Brother Joe on “China: Facts & Fiction (& Its Culture & Religious Climate Described By One Christian American Who Has Lived There)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

00:16

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Friday on this 24th day of August 2018 and I am delighted to have for the very first time a guest today who is going by an alias and this will become very quickly obvious why he is using an alias.

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Today our guest we are calling Brother Joe and he is going to be discussing

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China facts and fiction and its culture and religious climate described by one

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Christian American who has lived there and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Brother Joe.

01:53

Thank you Chris, great to be with you. And this is I think the third time that we have had someone using an alias on the show due to reasons that they each had but as we typically do on this program when we have a first time guest,

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Brother Joe, we'd like you to give us a summary of your testimony obviously leaving out any names that would make an alias a moot point but if you could tell us something about the religious atmosphere that you were raised in if any and how our sovereign lord drew you to himself what providential circumstances arose in your life by his hand that led you to him and how you were saved.

02:44

Sure Chris, happy to do that. Well I was born into a

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I would say a nominally Roman Catholic family and when I say nominally what I mean by that is that we had the

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Roman Catholic faith as part of our family heritage but we were not really church goers.

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We didn't go to church every week but my mother did care enough about my religious education to send me every week from public school to the

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Roman Catholic church to receive religious education. So I was as a very young boy receiving some weekly education in the

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Roman Catholic faith. As I turned into my teenage years

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I sort of departed from being very faithful to that. When I was a boy

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I would go to church sometimes by myself but then when I became a teenager

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I became enamored with typical teenage things and hanging out with friends and so I wasn't really doing much in regard to developing my own faith or what

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I believed to be my faith at the time. But if you had asked me I would always tell you that I believed in God and I believed that God was with me but I really didn't know much about God.

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I didn't know what the Bible taught and I didn't really even know what the teachings of the

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Catholic Church were, my very own church. Moving on into high school and then going into university

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I began to have a little bit of resurgence toward my religious thinking and in one of my university courses

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I had to read parts of the Bible for a literature class and this was actually my first serious reading of the

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Bible. We had to write essays on parts of the Bible and we didn't do a full reading of the scriptures but we did readings of parts of it and I can remember being asked questions like, what is

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Paul trying to say to the Jews and Romans and things of that nature that we had to answer and I would write essays or things of that nature about it and I actually found one of those essays and was quite amazed to realize how close

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I was to understanding the gospel at that point. But it had not yet really taken root in me.

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It wasn't changing the way I lived my life and it wasn't making an impact in the way

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I thought about things and the way I handled situations. But then moving on later in college and then moving into the work environment,

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I began to pick up that Bible that I had bought for college again and I was reading it on my own and I would pick it up and read it some days and then put it down, pick it up again, put it down for a few weeks, pick it up again and over time that Bible that I was reading began to make real change in my life and I began to see some things as I read that Bible.

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Some of the things were really disturbing to me. For example, I had always been a relatively moral individual, relatively morally upstanding individual as compared to my friends.

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But when I began to read the Bible, I was reading these statements that Jesus would make that were quite unsettling to me.

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You know, where Jesus would talk about how even looking at someone lustfully is considered adultery, how even anger is like murder in the eyes of God and from Matthew 5.

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So I would read these statements and be quite disturbed because I had a view of myself that I was a very nice guy and I was a very good person and relatively speaking, as compared to some people around me, you might say

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I was. But when I began to see God's standards and compared those to my own standards,

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I was finding that I fell very far short. But at the same time, reading that same

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Bible, I was starting to read about things that Jesus did and why Jesus came. And I was quite surprised,

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I recall reading the incident in Matthew 16 when Peter doesn't like what

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Jesus is saying about the fact that he has to go to Jerusalem and be crucified and he's going to rise on the third day.

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And you know, Peter tries to rebuke him and Jesus says to him, get behind me,

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Satan. You know, what you're saying is not from God, it's from men. When I read that,

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I was shocked because I was in 100 % agreement with Peter on that point, thinking,

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Lord, you should not be crucified. That should not happen to you. And as I thought about it and as I read the

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Bible more, that confusion began to lift. I began to realize that this was the very purpose for which

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Jesus came. That he actually came to give his life as a ransom and that that was the whole gospel.

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That it was the people like me who thought themselves even to be good, who needed to be saved from their sins.

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That I was not a good man, that I in fact needed God's mercy, that I needed Christ to save me.

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And that's why Christ had died on the cross and rose again. So as I realized those things,

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I made Christ the Lord of my life and that really changed my whole thinking and direction.

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Later on, I had, through working, had opportunities to teach, eventually had opportunity to even go to seminary, had opportunity then to go to China as well.

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And it was while I was in China that I had many opportunities for evangelism and understanding and learning the culture, reaching out to Chinese people, and doing evangelism in my own way there.

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And really understanding what some of the history was and why people behave the way they do and what was happening in the culture.

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And it took a lot of learning to understand that. And so that's why I came here today,

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Chris, is that I'm hoping to share some of my experiences from being there and some of the things

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I've learned over the years in studying China, being a student of China and Chinese people and Chinese friends, to help other

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Christians and understand how they may apply these things.

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And also to have us think in terms of, there is a great need in China, a great need for sound teaching, a great need for sound doctrine, and we'll talk about reasons why that's the case as we go along.

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Well, as you know, our theme today is China, and specifically facts and fiction about China and its culture and religious climate described by you, who is, who are a

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Christian American who has lived there. And let's start, first of all, with what led you to China using language that wouldn't be so detailed that it would reveal your identity and so on.

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Sure. Growing up, I grew up in a multiracial neighborhood, which is actually,

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I believe, a very good thing. I recommend it, although it's sometimes not easy to find.

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But I grew up in a multiracial neighborhood and had friends of all different races, whether African American, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Asian, all different types of individuals.

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And we were all friends, and we managed to be friends. And, of course, we also had our racial divisions among us.

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You know, where we would get into divisions, you know, where we would go back to those kind of wrong ways of thinking about each other.

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But growing up in that kind of an environment gave me quite an open mind toward understanding different people and toward understanding

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Asian people in particular. And when I was working, I had a lot of opportunity to interact with Asian professionals who had come to the

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United States from China to work. United States immigration policy allows for Chinese workers to be in the

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United States, and so I got exposure to many professional Chinese workers, master's level,

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PhD level individuals, and made some close friendships and learned a lot about Chinese culture from them.

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And I had a strong desire from knowing them and my own experience in life just to know more, to learn the

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Chinese language, and to understand that culture more. And along with that, I had some work opportunities that came up that gave me opportunity to be relocated to China.

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And the combination of those things, I thought, was an ideal scenario where I could go to China, learn the language, learn more about the culture and the people, not just have my own perceptions about it, and also be able to share the things that I knew and learned, and I wanted to be a light to people wherever I am, whether that's in the

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United States or China. I wanted to take that opportunity to be a light to people, so I took that.

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Now, were you at all familiar with the language before you went there?

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No, I didn't know how to say hello in Chinese, which, by the way, is Ni Hao. I didn't even know how to say hello before I went to China, so I started from scratch when

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I went to China completely and built up... And I'm sorry, I'm very forgetful, but how long ago was that?

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It's more than 10 years. Okay. Yeah, more than 10 years ago that I had first relocated to China.

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And so tell us about that very first experience setting foot on the ground there in China.

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Well, as a foreigner, I had first lived in Beijing, and as a foreigner, when you're exposed to Beijing, Beijing is like the political capital of China.

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And at the same time, it's also one of the more difficult places in China to live, the reason being the pollution and the fact that it's a fast -moving city, fast -moving environment, a very busy place to be.

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And so it also, along with that, also has access to a lot of things, so it has the positive aspects of being a big city.

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But from the perspective of a foreigner, you... People have probably heard reports about the pollution.

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The pollution in Beijing was a very big problem for me, very difficult. I managed to live with it, but it was not easy at all.

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Even Chinese people who have grown up in that environment with the pollution have a very difficult time with it.

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And there's been a lot of complaining to the Chinese government about that. You're speaking specifically and primarily about air pollution or even garbage everywhere you walk or what...

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No, no, not garbage everywhere you walk. I should have clarified that. Yes, I'm talking about air pollution. And there is a lot of debate in China in terms of how healthy is the food and, you know, how high are the standards for things that are eaten in China, you know, so there are some issues there.

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But I'm talking primarily about in terms of things that immediately affect you as a foreigner, the air pollution would be a very serious one.

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Shanghai is better. It's probably because it's closer to the sea. It has a little more ventilation, but even

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Shanghai's air pollution has been growing quite a bit over time. So, how many years total have you spent living in China?

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Well, Chris, why don't we move on to some other questions? I would not be so specific. Okay, sure,

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I understand. Well, one of the key reasons we had you on today, and by the way,

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I want to let our listeners know that Brother Joe isn't being rude, but it's a very sensitive issue when you have somebody living in a foreign country under communist rule and so on.

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It's pretty much a no -brainer why you have to be very careful, at least to a degree.

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But facts from fiction. What, to your knowledge, or in your opinion, are some frequently held beliefs by Americans, and perhaps even more specifically by American Christians, that you have found not to be true living in China?

16:07

Maybe you can get listeners to write in about what they think. But one...

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Let me repeat our email address right now, so maybe they will send some in. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if it's a personal and private matter. Maybe you're even listening in China and you want to ask a personal and private question, or just a question anonymously for that reason.

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But if it's just a general question, please, as I said, give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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But if you could continue now. Sure. Well, the communist government in China certainly has taken a lot of, you know, call it what you will, very strong criticism in the media for its persecution of religion.

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And some of those things we can discuss, and we will, of course.

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But there are also times where I've seen even well -meaning individuals go too far with it.

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For example, I've heard people say that you don't have access to a Bible in China, and that's actually not true.

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People at the government -registered churches in China can buy Bibles.

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And there are many English Bibles being manufactured and printed in China, are they not?

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Yes, that's true. And in fact, in China, they print, well, typically in China, in terms of what the government will allow to be printed and sold in the bookstores there.

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By the way, the Bible is not sold in bookstores, but it's sold in the church bookstores.

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So I should make that distinction. So China has not opened up its freedoms to the point where you will see

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Bibles being sold, you know, in mainstream bookstores. But churches that are government -registered churches, government -allowed churches, they will have a book -selling place in that church at which you can buy a

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Bible. And those Bibles will typically be Chinese, or they will be Chinese -English bilingual

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Bibles. And usually when it's Chinese -English, it's the Chinese version with either the

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NIV or the ESV. We have a listener, CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, asks,

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I know that when the Soviet Union still existed, there were the underground churches, and there were the puppet churches that were permitted but run by the government, or at least strictly controlled in various ways.

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What is the situation in our present day in China? Okay, that's a good question,

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CJ. Well, there are three types of churches that you can find in China.

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And Chris, maybe along with this, I can give a little history, because it's important to understand not only what the situation is, but why the situation is the way it is.

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Yes, and those churches would be First Baptist Church, Second Baptist Church, and Third Baptist Church. I'm sorry.

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I'm only kidding. That's a little Baptist humor, the divisions amongst Baptists, just a little joke there.

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But go ahead, I'm sorry. The first type is the easiest one to talk about, is what

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I would call the International Church. And what that is, is that in the larger cities in China, the larger cities being

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Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other cities as well, but the larger cities typically, they will have usually one or two, potentially more, but typically one or two, what we call

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International Churches. And what that is, is that the China government gives foreigners the right to hold their own worship services and have their own church and their own leaders.

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The restriction that they put on those type of churches is that only foreign passport holders can go to those churches.

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So, this is a control implemented by the government to ensure that Chinese locals are not being, let's say, influenced by foreigners, you know, not going in, not becoming members of churches that are led by foreigners.

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And, well, going back to CJ's question, and let me add a little bit to the question with my own words, in the time that you have spent in China and the churches that you have entered into and joined the folks for worship and fellowship and so on, have you come to a point where you're absolutely certain that these are not what one would call a puppet church like those that existed in the

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Soviet Union? To give you an example, I can remember, I don't know if you recall, Richard Wurmbrand, he was a

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Christian that was persecuted by the Soviet Union and spent years in the gulag and so forth, and he was very upset when

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Billy Graham visited the Soviet Union and having been introduced to people who were involved in the government controlled churches, the puppet churches,

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Richard Wurmbrand was furious because Billy Graham basically gave a report back to the

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United States that there was no religious persecution in the Soviet Union, and he was like, you know, he doesn't even know what he's talking about because he was just being introduced to only the churches that were being controlled by the government.

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So what would be the situation there in China? Are you pretty convinced that these are relatively free people worshiping as they believe the

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Bible teaches them to worship, or what's going on there in your opinion? Well, I think as I complete the answer to CJ's question, that's going to unfold.

22:40

It's a great question, Chris. Let me answer you a bit. Actually, the only reason I started speaking was

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I thought there was a pause of silence there. Yeah, I was just giving you a moment to say something if you wanted to.

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So that first type of church is not what they call the puppet church, right?

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That is the international church that allows foreigners to have freedom. They're few and far between, of course.

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The disadvantage of that type of church is not truly a multinational church.

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It doesn't allow Chinese people. It excludes the main population that's local in the country.

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And so that was my personal dislike of attending that particular type of church.

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My feeling was, I'm here in China, I want to reach out to Chinese people, minister to Chinese people, befriend

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Chinese people, and so the church I go to has no Chinese people. So that was a difficulty for me.

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But the reason the China government allows that is because it gives the foreigners freedom to worship as they wish, without having to submit to particular restrictions.

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So that's the international church of the first type. Now, there's two other types that we need to talk about. The other two types being the government registered church, and the third type being the underground churches, or commonly called house churches.

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Now, I think it would be worthwhile, Chris, for me to give a bit of history on how these two types of churches developed.

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Yeah, definitely. Because if we just say, oh, those are what they are, those are what they are, and then kind of label them,

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I think it doesn't give the correct understanding. In fact, you will do that when we come back from our first break now, because I don't want to interrupt you in mid -sentence.

24:35

Okay. If you, anyone would like to join us, again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

24:41

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

24:49

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

24:55

Don't go away. God willing, we will be right back with Brother Joe and more of our discussion on China, facts and fiction, and getting more information about the history and theological climate of China.

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We'll be back after these messages. And send in your emails at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

25:18

chrisarnson at gmail .com. James White here, co -founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

25:41

I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnson will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme,

25:53

A Biblical Understanding of Missions. Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Weiss, yours truly, and many more.

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I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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That's g3conference .com. Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled Consider the

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Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. My name is

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Please continue to pray, and we will, as I said, continue to give you updates.

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Now we are back with our guest today, Brother Joe. And Brother Joe is separating fact from fiction when it comes to China.

33:57

He is a Christian American who has lived in China, and he is also discussing

34:03

China's culture and religious climate. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

34:10

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

34:20

USA. And you may wonder why I keep repeating that to give your first name, city and state, country of residence, because you would not believe how many emails

34:28

I get that just don't have any of that information. And the person isn't even requesting to be anonymous.

34:35

So that's why I repeat it, because people just need to be repeated, have things repeated to them. Brother Joe, if you could pick up right where you left off, you were going to give us a history behind the main churches, the different levels of churches or kinds of churches that exist in China.

34:55

Sure, Chris. So some of this clearly goes back hundreds of years in China, but I'll restrict my comments to roughly the last century.

35:08

The ending of World War I had the signing of the

35:13

Treaty of Versailles, and that was a very controversial document. And one of the controversies that regarded it was the fact that China was in strong disagreement with it for the reason that they believed it treated

35:28

Japan favorably to China in terms of allowing

35:34

Japan access to land that China believed that belonged to China. And there was a very strong movement that began.

35:43

The roots of it go back to May 4th, 1919, which was called the

35:48

May 4th Movement. And this was a movement begun by a lot of young, bright, educated individuals in China who were beginning to have very anti -foreign sentiments and began protesting.

36:06

That movement began to develop over time. Not long after that was the founding of the

36:13

Communist Party in China. Now, at the time, the nationalists who were in power, and Sun Yat -sen was the leader of the nationalist movement.

36:27

Eventually, the leader of the nationalists, a name that many would know, would become Chiang Kai -shek.

36:34

Now, over time, this anti -foreigner sentiment was growing.

36:41

In 1922, there was another coalition formed called the Anti -Christian Federation, and that was actually influenced by secular individuals in China and had even some of its roots in the

36:55

West, because in the West, we were having more and more rejection of the

37:01

Christian faith. Again, this is post -Enlightenment, early now 20th century already, so for a long time now in the

37:10

West, very anti -Christian sentiments had been developing, and some of those were reaching China.

37:16

So the combination of this sort of anti -foreign sentiment along with an anti -Christian or anti -belief -in -God sentiment, a sort of intellectualism developing in China, these were leading toward a general disdain toward the foreign religion of Christianity.

37:40

As you know, there was a civil war that developed in China between the nationalists and the communists, and eventually the communists won that war, and in 1949 was when the communists defeated the nationalists, and it was the founding of the

37:56

People's Republic of China. At that time, the nationalists fled to Taiwan under the heading of what the government was called before that, which is the

38:07

Republic of China. So interesting that people need to keep those names distinguished, even though they're very close.

38:15

The People's Republic of China refers to the China that we're talking about, the mainland

38:20

China that we're talking about here, and then the Republic of China we more commonly call

38:28

Taiwan. Now, the communists, when they came into power, had the continuations of this very anti -religious sentiment, and I personally hold the belief that communism is hostile to religion as a general principle simply because communism does not want anything that competes with the government.

38:55

So anything that competes with the government for absolute authority is potentially a threat to communism.

39:03

And that's true even if communism decides to tolerate religion. Even then, it will have a suspicion or a fear, if you will, of religion, because religion potentially puts a god as the number one authority over the government.

39:22

So the communists, when they took power in 1949, they underwent very quickly from there a program to get the missionaries out of China.

39:33

So foreign missionaries who had been in China for so long were being removed from the country.

39:40

And probably by 1953 or so, pretty much all of the foreign missionaries were gone from China.

39:49

And that left Chinese, you know, but you can't eradicate

39:55

Christianity, of course. That didn't remove the churches or the belief from China, that just removed the foreigners, the missionaries from China.

40:04

Well, were there efforts made to eradicate the belief in churches from China by the government? There were, especially in Mao Zedong, who was the first chairman of China, especially did so later on in a more focused way.

40:25

I would say the answer to your question is yes, but he did so in an especially focused way between 1966 and 1976, which we call the

40:37

Cultural Revolution in China. So what happened was Mao tried to have a time where he implemented his view of economic reform and social reform in China.

40:48

He did so for, you know, between the period of 1949 and 1966.

40:54

And then in 1966, he came to the idea that he needed to have a complete revolution of the culture.

41:06

And in that culture, he decided he wanted to wipe away what he called the

41:11

Four Olds, old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. And he had said that, you know, these things were things that were poisoning the minds of the people.

41:23

So at that time, they made religion completely illegal in China. And that's not just Christianity.

41:29

That was all religion. So in that period from 1966 to 1976, and 1976 was the death of Mao.

41:39

So, you know, which pretty much marked the end of the Cultural Revolution and probably is the thing that caused it to come to an end, and where more, you know, more liberal -minded people in the

41:52

Communist Party came into power who had not so severe policies at that point.

41:58

But Mao did have this ten -year period where there were these young individuals that he had recruited called, they called them

42:07

Red Guards, where they would go around destroying all remnants of the old culture.

42:13

And that would include destroying buildings, destroying churches, or converting churches to other uses.

42:21

And the Cultural Revolution was not just against revolution. It was against religion.

42:26

It was against many different things that Mao considered to be, you know, anti -government and anti -the path that he was pursuing forward.

42:36

So many Chinese, even who were not religious, were persecuted during that time. I don't want to suggest that the

42:43

Cultural Revolution was against religion only. It was a much more broad and systematic thing that Mao was doing there.

42:52

But it had severe consequences for religion because it was completely outlawed at that time.

42:57

And it was a very dark period in China because families were routing each other out to the government, people being killed, family members betraying each other, things of that nature were happening.

43:14

So... Pretty much like Nazi Germany. Yes, it became very serious at that time.

43:21

Well, now, so let's take a step back, though, from that. Go back to the more to the early founding of communism.

43:29

Now, here you have the foreign missionaries gone, but the Church is still there. The Chinese people who are believers in Christ are still there.

43:38

And by the way, that includes Roman Catholics. Roman Catholicism had been in China longer than Protestantism, but they were both very heavily in the culture at that point of the

43:50

Communist Revolution. Probably... Well, anyway, I don't want to speculate on that.

43:56

But they were both very much heavily in the culture at that point. But now the foreign missionaries are gone.

44:02

The Chinese Church was still there. Now, there were differences of opinion among the

44:10

Chinese Christians as to how to handle the situation. And there were some who initiated what they called the

44:18

Three Self -Patriotic Movement. And this is very important because it continues until today.

44:25

Now, the Three Self -Patriotic Movement came from an idea that was actually first put forth by American missionaries.

44:36

There were these missionaries, Henry Vann and Rufus Anderson, who put in the late 1800s, they put forth the idea that when you establish churches, they should be self -governing, self -supporting, and self -propagating.

44:52

And those are actually very sound principles that we would hold to as, you know, generally biblical, you know, in terms of establishing churches.

45:02

Right. We don't want the government establishing our churches. And in fact, that's one of the principal things that is in the

45:09

Constitution of the United States, that we will not establish a religion as a government. Exactly.

45:15

And not only that, but when you establish a church, when a missionary establishes a church, his goal as a missionary, and this is what a true missionary does, his goal as a missionary is to make that become a self -sustaining church.

45:30

He's not there just doing evangelism in the culture. He is there to establish a self -sustaining church, a church that can support itself, a church that propagates the gospel itself.

45:43

So that was where the concept came from. But now here you have, in the early time of the

45:49

Communist Party, you have some Chinese Christians take this same concept, and what they say to the government is, look, we're going to take that concept and say this is a nationalistic concept.

46:03

It means we are free of the foreigners. We don't have foreign influence in our churches.

46:11

And so they took this, what otherwise might be a biblical concept of being self -governing, self -supporting, self -propagating, and they used it to be a nationalistic kind of thing in China to say, we are free from foreign influence.

46:27

We are pro -China, we are pro -government. So they made proposals to the government for having a union of churches that would basically support the

46:40

China government and be completely free of foreign influence. And you can probably understand why they were thinking this way, because they're under threat of obliteration, and they're thinking of how do we survive in this environment.

47:00

Now, there were other Chinese Christians who wanted nothing to do with the government. For them, the answer was to go underground completely and to not have any dealings with the government at all, not to have the government involved in religion at all.

47:18

So that was in 1951, that this concept of the Three -Self Patriotic Movement was put forth to the

47:26

China government. And in 1954, the China government approved it. Now, the thing is, it came with certain stipulations, and this is where the concept of churches registering came from.

47:38

So what would happen is that churches would be legal, they would be allowed, but they would have to register with the government.

47:48

The government would have to know who they are, the government would have to approve them, and the government would have to know who's on the rolls of the church.

47:58

And they would have to be completely free from any foreign influence or any foreign support.

48:04

And so those would be the terms. And there were other things involved, too, such as because of communist policy, they also didn't want these churches preaching from the

48:16

Book of Revelation. That's interesting. Right, and the second one is why you'll know why they don't want them preaching from Revelation, they also didn't want them preaching about the

48:28

Second Coming of Christ. And you can understand why.

48:34

I mean, to get to the mindset that I mentioned earlier, which is, the issue is not that, strictly speaking, they oppose religion itself, per se.

48:48

The issue is, there's a potential rival to the government.

48:54

And so Christ now could potentially be that rival. So if you're talking about Christ coming again, you know, this is something that potentially, at least in their minds, sets up someone who is, you know, of authority and someone to whom the people may even give greater authority.

49:17

Oh, great. Now you did it. We're going to have hyper -preterists sending missionaries by the thousands over to China now.

49:23

You know, I knew you were going to say that, Chris. I thought about that before the show.

49:29

I said, when I talk about this, Chris is going to mention preterism. He's going to mention preterism as a solution.

49:39

Well, actually not as a solution. I'm disheartened that they might send people over there. I am a partial preterist, but I obviously believe in the visible, physical, bodily return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead at the last day.

49:55

Amen, so do I. Yeah, and I'm with you on that, actually, Chris. I think I agree with that.

50:01

I think we're both Amillennial as well. Well, so you can see how this is developing.

50:08

Now, let me just talk a bit about the Catholic situation that was going on. The Roman Catholics, right?

50:14

Now, you can imagine that there is an inherent problem with Roman Catholicism when it comes to this situation going on in China, which is that they have a head of the church who is the pope.

50:31

And, in fact, they believe that this pope can speak authoritatively. And when he speaks authoritatively, that becomes

50:38

Roman Catholic dogma. And there were Americans, as you may know, who have been for centuries very leery of Roman Catholics.

50:52

I mean, I actually probably exaggerated the length because probably in the majority of the 20th century and 21st century, that doesn't exist too much.

51:03

As far as the reasons I'm giving now, there were many Americans that were leery of Catholics because they knew that they had a head who lived in another country,

51:16

Rome, and that they had to have allegiance to this foreign leader.

51:24

And so, therefore, there was conflict. There were people who radically opposed the candidacy and election of John F.

51:31

Kennedy for that reason. But anyway, I digress.

51:37

It's a good point, Chris. And the way to think about it is, the mindset is not, oh, let's take a look at the popes that we've seen and say, how do they seem to behave?

51:52

Oh, they're not bad in terms of governmental policy, you know, stirring up a revolt or anything like that.

52:01

So that's not a problem. No, they don't think in terms of that. They will think in terms of what could happen.

52:09

What could happen were the wrong guy to be there. And so that's more how they will think.

52:16

And they will also apply some of their own historical examples, some of which

52:21

I would like to talk about later, some because they're relevant to the subject, some actual events from Chinese history where they have proof cases of their own of where things have gone awry.

52:34

And so they will think in those terms. Okay, what would it mean if that pope actually ended up being a bad guy?

52:43

What do you mean, what if? I'm talking politically here.

52:50

All right. Well, even on that score, I mean, there are many people who think he's a

52:55

Marxist and communist and so on. But anyway, not that they would be bothered by that in China.

53:04

But you make a good correction of me there. But it's also important to understand that they really don't think doctrine.

53:14

They think politics and behavior of people and potential for people to gather and congregate and form a movement because that's how revolutions in China happen.

53:28

In fact, we have to pick up right where we left off because now we have to go to our midway break. It's longer than most breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

53:35

FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us this long break between our two major segments because they air their own commercials and public service announcements, some of which are required by the

53:46

FCC because they have to localize the program to Lake City, Florida. But if you have any questions, take this time to write them now for Brother Joe.

53:56

And the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And please also write down the information of our advertisers because the more you patronize our advertisers, the longer they are likely to remain our advertisers.

54:12

And that means the longer we are likely to remain on the air because we depend on our advertisers to exist due to the money involved in sponsoring this program.

54:22

So once again, if you have a question for Brother Joe on China, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

54:29

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. If you live outside the

54:35

USA, don't go away. We'll be right back with Brother Joe and more on China separating fact from fiction.

54:41

Hi, Phil Johnson here.

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I'm executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry, Grace to You. And I'm also an occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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So I'm delighted that my friend Chris Arnson and I will be heading down to Atlanta for the

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Brother Joe, as we separate fact from fiction in regard to China and learn more about its culture and theological climate, both past and present, we just have a couple of announcements to make.

01:08:00

First of all, there's some exciting events coming up on Friday, September 7th, 630 p .m.,

01:08:07

at the Gordon -Conwell Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida, their Jacksonville campus.

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I am involved in orchestrating an event with my dear friend of many years,

01:08:19

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and his dear friend, Dr. Michael L. Brown of the

01:08:25

Line of Fire program. They are going to be lecturing at Gordon -Conwell

01:08:31

Theological Seminary on the theme, A House Mended, Christian Unity in a Culture of Outrage.

01:08:37

If you want more details about this event, go to one of the church websites that is sponsoring this event with me.

01:08:45

That's SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org, SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org. Then, at Switzerland Community Church the next night, 630 p .m.

01:08:54

as well, there is a formal debate. Dr. James R. White and Dr.

01:08:59

Michael L. Brown are on the same team, and they will be debating two advocates of homosexuality within Christianity.

01:09:11

The theme is, Is Homosexuality Consistent with New Testament Obedience? And the debaters include, on the other side,

01:09:22

Reverend Ruth Jensen Forbel and Pastor Dwayne J.

01:09:28

Robinson. This, as I said, is being held again at 630 p .m.

01:09:34

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01:09:40

If you want more details, go to SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org, SwitzerlandCommunityChurch .org. Then, coming up on November 9th and 10th, the

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The theme is, The Glory of the Cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

01:10:00

It's being held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town. If you would like to join me there, November 9th and the 10th,

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I will be manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio there, God willing. Go to AllianceNet .org,

01:10:12

AllianceNet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

01:10:18

Then, coming up in January, January the 17th through the 19th, which is a

01:10:25

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01:10:31

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If you are a Spanish -speaking person, or if you know of Spanish -speaking and bilingual people who would like to attend, it is

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Nichols, the President of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul in Ligonier Ministries, and many more are on that lineup.

01:11:39

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Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Please tell all of these organizations that you heard about their events from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:12:09

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01:12:27

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01:13:54

And we are back with Brother Joe. And Brother Joe, before the break, as you may recall, you were talking about the political reasons that seem to be the primary cause for the

01:14:06

Chinese government to be suspicious about Roman Catholics because they swear an allegiance to a

01:14:13

Pope, which is a leader in a foreign country. Yes. So, and this will work in with my hopefully finally answering

01:14:22

CJ's question. There was a formation of a

01:14:32

Catholic association that happened in 1957 as a response to this concern.

01:14:39

It was called the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, CPCA. And what this was, was similar to what the

01:14:49

Protestants had done with the three self patriotic movement. This group of Catholics said that they were willing to not have ties with the

01:15:01

Vatican. And so in that case, they would be allowed to be legalized in China.

01:15:09

In this case, the appointment of bishops instead of coming from the hierarchy in the

01:15:15

Vatican would come from bishops who were in China, other Chinese bishops.

01:15:21

In addition to that, they would not be allowed to object to government policies, China government policies, and they would not be allowed to acknowledge any of the

01:15:32

Vatican's post 1949 dogma or doctrine. So under those stipulations, the

01:15:41

Catholic churches in China were allowed to also form an association and be legalized.

01:15:48

And those Catholic churches that were unwilling to do that, then similarly with to the

01:15:55

Protestant churches, they went underground. So what this results in is that you have a legalized

01:16:02

Protestant church in China, which is under the umbrella of the three self patriotic movement, a legalized

01:16:11

Catholic church in China, which is under the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

01:16:18

And then you have underground churches, which can be either

01:16:24

Protestant or Catholic, those who would not agree to those type of stipulations.

01:16:31

And those are what form the churches that you see now. Now, in terms of Chinese regulation,

01:16:39

Chinese regulations allow five religions in China, the

01:16:45

Christian Protestant religion, the Christian Catholic religion,

01:16:51

Buddhism, Taoism, and the fifth is what is the fifth?

01:17:01

Hinduism? No, not Hinduism. Taoism, Buddhism. Shintoism?

01:17:10

Swedenborgianism? Arminianism? I'm going to think of it in a second.

01:17:17

Well, you can come back to that. Yeah, I'll come back to it. I think there's five and not four.

01:17:25

I'm pretty sure there's five. So you're saying that Hinduism is illegal in China? Yes, Hinduism is not an acknowledged religion by the

01:17:34

China government. Neither is Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed. Mormonism is not allowed in China.

01:17:43

Only what they consider to be those religions that had historic acceptance and scriptural basis.

01:17:57

Okay, I'm trying to think of what that other religion could be. You got my curiosity brewing here.

01:18:03

But let me know when you have completed a thought because I do want to try to get some listener questions in.

01:18:09

Oh, I'm sorry. It's Islam, of course. Oh, that's acceptable. Okay, that is interesting because I'll bring that to your attention.

01:18:19

Well, let me bring it up now, if you don't mind. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:18:30

I have heard it confirmed from Florida Senator Marco Rubio that the

01:18:37

Chinese government has detained possibly millions of Muslims in China.

01:18:43

And these would be Chinese Muslims, not foreign Muslims, who are immigrants there.

01:18:49

Does this mean that the Chinese government is also going to be preparing to be heavily handed with Christians as well, in your opinion?

01:19:02

You know, so let me say it this way. The China government puts religious regulations for all five of those religions,

01:19:10

Islam included, under the same umbrella. So to the China government, they don't distinguish theologies of these religions.

01:19:20

They don't compare and say that one is inherently better than the other. China has a large portion of minorities who are

01:19:30

Muslim. They are part of the Chinese heritage, part of longstanding Chinese heritage.

01:19:36

So it is not illegal to be a Muslim in China. I had some friends in China who are

01:19:42

Muslims, also people who I worked with. So it is not illegal to be

01:19:48

Muslim. Being Muslim by itself does not invite persecution. So when these type of incidents happen, there is typically something going on that's a spark for it.

01:20:04

For example, there are disputed territories in China. Tibet is a very disputed territory, and there's been a lot of issues with that.

01:20:12

But that's mostly Buddhism. But there's another province called Xinjiang in China, which is primarily

01:20:19

Buddhist. They call them the Uyghur people. They're primarily Buddhists.

01:20:25

And there are also, I'm sorry, Muslims. They're primarily Muslims. And there are

01:20:30

Muslims as well in some of the southern provinces in China, where a large portion of the province would be

01:20:37

Muslim. So Islam is allowed. And, you know, being a

01:20:43

Muslim in itself would not merit such a thing. But more generally, to answer the question, the religious climate has been tightening in China.

01:20:54

And that is true. And if you want, we can talk about it, Chris. But there have been certain incidents that have concerned the

01:21:04

Chinese government. And, you know, whether they overreact to these things or not is one thing.

01:21:13

But, you know, over time, there have been incidents that sort of color the way the

01:21:20

Chinese government thinks about religion. And again, it's not strictly speaking that they're thinking about the theology.

01:21:27

They're more thinking about where would the population potentially go with it in terms of organizing and in terms of potentially causing disturbance among society or disturbance in terms of where they want to bring the communist program and agenda.

01:21:48

By the way, can you can you clarify if you know, why is it that the

01:21:54

Chinese government has detained possibly millions of Muslims? I don't know the incident to which he's specifically referring.

01:22:03

But I know there I know, I know that there are disputes over territory, for example, in parts of China.

01:22:13

So, you know, I don't want to necessarily confuse that kind of a thing, which that might be with with what's going on in terms of religion.

01:22:22

You know, in other words, in other words, that there are minorities in China, who are a particular religion.

01:22:31

Now the fact that they are that religion, you know, and they live in a certain area of China, now that area may be disputed.

01:22:39

The fact that they are that religion does not necessarily mean that that religion itself per se is the issue.

01:22:47

There can be other things going on. You know, for example, the region is disputed, the the leadership of the region is disputed or something of that nature.

01:22:56

And so, you know, you have to look at each incident as its own incident and not necessarily assume that it's a really a form of religious persecution.

01:23:07

And this is where we can be a little too harsh at times, even against the China government. You know, you want to you want to be sure you know the facts of each situation before making an assessment that it qualifies as religious persecution.

01:23:20

And I'm not saying that the listener did, I just I'm just speaking generally, because it's it's a good thing to be aware of.

01:23:29

Okay. Did you want to move on with that same issue? Or do you want me to take a listener, another listener question?

01:23:36

Well, why don't I give you, why don't I give you like a couple of incidents that have happened? And then take a listener question.

01:23:43

Because, you know, these incidents may give some insight into why the government gets concerned.

01:23:50

In the in the mid 1850s, right around the time we had our civil war going on here, there was a very large rebellion in China.

01:24:00

And it began with one individual, a man, his name was Hong Xiuquan.

01:24:06

And this man believed himself to be the Chinese son of God and the younger brother of Jesus.

01:24:15

And he was able to get himself a following. And that that group grew and eventually became quite a large group.

01:24:24

They called themselves the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. And eventually there was a revolution between them and the

01:24:31

Qing government in China. It was probably one of the largest civil wars ever in history.

01:24:38

Wow. And they were about the by the time this thing reached its full climax, the the people who were underneath this cultic leader were about 30 million strong.

01:24:55

And, you know, estimates are in anywhere from like 20 to 70 million people who died in this civil war uprising.

01:25:02

So, you know, now here you have an individual who's calling himself the brother of Jesus.

01:25:09

And, you know, that's that's not like the only type of incident of something like that.

01:25:15

More recently, there's been in China, there is another there's a cult.

01:25:21

And I think this this cult may have much to do with the recent tightening of the

01:25:27

Chinese law in regard to religion. But there's this cult called the Eastern Lightning Cult, sometimes called the

01:25:33

Church of Almighty God. And it began with in the early 90s, 1990s, with a

01:25:41

Chinese woman who claimed to be the second coming of Jesus. So she's a woman, but she's claiming herself to be

01:25:49

God incarnate, God Almighty, the second coming of Jesus. And always a good red light that should go off in your mind.

01:25:58

Well, that's the thing, Chris, you would think so, right? You would think so. And yet, this woman was able to gain quite a following.

01:26:06

And so here you have and and this is why we have to, you know, we need to take away some themes from our discussion today.

01:26:12

And one of the themes is the tremendous need in China for good, sound teaching of the

01:26:18

Bible, because it's only when people don't know the Bible that they can be deceived by these kind of things.

01:26:25

And so one of the disadvantages of having, you know, a culture that has come out of a mysticism, you know, folk religions where there was a lot of ancestor worship, and where there was a lot of mysticism, you know, coming over time, you know, couple that with, you know, a lack of education among a large part of the population.

01:26:50

And add to that the fact that they're not taught the Bible well.

01:26:55

They haven't been exposed to sound teachers of the Bible, where they understand the scriptures in the way that we would, things that we would take for granted.

01:27:04

So when people come to them with these kind of messages, they're not aware at first glance, at first hearing, that there's something very wrong with this message.

01:27:15

They're not aware of it. So this woman and her followers were able to build up quite a following, and that cult persists until today.

01:27:25

Now, the Chinese government claims that they're roughly three to four million strong, this cult of following.

01:27:32

And I believe that the woman and the other leaders of that religion have exiled themselves, possibly to the

01:27:42

United States even. But they still run this religion. And the

01:27:48

China government has accused them of a lot of things. Now, it's not clear whether they've in fact done all those things that they've been accused of.

01:27:56

But one of the main things that they've been accused of is this McDonald's cult murder that happened in 2014,

01:28:05

May of 2014, where a woman was killed by supposed, alleged followers of this cult.

01:28:15

What we know for sure is that they were followers of some cult who attacked this woman.

01:28:20

And this was at a McDonald's franchise? Yes, the real McDonald's franchise location, where individuals from a cult, and it's alleged by the

01:28:32

China government to be that cult, who entered that McDonald's and were, uh, claim themselves to be missionaries and were evangelizing individuals in that McDonald's.

01:28:46

And they were asking for contact information. And supposedly, one of the women that they asked, who they asked for the contact information, did not give it to them.

01:28:56

And they had some sort of altercation. And they began to beat her with a broomstick in McDonald's, and the woman died.

01:29:05

So now this incident, now whether it's whether it truly happened that way, and whether it really was that, you know, cult, you know, these things are hard, hard for outsiders to know and prove.

01:29:18

But, but the point is that these type of things are, are part of how the

01:29:25

Chinese government may be thinking about religions. In other words, what is the potential danger of people getting it wrong, of people going astray.

01:29:37

So things like this have been going on. And now we have to go to our last break.

01:29:42

It's going to be a lot briefer than the last one. If anybody wants to send in a question, do it now, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:29:47

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be back after these messages with more of Brother Joe, and our discussion on China.

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01:39:16

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned to SYN, our guest today for the entirety of the program is

01:39:22

Brother Joe, and we are talking about China separating fact from fiction. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question,

01:39:29

I would do it now because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

01:39:35

And Joe, if you could pick up where you left off, and then we will try to get to as many of our listeners waiting as we possibly can fit into the time.

01:39:44

Okay, why don't I just close out what I was saying before. The incidents

01:39:49

I mentioned, I mentioned them for a reason, which is to highlight the thought that we need missionaries to go to China.

01:40:00

We need sound teaching in China, as I've mentioned. It's so important, and so I encourage everyone to pray about that.

01:40:08

And if there are young people listening to think about whether you might go, there are many opportunities to share the gospel in China.

01:40:17

And the second reason I mention it is I don't like to draw attention to that one cult itself.

01:40:25

I've met some of those individuals, and what I found is they were very peaceful individuals. I don't think that cult itself is violent in any way.

01:40:33

If that incident did occur, I think it's probably an isolated incident. But the reason these things are important is because they create a perception, and really it's the perception sometimes that matters in the way policy is made and in the way religion is viewed.

01:40:54

And so that's another thing to pray about, is that these type of things that really happen as, you know, very unusual, strange incidents, or where cults are active, things of that nature would not give the

01:41:09

Christian Church in China a bad name. I've had many Chinese compliment me on being a

01:41:16

Christian, say how highly they thought of me because of my Christian beliefs and practice and the way

01:41:23

I treated them. And that's really the Christianity that we want to see portrayed in China. But there are also these cults that emerge, and there are also these strange teachings that occur.

01:41:35

And so there's this, you know, competition going on. And so long as the sound teaching is not brought into a large percentage of that Christian population,

01:41:49

I think we're going to continue to see this kind of thing happening. Okay, well, we have

01:41:54

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and she wants to know if it's fact or fiction that you should not put your grandmother's

01:42:02

China in a microwave. Well, that's a different kind of China. I'm only kidding, she didn't ask that. Her real question is, what can the average

01:42:13

Christian expect when they arrive on the shores of China? Should they expect to freely pass out tracts on street corners?

01:42:24

Are most Christian activities done openly without fear of persecution and prosecution?

01:42:30

Or are there things that still need to be done covertly and secretively?

01:42:36

That's a very good question. So generally speaking, what the China government cares about is organized religion.

01:42:44

So if there are groups that are organizing and those organizations become very large, that's where they may begin to draw attention.

01:42:54

The China government is very well aware of the underground churches. There are many of them, probably more than half of the

01:43:02

Christians in China are in underground churches. It's not something that the

01:43:08

China government is unaware of, and it's not something that they could not find out if they really wanted to.

01:43:16

If the China government wanted to put their resources into finding these individuals, they could do it.

01:43:22

So the situation in China has been one of tolerance. They're aware of it.

01:43:27

So long as the groups of individuals who congregate in these underground house churches are small enough and are not making waves and are not drawing attention to themselves, the government generally leaves them alone.

01:43:42

Now, you have to couple that with the fact that China not only has the central government, the central communist government, but every locality also has its own government.

01:43:53

So the local conditions dictated by the local governments also become very important in terms of what is allowable and what is not.

01:44:04

But generally speaking, you as an individual would not have any problem sharing your faith with your friends, sharing it openly.

01:44:13

If you are evangelizing, it's probably not wise to do it very openly in front of many people, such as handing out tracts in the open.

01:44:22

That probably would draw attention. That's generally not done. Evangelism is generally done in private and generally done among people you meet or know.

01:44:33

But having said that, speaking of your faith, sharing your faith with your friends, colleagues, co -workers, those things are generally fine and not scrutinized in any kind of way.

01:44:45

Now, let's say a pastor is preaching about the sins of atheism or something to that effect, calling upon the government to repent of atheism, asking people in the congregation to pray that the leaders of China become saved by the mercy of God and become

01:45:08

Christians and abandon their What would that be considered? Traitorism?

01:45:16

How would that be viewed? That would be considered subversive. So that kind of talk would probably, if it occurs, would only be happening in underground churches.

01:45:27

You would never see that kind of speech happening in government -registered churches.

01:45:34

The simple reason being that government -registered churches are very easily monitored for that kind of speech.

01:45:41

So I think this goes back to one of the listeners' questions earlier, to what degree is a church considered, you know, he said a puppet church.

01:45:49

I don't like to use that terminology. I think it's too strong. Churches which are publicly registered certainly do need to be very cautious in terms of the language that they use, especially as regards issues of politics.

01:46:06

So they will not be speaking openly on issues like that. And you will hear the gospel preached, by the way, in case people have that question.

01:46:17

You will hear the gospel preached in government -registered churches. It's not that the gospel is absent.

01:46:24

Sometimes it becomes a matter of things that are not said, you know, less so than the things that are said being wrong.

01:46:35

Okay, let's see here. We have John in Bangor, Maine, who wants to know, he says,

01:46:43

I'm sorry I tuned in late. I was wondering, what was the difference between how

01:46:49

Christians may have been persecuted before the rise of communism in China, persecution

01:46:57

I'm speaking of particularly perhaps by those of native religions in China, other than Christianity, and when the rise of communism came?

01:47:07

Was there any different level of severity of persecution? Was one more severe than the other?

01:47:15

Well, the primary difference would be the government sponsoring of whatever is going on.

01:47:23

So, you know, post -communism, and particularly if you think of the Cultural Revolution, whatever was happening against individuals and churches was sanctioned by the government.

01:47:35

So that would be, you know, potentially one difference. That doesn't mean all prior governments were pro -Christian, but there was a particular focus that happened after 1949.

01:47:52

But that's not to say that there was not persecution of Christians prior to that.

01:47:57

If you look at, I would recommend people to read about Hudson Taylor, who was in China from the mid -1800s to the early 1900s, and he had a lot of difficulties in his mission in China, and he had a lot of successes.

01:48:14

So, you know, there were times when we encountered them, when they looked at how he dressed, they called him a black devil, because he was dressing differently from the way they were dressing.

01:48:27

And that was one thing that caused Hudson Taylor to change the way he dressed. And he got the heat from American Christians for that, or was it

01:48:36

British? That's true. Primarily British, probably, but perhaps also Americans. But yes, he changed the way he dressed to match the

01:48:43

Chinese customs. And I believe he had a right way of viewing it, there were some things about culture that the

01:48:52

Bible would be neutral about. I guess the long ponytail might have been up for grabs on that one.

01:49:03

Unless you're in the PCA. But anyway, we have

01:49:08

Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, what is the most thriving theological group or denomination or association or fellowship amongst

01:49:25

Christians in China? The most thriving? Yeah. Yes.

01:49:30

You know, recent estimates, recent reasonable, you know, we have

01:49:39

China government estimates, which it's hard to say exactly where they land with respect to precise reality.

01:49:48

But we have recent estimates from, say, 2010 to 2011, about how many

01:49:54

Christians are in China. And some of those go very high. You know, estimates, you see, and even if you read the books, estimates will go high, you know, into well above 100 million, you know, and then some estimates will go low into below 20 million.

01:50:11

And so the truth is somewhere in the middle. And I saw some reasonable, what looked to me upon reading it was some reasonable estimates in the 2010 -2011 timeframe of there being in the range of, say, 60 million or so total

01:50:31

Christians in China at that time. And so, you know, consider that on a population of 1 .4

01:50:38

billion, about 60 million Christians. Now, if you look at those, now,

01:50:46

Christians, you know, that would include Roman Catholics. There may be 9 million Roman Catholics in that number.

01:50:52

So I'm sorry, no, that it's about 67 without the Roman Catholics. So with the

01:50:59

Roman Catholics, 67. So if you take out 9 million Roman Catholics from that, that would put you at about 58 million

01:51:05

Protestants in China at that time. And more than, I would say, about well over half of those were in house churches.

01:51:14

So probably the underground house church movement in China is the dominant

01:51:20

Christian form of religion. But the largest religion in China, by far, is

01:51:27

Buddhism. Buddhism had entered China in the early centuries after the coming of Christ.

01:51:37

And Taoism also entered in a similar time period. But Buddhism very quickly became the dominant religion, possibly because it, rather than Christianity, it more easily aligned with Chinese local folk beliefs and superstitions,

01:51:58

I would say. So Buddhism, in other words, became a much easier and more convenient religion for them to believe and syncretize with their local traditions.

01:52:10

Christianity, on the contrary, would be a religion that very much conflicts or contradicts some of those things that they believe, such as ancestor worship, such as burning money to your dead ancestors so that they can buy riches in the afterlife, things of that nature that would have been practiced in the

01:52:33

Chinese culture. So Buddhism, took more rapidly and earlier, much earlier than Christianity, and for that reason is the dominant religion in China.

01:52:48

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York says, if things are as free as you say they are in China, why does an underground church exist and why is it the most flourishing?

01:53:04

Am I coming across as saying it's free? Wow. Well, you basically were saying that as long as you're not doing things that are drawing too much attention to yourself, unless you're not passing out tracks in public or contradicting the government being communist.

01:53:23

Got it, got it. Yeah, that's actually a good question and it's following up on my answer to the previous question,

01:53:30

I understand now. So that gives me something important to talk about.

01:53:37

Keep in mind now, the government -registered churches, which you, if you want to be a

01:53:44

Christian in line with government law, you would have to attend the government -registered church as opposed to an underground church.

01:53:53

But remember, to do so to do so means that you're accepting certain conditions.

01:54:00

So you will have freedom within those conditions. You will have the freedom to go to church every

01:54:06

Sunday and go home and nobody is going to hinder you. But you will not have the freedom to have a

01:54:13

Sunday school where you teach children about the Bible. You will not have the freedom to have political discussions in the church that are disagreeing with government policies.

01:54:27

Remember the things we said earlier about preaching certain aspects of Christ's return,

01:54:33

Christ's lordship, the emphasis of Christ's lordship, which may be under -emphasized in those churches because of political sensitivities.

01:54:45

You have to submit to a certain degree of monitoring of your religion. If you're on the membership rolls, then you're going to be known to be a

01:54:54

Christian officially. And things of that nature are, you know, and then how does that play with you being in a communist society if there's ever trouble?

01:55:06

So these things are potentially big concerns for people.

01:55:11

So, you know, every person, now this is not just for Chinese Christians, but everyone in China is, that I know, my friends, and even when

01:55:21

I was there, you're very aware that there is a powerful government above you and that you don't contradict that government.

01:55:30

You just, you don't. And you're living in that situation and the more that's known about you, you know, and the more you're associated with that open church, you're going to be restricting yourself in some ways and also making yourself known in other ways.

01:55:48

And so many Christians, but you know, choose to be in underground churches. But I would say the primary reason, the primary reason has to do with their belief that to be theologically pure and to be able to teach the

01:56:03

Bible in an unadulterated way, they have to be in a church that has no restrictions.

01:56:08

Okay, we have Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia. I have heard that there is widespread women leadership in the

01:56:15

Chinese churches. Is that because the Chinese Christian men are not stepping up or some other reason?

01:56:22

First of all, yes, it's true. There is. In the Chinese registered churches,

01:56:28

I've been to many of them, and if you look at the eldership in those churches, you will find almost universally that roughly 50 % or more is female.

01:56:42

That was a surprising fact to me when I moved and lived in China, but that is the fact.

01:56:49

And it's pretty much universal. The same is true for the seminaries in China. The students who are at the seminaries, it's roughly half and half, if not even more weighted toward females.

01:57:01

There can be multiple reasons for it. I tend to think that China has a...

01:57:13

Mao Zedong, you know, the first chairman of China, I think he empowered women in certain ways that were to his political advantage, and women have a lot of power in the

01:57:27

Chinese culture. They're not, you know, like we may portray them in the movies here in the

01:57:33

West. They do have a lot of power in the culture, they have a lot of power in the family. The only place you don't see them having a lot of power is in the top echelons of government, but, you know, where you'll see the dominant...

01:57:48

you'll see it dominated by men. But I think it's partly because of the way

01:57:55

Mao empowered women for his own political advantage, partly because of the way the culture has empowered women in the home and in society, and partly, yes, because men over time have not stepped up to do the things that they should do.

01:58:11

And I heard... I've had discussions with women pastors where I was showing them why biblically they should not be in that position, and they said to me, but if I don't do it, no one will.

01:58:22

Well, we have to go on to our final question now. Johnny from Queens, New York. With so many fringe quote -unquote

01:58:29

Christian ministries, that's fringe ministries, and our reach... and our reaches...

01:58:36

outreaches, I think he meant to say, influencing Chinese churches with unbiblical experiences and teachings, how can the

01:58:43

West be used to equip the underground Chinese church with more faithful biblical teaching to ground them in a solid biblical understanding?

01:58:50

Well, first of all, we have to send... we have to send qualified pastors.

01:58:57

That's one thing. We have to also do training of Chinese leaders.

01:59:03

I think training of Chinese leaders is incredibly important. I've seen some of that done, but there needs to be much more done.

01:59:10

And Chinese leaders are very open to being trained by Western men who have more experience than they do.

01:59:18

So I think that's one thing we need to do more of, but ultimately sending people who are qualified, qualified, biblically qualified pastors into the country to teach and to help those churches.

01:59:31

Well, we are out of time, Brother Joey, and I just want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write.

01:59:38

I want to thank you, Brother Joe, for being our guest today. I want to tell all of you that I hope that you have a safe and wonderful and joyful weekend and Lord's Day, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater