Former USA President George Bush and his wife recently visited Pastor Kang Xuequing, a stout, silver-haired pastor at Beijing's Protest Chongwenmen Church during a tour of Asia. Kang, 67, was Bush's tennis partner as well as pastor when Bush was based in Beijing as USA Ambassador to China from 1974 to 1975.

The congregation laughed when Bush told how he rode a bicycle to services years earlier. However, on this occasion he arrived in a 20-car motorcade.  Kang gave the Bushes hymnals and a Chinese Bible, along with a tape cassette of choir music for the Bush's daughter, Dorothy.  Bush in turn gave Kang a black leather pulpit size Bible.  Bush said, "Sometimes our problems can seem bigger than life itself, intractable and fearsome. But I am convinced that with each other, that with our faith in God, we can meet any challenge, and we will."

The Bush's daughter, Dorothy, was baptized by Kung as a teenager when Bush was head of the U.S. mission to China.  In those days services were held in a single room at another location, and attendance was restricted to foreigners.  Bush described the church as "our home away from home" in the 1970s, and he borrowed a theme from sermons Billy Graham preached in China: "Some things change, some things never change."

Before former Chinese leader, Chairman Mao Tse Tung came to power in 1948, there were only 700,000 Chinese Christians in this country.  Today there are more than 8 million in the official government regulated church and a reported unofficial house church movement of 80-100 million.  It is estimated that 25,000 to 30,000 are becoming believers daily and every 36 hours Christian official's claim that a new church opens up somewhere in China.

"Society has a need for Christianity," related Pastor Kang.  "People are looking for reliable and believable things, and they find that God is dependable."   Kang spent 10 years being "re-educated" in a factory, in which he was forced to bow 100 times to a picture of Chairman Mao. But he returned to the church full-time in 1979 after Deng Xiaoping came to power.

"Chinese youth are becoming disillusioned with empty Marxist slogans and corruption in the Communist party and are turning to Christianity in record numbers, according to a recent report in Newsweek.  "So many Communist Party members don't practice what Marxism preaches," said Chen Yinghui, a Protestant student at Beijing's teachers' college. "They give us nothing to believe in."

Another student agreed with Yinghui: "Party members are not the ones helping others. They just do things to get ahead. But Christians do good deeds without telling anyone about it." Although few students attend church, Bibles, which were once forbidden, are now being purchased at more than double the official price.

Party officials have become concerned about "Christianity fever" and recently reviewed an internal report on the reasons for the growing popularity of Christianity, especially among intellectuals and young people. The report was prepared by the Hong Kong based Chinese Church Research Center and compiled by two writers from the government funded, New China News Agency who visited several cities. The writers described the growth of "Christianity fever" as being due to government corruption and the Communist party.

According to the report, some Chinese have turned to Christianity to find happiness or because Christians have shown them kindness. However, the report added that most of the Christian activities are harmless to the development of the country's socialist civilization.

In a culture that upholds atheistic values, church leaders are careful not to offend the government or the Communist Party.  Foreign evangelists are outlawed, however underground churches are growing at a much faster rate than the official church, as Chinese believers are leading their fellow countrymen as evangelists, Pastors and missionaries.  Christians from other countries travel to China as tourists and foreign workers bringing written materials in Chinese assisting believers in China.  The need for Bibles and teaching materials is reaching staggering proportions since the vast majority does not have their own Bible.

Love to Serve Newsletter Copyright 2000