they immediately began singing and praising God. Four to five hundred believers had gathered by this time, and they sang with such energy and excitement that the sound could be heard in neighboring villages.
The glory of the Lord descended on the Lishan believers that evening. They felt as if they had entered into the glorious presence of the Almighty, and they began to sing in unison: "Be faithful, be faithful, and proclaim this message everywhere; be faithful in that which has been committed to you; be faithful to your glorious King." It seemed to the Christians that they were almost floating in God's presence as they sang this battle song over and over. Suddenly,
"the place began to shake and dust fell from the ceiling. Then the houses in the village all began to rattle and even the hills rumbled and shook.
Several sisters were at home washing bowls when they felt the ground shake beneath them. Windows and doors shuddered and crockery rattled. Their hearts also shook! .... The worship went on for another two hours. Then a brother was asked to speak, but he declined, saying, 'I have believed in the Lord more than 50 years, but never have I seen a meeting like this. How can I stand up to speak?' .... He led the crowd to a deep pool beside a stream where 78 brothers and sisters were baptized.
When the 90 thugs hired by the authorities to break up this baptismal service heard the sound of singing that shook heaven and earth reverberating throughout the whole village, shaking the very ground they were standing on, they took off in fright!" 10
Prolific Growth
After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, China was once again plunged into a period of uncertainty, but the most brutal anti-Christian persecution appeared to decline, and believers throughout Zhejiang felt the first rays of sunshine on their faces after a long and bitter winter.
The year of 1978 seemed to mark a major turning point in the Zhejiang churches, as believers grew more confident that their meetings were less likely to be raided. The veteran British missionary Leslie Lyall, then aged in his seventies, wrote several excellent books in which he pieced together all the snippets of available information about what had happened to the body of Christ in China over the previous quarter of a century. Writing of the churches in Zhejiang Province, Lyall noted,
"In 1978, a powerful work of the Holy Spirit began bringing to Christ men and women by their thousands, including large numbers of young people. The growth was prolific, and renewed persecution failed to quench the fires of revival; even children remained true to their Lord despite threats from their teachers....
After 1978, cottage meetings again began to multiply throughout the province, some starting in a small way but others, like the one in a village with 1,000 believers, growing in large dimensions. In one mountain region of 10,000 people, one in three of the population had become Christians, meeting in 15 church centers....
One fellowship held retreats and training classes for young converts in the nearby mountains, and baptized 100 people in a mountain stream. Militiamen dispatched to prevent the baptisms thought they saw soldiers surrounding the Christians and so withdrew their detachment in the belief that the army had the matter under control; but there were no soldiers, and the baptismal service proceeded without any interference!
In some rural areas over 90 percent of the population are Christians—a totally unprecedented statistic in the history of the Church in China.... One semi-official estimate is that in Zhejiang alone there may be as many as five million Christians." 11
While many marvelous evidences of God's grace and power were seen throughout Zhejiang in those special days, Satan was not far behind, sowing tares among the wheat in an attempt to spoil the harvest. In one county, a self-proclaimed prophet told people to gather together and wait for the Lord's return. He had previously instructed them to hand over their money and other possessions. One source sadly noted:
"Because the brothers and sisters didn't have any Bibles and had never heard sermons on biblical truth, they thought this man was right and did what he said. Some of them sold their houses, some sold their furniture and clothes, and they handed the money to this crook. He also told them to make white robes which they were to wear on the day that the Lord Jesus would return. He told them to go up a mountain together and wait for the Lord.
The brothers and sisters obeyed him and bought white cloth to make the robes, and on the set day they went up the mountain together. They waited from the morning to the afternoon, and nothing happened.... The crook told them to pray, and everyone knelt down to pray.
While they were praying, the crook ran away. Meanwhile, the cadre of the commune saw this strange group wearing white robes gathered on the mountain and wondered what they were doing. They surrounded the mountaintop and arrested the brothers and sisters." 12
Prepared for a New Dawn
A new challenge faced the Zhejiang Church by the end of the 1970s. The government had increased the profile of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), and pressure was being placed on all unregistered house churches to join the state-approved organ. Those who chose to register were promised freedom of worship, but those who continued to ignore the edict potentially faced years of continued harsh persecution.
Some church leaders had already spent years in prison and flatly refused to have anything to do with registering their churches with an avowedly atheist government. Many believed that registering was akin to denying Christ.
Other Christian leaders in Zhejiang, however, saw the potential of a positive change and more freedom for the gospel to spread. Godly men and women on both sides of the argument were entrenched in their positions, but there was also a group in the middle who wisely advised the pastors and elders not to reach a hasty decision, but to wait upon the Lord and pray until the Holy Spirit gave clear direction to His Church.
The same challenge faced Christians in all parts of China, but the believers in Zhejiang— and Wenzhou in particular—came to a unique conclusion in the early 1980s. Their Spirit-led decision may have been the catalyst for the surge which has resulted in the province having the highest percentage of Christians in China today.
Footnotes:
1. "My Experience of a Hidden Church Meeting," Pray for China (April 1979).
2. "A Christian Funeral in Chekiang," Pray for China (November 1974).
3. "The Spirit of God at Work in China," Pray for China (June 1976), pp. 2-4.
4. "The Spirit of God at Work in China," p. 3.
5. Jonathan Chao, Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1988), pp. 28-9.
6. Chao, Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves, p. 30.
7. Chao, Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves, p. 30.
8. Danyun, Lilies Amongst Thorns, pp. 304-5.
9. Danyun, Lilies Amongst Thorns, pp. 305-6.
10. Danyun, Lilies Amongst Thorns, pp. 303-4.
11. Lyall, God Reigns in China, pp. 168-9.
12. Chao, Wise as Serpents, Harmless as Doves, pp. 99-100.
© This article is an extract from Paul Hattaway's book 'Zhejiang: The Jerusalem of China'. You can order this or any of The China Chronicles books and e-books from our online bookstore.
