God Is Red (16 page)

X
u Wenli was a prominent human-rights activist, so it should have come as no surprise that it was in his cramped courtyard house on Baiguang Road in Beijing that I first encountered a member of China's underground “house church” movement. This was in July 1998 and I had stopped by my friend's house thirsty for some tea and found he had another visitor, middle aged with glasses, who was introduced to me as Xu Yonghai, a neurologist. We nodded at each other. The two Xus were not related but looked like brothers, both thin and pale skinned with long narrow faces, Wenli balding on top, Yonghai slowly losing his hair.

After the usual exchange of greetings, Wenli beckoned for me to sit and said by way of apology, “Let me just finish my conversation with Yonghai.” Sitting close, the pair whispered, but I gathered from the scraps I could catch that they were planning to print some banned materials. Yonghai was tense and would, every few minutes, raise his head furtively and look outside to see if anyone was there. When they had apparently finished their business, Yonghai moved closer to me and whispered, “We have to be careful. I think Wenli's home is bugged.” I nodded, acknowledging his caution.

He wanted Wenli's help with a publication for Beijing's house-church members and, warming to me, talked about the concept of salvation through God. I knew little about Christianity at the time. I was not really interested in what he had to say. Deep down I rejected his proselytizing. In the end I said, “I don't go to the church.” He laughed, “I don't go to the church either . . . they are all government controlled.”

Four months later, after returning to Sichuan, I learned that Wenli was given a thirteen-year prison sentence for establishing an opposition party in China. I further learned that just before Wenli's arrest, Yonghai helped remove the handwritten manuscript of my book
My Testimonials,
which I had hidden at Wenli's house, and it was now in a safer place.

Yonghai and I talked a few times over the telephone until I discovered, in 2002, that his phone had been disconnected. I sent out feelers for his contact information and discovered that the neurologist was a preacher and leader in Beijing's “house churches.” After his home was targeted for demolition by a private developer, Yonghai led a residents' protest against unfair treatment, but their numerous petitions to the government for help were ignored. After his house was reduced to rubble, he considered suicide as a way to make a statement but was dissuaded by fellow Christians. I was told he had quit his medical practice and dedicated himself to following the path of God. In 2004 I read a report saying that Yonghai and another Christian, Liu Fenggang, were arrested while preaching the gospel in Zhejiang province. The government blocked any information on his whereabouts or his health. Occasionally, I would see online postings by his nurse wife, Li Shanna, who called on fellow Christians to pray for the safety of her husband. Yonghai spent three years in prison.

Curious about Yonghai's story, I decided I needed to interview a “house church” Christian to understand more of what drives them to reject the government-sanctioned alternative. I was back in Beijing in February 2004, when a preacher friend, Liu Min, called to say she had a telephone number for me if I wanted to talk to Yuan Xiangchen, a respected figure in the Christian community in Beijing. I got through to his eighty-six-year-old wife, and she agreed to meet me. I jotted down the address and instructions on how to get there by subway. Excited at this rare opportunity to talk with a Christian couple whose lives spanned much of the twentieth century, I invited a documentary maker from Taiwan, who went by the name of Ms. Wen and has made several films about social issues in her homeland, to join me.

A week later, the three of us met at the Xuanwumen subway station. Waves of dusty, cold wind from the tall gray buildings lashed at our faces relentlessly. We all flinched and instinctively clutched our hands to our chests. Before heading downstairs to the train platforms, Liu Min spotted a Catholic church on the side of the road, the pale winter sun painting a layer of gold on the cross that stood high above the church steeple. Liu suggested we go for a quick visit. Inside the spacious prayer hall, Liu knelt down on the floor for a short prayer.

We boarded the subway and got off at the Yangqiao Hospital. Liu Min, a Beijing native who was supposed to be our guide, got lost, so it took another half hour to reach our destination.

“We want to visit Uncle Yuan,” Liu Min told the security guard at the building we managed to find with the help of passing strangers. “He lives on the second floor.”

“Who are you?” the guard asked, but Liu Min ignored him as she hit the buzzer for 202. Ms. Wen, who didn't have much of a clue about China's tough political situation, took her video camera from her bag and started filming. Her action caught the eye of the guard. But at that moment, a departing resident opened the main door and we all slipped inside.

Reverend Yuan Xiangchen's apartment was small but comfortable. There was a cross on the wall and several calligraphic scrolls—proverbs from the Bible. A family picture above the sofa—of Yuan and his wife surrounded by more than thirty people—showed four generations of a large family, and I could identify a dozen or so faces in the relatively spacious living room. Liu introduced us and then sat down next to Yuan's wife. They had never met but acted like they had known each other for years. I felt a little uncomfortable seated next to Yuan, who had the aura of seeming to be larger than his small frame should allow. He was hard of hearing, and each time I said something, he would cup his right hand to his ear as if to catch my words. To break the tension, Liu told some stories involving her Christian activist friends and their often comical encounters with officious police. Soon everyone was laughing and at ease.

I took out my recorder and notebook, Ms. Wen set up her camera on a nearby table, and, on her signal, I began my interview by mentioning Yuan's appearance in Yuan Zhiming's documentary,
The Cross: Jesus in China
. As Yuan began to talk about his early involvement in the church, there was a knock at the door.

The air really seemed to freeze when a roomful of people tensed at the exact same moment, then it shimmered a little, like a bow in full draw. In an instant, video camera, tape recorder, and Christian reading materials all vanished like so many props in a magician's act. Yuan's eldest son crossed the room quietly and put his ear to the door. Knock, knock, knock. The son coughed and asked in a casual tone, “Who is it?”

“We are police from the local branch.”

“Why, what's happened?” the son called through the door.

“Some neighbors reported three strangers with a video camera came to your house for interviews,” said the voice outside.

“There is no media interview here,” the son replied.

“Open the door. We are here to conduct a routine check.”

Yuan's eldest son looked around the room to make sure everyone was ready and then, as if the director had just shouted “action,” turned the door handle.

A uniformed police officer, who said he was in charge of the district, and a woman, who introduced herself as the new director of the street committee, were invited by Yuan to sit. The officer looked at me, Liu, and Ms. Wen. “Are you the ones who are conducting a media interview here?”

Yuan's wife said, “Nobody is doing media interviews. These are fellow Christians. They are here for a casual visit.”

The officer addressed us again: “Are you all Yuan's Christian friends?”

“I'm a Christian,” said Liu. “I heard that Uncle Yuan's been sick. So I stopped by for a quick visit. These two are my friends.”

I nodded and said, “Yes, I'm curious about the church and want to chat with Mr. Yuan.”

The officer turned to Ms. Wen: “What about you?”

Ms. Wen blushed—her Taiwan accent would be a giveaway—and quickly pointed at her throat with a finger.

“What does that mean?”

Ms. Wen opened her mouth, gesticulating with her hands, her eyes flickering behind her thick glasses.

Liu said, “She has a terrible throat infection and can't talk.”

“Okay, if she can't talk . . .” the officer said to Liu, which meant he at least accepted her as speaking for all of us, “tell me what topics you are planning to discuss here.”

Liu was good and turned the interrogation into a Christianity 101 lecture, from “In the beginning . . .” to the resurrection of Christ. She was a born preacher, dazzling the officer and the street committee director, both of whom looked lost. The policeman tried to stop Liu, but she never gave him a chance, so he soon gave up and let her talk. Time passed quickly, and when Liu was ready for a break, she smiled and asked the officer, “Do you have any questions?”

The policeman shook his head, but the street committee director asked, “Why do people believe in God? What good does it do us?” The room laughed and, though flushed with embarrassment, so did she. I thought we might be safe, when the officer's phone rang. He went out. We looked at one another nervously. He soon came back, and as Liu began to answer the street committee director's question, his phone rang again. This time he returned with an older policeman, who walked in and greeted Yuan as one would greet a friend. He was the deputy director of the local branch of the Public Security Bureau. He demanded to see our identity cards. I knew Ms. Wen didn't have one, and mine was for Sichuan. “Who would walk around with his papers during daytime?” I asked, trying to sound irritated. “It's not like we are still in the era of the Cultural Revolution.”

Liu produced her ID and said, “I work for an American company. Can I vouch for them?” The deputy director thought for a few minutes, handed Liu her ID card, and asked us to write down our names, phone numbers, and addresses. Ms. Wen and I put down fake names. Liu used her real name—it was a common one she shared with tens of thousands of people in Beijing.

With Liu's audience having grown by one, she simply picked up where she had left off. Our “public servants” looked attentive, nodding their heads occasionally as if they were really listening to her, so she kept preaching, but the tension was palpable. The deputy director's phone rang four times. Each time, Liu's face would become tense, her eyes involuntarily searching out mine. Ms. Wen's face remained stern and enigmatic. Yuan became impatient. Twice he asked the deputy director, “Do you have any other questions for us?” His implied message was: “Please get your butts out of here. Don't bother us anymore.” But on they sat.

Stalemate.

As we made our farewells, they did too. One of Yuan's children tucked a piece of paper in my hand. We walked for a while after we left the building, glancing around like thieves, but there was no one following us, so we stopped a taxi and jumped inside. The note read, “Wait at the Catholic church near the subway station.” Liu gave instructions to the driver, and we got there in good time but were startled to find, on entering the courtyard, a new Audi parked near the entrance. I'd been suspicious of new Audis since spotting a similar one outside a dissident friend's house I was visiting several days before. On that occasion, as soon as I walked in the door, several police charged out of the Audi, grabbed the door, and shoved me out. As it turned out, I didn't have to worry. We watched the Audi parked outside the church for about half an hour, when a young man in a nice suit came out and drove away.

The three of us sought shelter from the cold wind under the arched entrance to the church. I said Liu reminded me of an underground Communist character in a popular TV drama. “You faced your enemies with wit and calmness,” I said, using one of its familiar clichés. Liu deadpanned. “I was scared to death,” she said in a little girl voice, and we all laughed and walked around the church to keep warm. After about an hour, Yuan's second son, Yuan Fusheng, appeared, carrying a plastic shopping bag. Inside was the video camera, tape recorder, and my notebook, all wrapped in layers of old newspapers. Yuan Fusheng, looking thin and frail, had a lot of experience working with the underground church.

Yuan Fusheng gave me a telephone number so we could reschedule our interview. It was already dusk as we said our good-byes. As I walked away, I noticed the sky was full of red clouds, the color bathing everything below—the streets and cars, buildings and people.

T
hwarted by police in my plans to interview Reverend Yuan Xiangchen, a prominent figure in the underground Christian community in Beijng, I got hold of his second son, Yuan Fusheng, on March 3, 2004. Yuan Fusheng assisted his father in ministering to Christians who refused to attend the official churches operating under government scrutiny in the capital city.

It was a necessarily covert interview conducted in the relative safety of a crowded place, in this instance a McDonald's near the Temple of Earth. We were both early and, having spotted each other, wandered separately in different directions for a while to make sure we had not been tailed. I had seen a lot of police on the streets as the National People's Congress was in session. We crossed the pedestrian bridge and went into the McDonald's, which was crowded with hamburger-loving teenagers. We found a table in a relatively quiet corner, and I got us each a Coke. I took out my tape recorder, put a napkin on top, and moved it closer to Yuan.

“It's quite tense today,” Yuan whispered. “It's always the same around this time of the year. My father's been under close surveillance. I will do the interview on his behalf. My father hopes you can visit us again.”

I pretended to gaze at a young couple sitting at an opposite table and nodded at his words.

“My father is now organizing a vigil for a preacher, Dr. Xu Yonghai, who was arrested while spreading the gospel in Zhejiang province. At a service not long ago, my father said Dr. Xu is a proud example for all young Christians.”

I was glad to hear mention of Yonghai's name. My eyes kept moving around the restaurant, scanning faces, alert to anything out of the ordinary. And so we talked for three hours.

Yuan Fusheng:
My father's name is Yuan Xiangchen. He was born in June 1914. He has forgotten the exact date but prefers to celebrate the day he was reborn, when he became a Christian—December 29, 1932. My father says every person should have two birthdays, one for the body and the other for the soul. My father was baptized by Reverend Wang Mingdao with the pure stream water from the Summer Palace, right behind the Wanshou Mountain.

My father was born in Bengbu City, Anhui province. My grandfather was a Guangdong native. As a young man, my grandfather worked on the construction of the Beijing-Guangdong railway and the whole family moved north with him, from Guangdong to Bengbu, and eventually settled in Beijing. My grandfather had received a Western-style education in a Chinese college, and after working with the Westerners helping to build the railway, his English was very good. So my father was born into a Westernized family. At the age of thirteen, he went to a school run by the YMCA, studied English, and memorized many passages from the Bible.

His teenage years were difficult. The constant moving by his parents left him rootless. For a while, he sank into a deep depression and attempted suicide twice by plugging a pair of scissors into an electric socket. He says two of his teachers had a tremendous influence on him. One was an American whose Chinese name was Xiao Anna and the other one was a Chinese, Shi Tianmin, both of whom were pious Christians. They taught him the new science and new social thinking advocated by Dr. Sun Yat-sen after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the birth of the new republic. They also spread the gospel. My father became interested in religion and was introduced to Reverend Wang Mingdao.

In the summer of 1934, my father finished his freshman year at a senior high school. His parents wanted him to continue with school, graduate, and get a stable job so he could get married, have children, and live a comfortable life. But my father resisted. He quit school. Inspired by the Bible, he enrolled in a seminary in Beijing. It was affiliated with the Far East College of Theology. He studied there for four years. In the summer of 1936, he joined two thousand other Christians and attended a national Bible reading and consultation retreat. In 1937 he began publishing inspirational articles and translated from English to Chinese a handbook for preachers.

In that year, Japan invaded China. It was a chaotic time. His future wife and my mother, Liang Huizhen, had fled her hometown and arrived in Beijing after the Japanese occupation. She was also a Christian, and the two met and fell in love. After my father finished his studies at the seminary, they became engaged and were married in Beijing in July 1938. The wedding was half Western and half Chinese—by that I mean he wore a suit and she wore a Western-style wedding gown, but they were driven to the reception on a Chinese horse-drawn cart. Many Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries attended their wedding.

In 1939 my mother became pregnant with my eldest brother. Around the same time, my father was asked by the dean of his seminary to stay on as a translator, which would provide a modest income to support his family. But he turned it down, choosing instead to help spread the gospel in rural areas. So, with his wife and son, he followed an American evangelical minister to preach in southern Hebei province and parts of Shandong province. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, its troops rounded up Americans and put them in a camp in Wei County of Shandong. One night, the Japanese soldiers took away the American minister and his wife and two children. My father's apartment was also looted. My mother was young and pretty and for many months smeared soot on her face to escape being noticed by Japanese soldiers. She and my brother hid in a cellar behind the church.

My father, unwilling to give up, moved his family to a village and lived and worked with farmers. The southern part of Hebei province was under the control of Japanese troops during the day. At night, a resistance movement organized by Communist guerrilla forces was in full swing. My father traveled to different villages on his bike to preach. He always carried two types of passes and currencies, one issued by the Japanese and the other by the Chinese Communists. Each time he ran into either party, he would have to pay a fee in their respective currency, though he declared himself neutral. His preaching reached a large number of villagers. He had totally transformed himself from an urban intellectual into a farmer—wearing black flea-infested cotton-padded coats and eating simple wheat and corn buns. He preached inside villages or on the side of the field. He was so devoted that when his own father passed away, he, the only child, didn't even have the chance to go home and say good-bye.

In 1945, on the eve of Japan's surrender, my father returned to Beijing to take care of his mother, who was gravely ill. He continued to preach at a church nearby and took up odd jobs to support his family. By then, our family had grown to seven members. My father was waiting for the situation to improve so he could return to the countryside, where he felt he was needed the most. However, after the Japanese troops left China, the Communists and the Nationalists were embroiled in a civil war. My father became restless. He prayed hard, trying to figure out God's plan for him. During this time, he discovered a Japanese Christian church at 160 Fuchengmen Street. The Japanese pastor had fled China, and the Nationalist government had closed down the church. My father was able to persuade government officials to allow him to rent the church. The monthly rent was the equivalent of 150 kilograms of rice. He took odd jobs to provide financial support for the church and his family. In a way, it was a blessing. The experience strengthened his ability as an organizer as well as his independent spirit. He turned down any help from government organizations, insisting that the church should be a holy place supported by God's followers.

In late 1948, as the Nationalist troops were on the verge of defeat, the situation in Beijing deteriorated. Many missionaries and Christians left China. My father decided to stay. On February 3, 1949, Communist troops entered Beijing and paraded past his church on Fuchengmen. Three weeks later, leaders of the various Christian denominations met to discuss how to survive under an atheist government. At the meeting, my father urged calm, because the Communists had announced that people could enjoy freedom of religion. He also believed that religion should be kept separate from secular politics. He used to tell us, “Chinese Christians should have our own independent church. We should move in the direction of self-reliance.”

At the beginning, the new government was busy keeping order and building support among all sectors of society. The religious sector was allowed to operate without disruption. One day my father led several of his followers on the street. They beat drums and gongs to attract people to his church. Soon he drew a large crowd. He also caught the attention of Communist soldiers who were patrolling the streets. The soldiers dispersed the crowd and took my father to the Military Control Commission. They interrogated him briefly. He cited the government's “freedom of religion” policy as defense. When he argued with his interrogators, they told him politely, “You can certainly enjoy your freedom. We have just taken over and liberated the city. There is chaos everywhere. People with all backgrounds are floating around. You shouldn't preach outside.” In the end, the military leader let him go without giving him any trouble.

Within the Communist Party, there was an internal policy at that time to restrict religious activities, reform followers, and eventually wipe out all religious practices in China. In the world of religion, not everyone was as holy as he or she claimed to be.

Liao Yiwu:
You are referring to Wu Yaozong?

Yuan:
Yes, I'm referring to Mr. Wu, as well as other religious celebrities such as Ding Guangxun and Liu Liangmo. Let me give you some brief background information on Wu Yaozong. He was born in 1893 and became a Christian at an early age. He studied at a seminary in New York City before returning to China as an ordained minister. When the Communists took over China, he became a big supporter and accepted the Communist ideology. He said he had experienced two major transformations in life: the first was to accept Christianity as his faith, changing from an atheist into a man of belief; the second was his acceptance of the Marxist social theories, which were antireligion. He unabashedly mixed his religious beliefs with atheist Communist ideology.

Wu was elected as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai three times to map out the strategies for reforming Christianity in China. His plan was to sever all ties with “foreign imperialists” and to adopt the principles of self-governance, self-support—that is, free from foreign financial support—and self-propagation, which meant indigenous missionary work. These are the Three-Self principles. Soon after Wu's plan was made public, China joined a war against the Americans in Korea. The Three-Self principles quickly turned into a patriotic movement. All Christians in China had to choose between “supporting their own country” and “supporting foreign imperialists.” It became fanatical. If you did not openly express your patriotism, you were a counterrevolutionary. About thirty-three thousand Christians in China signed up to support the so-called Three-Self Patriotic Movement.

Despite the political pressure, many Christians stood firm and rejected the Three-Self principles. At that time, there were about sixty Christian churches and organizations in Beijing. Leaders representing eleven churches openly aired their disagreement, saying that churches in China had long adopted the principles of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. There was no need to sign up again. Those brave church leaders included my father's friend Wang Mingdao.

My father wasn't among the outspoken leaders, but he had long maintained that there should be separation of church and politics. His favorite phrase used to be: let God take care of his affairs, and Caesar tend to his. Our church shouldn't be used to advance the interests of the Communist Party. His position alienated him from many of his followers, many of whom deserted him. Starting in 1952, government officials constantly came to engage him in talks, pressuring him to join their camp. My father rejected their requests and refused to participate in political study sessions.

At first, officials at the local religious-affairs office would visit, trying to persuade him to change. They acted a bit like those police officers at our home the other day. By 1955 the government's tolerance ended. It turned out to be the largest calamity since the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, when more than twenty thousand Christians were murdered. In 1955 more than a thousand churches in China were burned down. Tens of thousands of Christians were arrested. Several thousand were executed on charges of belonging to a cult. In Beijing, the government thought rebellious religious leaders would be intimidated by what was happening in other parts of the country. Chairman Mao called this “encircling your enemies.”

Liao:
Yet no one stepped forward to support the Three-Self movement?

Yuan:
That is correct. On the night of August 7, 1955, Reverend Wang Mingdao and his wife were arrested, along with dozens of other preachers.

Liao:
Those church leaders got long jail sentences.

Yuan:
From fifteen years to life imprisonment. Under threat of physical torture, Reverend Wang wrote a confession and was released immediately, but he was haunted by his betrayal. Spiritual torture was more painful than physical torture, so he turned himself in to the police. He said, “I'm going to spend the rest of my time in jail so I can appease the wrath of the Lord.”

My father wavered too. Following the August 7 arrests, many preachers, including my father, bowed to pressure and took part in political study sessions. One Communist official told my father, “You are still young and have a bright future in front of you. You should try to reform yourself.” He encouraged my father to openly express his support for the Party's policies at meetings, but my father chose to remain silent. Deep down, he was torn. Eventually, through prayers and self-reflection, he made up his mind, and in 1957, when called upon to declare his support for the Three-Self principles, he said the government's religious policy was unfair. Freedom of religion was guaranteed in the Chinese Constitution, but Christians could no longer enjoy that freedom. Some Christians, the favorites of the new government, espoused the Three-Self principles, but they were hypocrites. When the Japanese came, they surrendered to the invaders. When the Americans came, they managed to get on their payrolls. Now, they ingratiated themselves to the new government. Those people were not patriotic. They were simply opportunists who took advantage of religion to serve their own interests. Afterward, Father said he had never felt so elated and liberated.