One of the leading Christians of twentieth-century China was Wang Mingdao, a man who at enormous cost helped grow the house church movement that has kept biblical Christianity alive there.
Wang Mingdao was born in 1900 during the bloodshed of the Boxer Rebellion. He grew up in poverty but had a good education at a Christian mission school. Becoming a Christian at the age of fourteen, Mingdao began to sense a call to be a church leader. Even at an early age he displayed his defining characteristics: a longing for a church with the power and purity of New Testament times and a refusal to compromise over principles. Employed at a mission school, he lost his job and the possibility of studying abroad because of his stand on baptism. Unemployed, for the next few years he immersed himself in Bible study.
After seventy years of heroic missionary effort, Bible-based Christianity was established in China. Nevertheless, two problems had emerged. One was that the foreign denominations remained so dominant that many Chinese believers felt their faith was far too Western. A second and linked issue was that many Western churches taught a liberal Christianity that challenged the Bible. Mingdao, taking a stand both for his culture and a historic Christianity, started his own fellowship meetings in his home. His preaching and teaching were well received and he soon opened the Christian Tabernacle, a church in Beijing which, as it grew, drew in hundreds for worship.
Mingdao was uncompromising. He demanded that Christians live consistently with their beliefs: devout, generous and free from immorality. He fearlessly attacked social corruption, false prophets and any form of liberal belief. Although he was on good terms with the more biblical missionaries, he was careful to remain independent from foreign influences.
In 1926 he began publishing a paper, Spiritual Food Quarterly, which encouraged both an authentically holy Christian life and a resistance to liberal teaching. Mingdao married in 1928 but family life did not stop him travelling widely across China as a preacher. His influence spread through his publishing and preaching, and by the late 1930s he had been influential in the creation of numerous independent churches, many of which were based in homes.
Mingdao’s rejection of any connection between church and state repeatedly led him into trouble. When the Japanese occupied Beijing just before World War Two, they demanded that all churches join a Japanese-controlled church federation. Mingdao, by now one of China’s most respected Christians, refused and was somehow spared.
A greater test began in 1949 when Mao Tse-tung and his Communist Party seized power in China and began erasing all Western influence. The authorities sought to neutralise Christianity by creating the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), a church which claimed the ideals of being self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. In reality, it was a state body presenting a strictly controlled liberal faith that took a pro-government line. Although the main Protestant denominations, weakened by the departure of foreign workers, were easily absorbed by the TSPM, the house churches, dispersed, faithful and secretive, resisted assimilation.
Mingdao was initially spared persecution in a hope that he might use his influence to bring the house churches into the TSPM. He refused and instead openly opposed the state church. As a result, he came under ferocious pressure. Accusation meetings were held where congregations were encouraged to denounce their pastors. However, Mingdao’s transparent and moral lifestyle meant that no one could find anything to accuse him of.
In 1955, along with his wife and church members, Mingdao was arrested for refusing to join the Three-Self church. He was subjected to harsh prison conditions designed to break his spirit. Within months, in poor health and worried about his wife, he crumbled. Mingdao pleaded for mercy, signed a confession and promised to join the TSPM.
Out of prison, Mingdao found his troubled conscience accused him. He repented, and aware of God’s forgiveness, openly refused to join the TSPM. Inevitably, he and his wife were returned to prison. Mingdao was to spend the next twenty-two years in prison, where he suffered abuse and deteriorating health.
Nearly blind and deaf, Mingdao was released in 1980. Honoured at home and abroad he returned to preaching. He died in 1991, his wife dying a year later.
Wang Mingdao was a great preacher and uncompromising figure with whom many of us might struggle. Yet he was clearly the man for his time and place. The low-key, fluid and mobile independent house churches that he encouraged have not just survived but thrived under seventy years of state persecution. It is perfectly probable that today there are a hundred million believers in China, many in house churches.
Looking at the life of Wang Mingdao I see several heroic virtues.
First, Mingdao was a man of deep reflection. He compensated for his theological teaching by reading the Bible, memorising it and meditating deeply on it. He spoke of how during his prison years he came to a deep and rich knowledge of God. It’s challenging to think that in his imprisonment Mingdao enjoyed God more than many of us do in our freedom.
Second, Mingdao was a man of deep resolution. Every Christian in every age is under pressure to have their faith distorted by the world. Mingdao stood firm in many battles, not just in those lasting hours or days, but over long decades. True, under enormous stress he broke, but only briefly.
Finally, Mingdao was a man who knew a deep restoration. Like Peter he failed God, but like Peter he came back to the Lord and was restored.
Wang Mingdao played a major part in creating one of the largest churches in the world. That’s quite an achievement, but perhaps the greatest lesson he has left us is not his path to success but his road out of failure.
J.John
Reverend Canon
