Experiencing a changing China

Elmer Martens, professor emeritus of Old Testament at MB Biblical Seminary, Fresno, Calif., and his wife Phyllis, recently travelled to China, primarily to visit Lei Dahong, who had lived with them for three years while attending Fresno State University. Martens also visited several churches and religious institutions, and sends this report.

Elmer (second from left) and Phyllis (fourth from left) Martens with church staff in China.

The China we saw in spring of this year is very different from the China we experienced when we visited 17 years ago. The economic transformation in China since 1987 is nothing short of remarkable: eight-lane freeways in Beijing, trains that run on time, massive construction almost everywhere, especially in Shanghai where in the Pudong district there are numerous skyscrapers (the tallest, 88 storeys), people everywhere with cell phones, and newspapers with huge ads by stock brokerages. We saw department stores that would rival those in San Francisco or Chicago for glitz. The country has a communist government, but capitalism flourishes. One Chinese businessman from Malaysia who was in Beijing brokering a deal for Shell Oil explained to us, “By nature every Chinese is a capitalist; it’s in our blood.”

The religious scene is hard to assess in a two-week hop to major cities. There is religious freedom, one professor observed, but the government frowns on religious activity. We were told that certain localities are known to persecute evangelicals by enforcing certain laws. We did not make contact with house churches, whose membership, we were told by a Chinese believer in Shanghai, runs into the millions.

The sign on the church reads “Worship place for Christ.”

Still, there were thrilling moments. We were among the 800 to 1000 people attending the Easter service March 17 in a large church in Chongqing. The church is non-denominational, a part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Two choirs sang, one of them a choir from a motorcycle factory. The 45-minute sermon stressed that Christ is the sovereign Lord, the capable Saviour and the transforming Master. In an interview with the preacher, Xu Lunshen, my wife and I were told that there are 100 churches in the Chongqing city/municipality of 30 million (though our Chinese hosts disputed the number of churches).

Seventeen years ago we attended an Easter service in Luzhou, a city southwest of Chongqing. At that time China was just opening up cities to the West and churches too were being reopened. There we listened to a small group of believers struggling through the song, in Chinese, “Up from the grave He arose.” This year that song was sung robustly in the Easter service we attended, not once but twice.

We visited the national seminary in Nanjing. Vice-president Chen Zemin said there are 18 Christian seminaries in China, the enrolment in the national seminary in Nanjing is 190, and groundbreaking had just been held at a new 30-acre site that would eventually accommodate 500 students. My 90-minute meeting with professor Xinnong Li and his Old Testament class was marked by a host of questions. One student who goes by the English name “John” shared that he came from Henan province where he had been an accountant. He had been converted to Christ at the close of the Spring Festival, and God had called him into ministry in 1997.

Most heartening was a visit to Sichuan University where Ivan Ho has major responsibilities in the Christian Research Center, part of the University’s Department of Religion. Director Ho was born in Hong Kong, has studied at Regent College (Canada) and Trinity Seminary (USA) and holds a PhD from Shandong University in China. Respective offices in the appropriate building were clearly marked to identify Buddhist, Taoist and Christian faculty.

The research centre recently released a book in Chinese, Protestant Missionary Publications in Modern China 1912–1949: A Study of Their Programs, Operations and Trends. Ho was a contact for me thanks to David Chan, pastor of Pacific Grace Chinese MB Church in Vancouver. Pastor Chan spent some sabbatical time in Hong Kong recently, where he preached 52 times to crowds sometimes numbering over 4000.

Escorted throughout our trip by Chen Hong, the wife of Lei Dahong, a Chinese student we hosted for three years, we felt we were given an updated taste of China. Yes, we did the boat trip on the Yangtze, saw the Three Gorges, and marvelled at the huge dam, the biggest in the world – just another of the many changes in that country. It was a delight to spend time over meals with English teachers from North America, Nick and June Kaethler (Chengdu) and Philip and Julie Bender (Chongqing) working under the auspices of China Educational Exchange (a program of five Mennonite church agencies, including Mennonite Central Committee and MB Mission and Service International). Along with other CEEers, they work at faith transmission indirectly, through a seeds and leaven approach.

More than 50 years ago I participated in a prayer band at Bethany Bible School in Hepburn, Sask. whose focus was China. Today its population of 1.4 billion is roughly five times greater than that of the United States. I return from my visit with a prayer burden for both countries.