The Cross and Suffering

I went on to illustrate: "In recent Chinese history, there was an incident in Shandong Province in 1897, in which two German missionaries were killed. Using this incident as a pretext, the German government deployed warships to occupy the Gulf of Jiaozhou. In March the following year, the Chinese government (Qing Dynasty) was compelled to sign an unfair treaty with Germany. This was recorded in history as the Incident of the Gulf of Jiaozhou. When the two missionaries were martyred for the Lord, their wives were also in China. They clarified their positions to the German government saying that their husbands were martyred for the gospel of Jesus Christ and that the government should not have used this incident as a pretext for the invasion of China. What is a true Christian church? Look, this is one! These missionaries were true servants of Jesus Christ. In obedience to the Lord and in submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit, they had left their own country, families and friends to preach in a foreign land. For the name of the Lord and for preaching the gospel, they had endured a great deal of sufferings and difficulties in respect of lifestyles, language, habits and social systems, willingly laying down their lives in the end. Except for those Christian churches or Christian members who have fallen away from the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit, Christianity cannot be used by imperialists as a tool for invasion."

I gave another illustration, "In the early 17 th Century, a huge and well-known Company in India, named East India Company, was a private joint- venture of Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain. After a long period of internal strife, the British merchants took over control of the Company. The British Government then exercised economic invasion of India through the East India Company. They purchased raw materials at low prices and, after simple courses of processing, sold the products at considerably higher prices. Consequently, the country of India became poorer and poorer. Some missionaries who were preaching in India at the time pointed out to the British government that such were mean acts of exploitation. When the East India Company learned about this, they were enraged and declared that their ships would cease carrying missionaries to and from India. Given the poor transportation systems of the 19 th Century, such an act of retaliation resulted in great hindrance to the mission work of the British churches. Not only did the journey take as long as half a year by land, it was very dangerous and difficult. It is clear from this illustration that those Christian churches and missionaries who truly obeyed the Lord and walked in His light have nothing to do with cultural invasion. Quite the opposite, a number of missionaries have brought into China, besides the gospel, certain western technologies - an early example being Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) who translated the books The Principles of Geometry and The Basics of Astronomy."

In short, because of my persistence, I was regarded as a diehard. (This was also why I was later labeled as "counter-revolutionary" and taken under escort to the Labor Camp - see Chapter 2.)

Let me reiterate one point here: In both the New and the Old Testaments of the Bible, we are told time and again that we, as children of God, are opposed to oppression and exploitation of anyone, whether it be our neighbor, a foreigner, the orphaned, the widowed, the poor or the afflicted - God forbids us. Here are some biblical verses in this regard: "you shall not be like a money-lender to him; you shall not charge him interest" (Ex. 22:25); "... the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you... you shall not keep his pledge overnight; you shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down ..." (Deut. 24:11-13); "you shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy; ... each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it" (Deut. 24:14, 15); "if a ... man ... is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed. You shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord has blessed you with, you shall give to him" (Deut. 15:12-14). True Christians and churches act according to God"s words and have absolutely nothing to do with "imperialist invasion."

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