Christianity Sees Explosive Growth in China – Eric Metaxas

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In 1992, Bei Cun, considered to be one of China’s leading avant-garde writers, did something that really shocked his readers and admirers: He converted to Christianity.

But given the explosive growth of Christianity in China, it shouldn’t be all that surprising.

If you haven’t heard of Bei Cun, that’s okay. Neither had I, probably because his work hasn’t been translated into English. I only learned of his story because my BreakPoint colleague and friend Roberto Rivera recently read Philip Jenkins book, “The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South,” which tells Bei’s story.

After becoming a Christian, Bei wrote what Jenkins calls a “Kafkaesque story” entitled “The Marriage of Zhang Sheng.” In it, the protagonist, a scholar, opens a Chinese-language Bible and happens upon Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”

The passage leaves Zhang’s “intellectual assumptions in ruins.” Bei, just like his literary creation and hopefully his readers, interprets it as pointing out “the failure of relying upon mere human ideologies that neglect God.”

In an officially communist state, this is an “explosive” thing to say. The story ends with Zhang embracing Christianity just as Bei did.

In China, intellectuals and the avant-garde are running toward Christianity, while their Western counterparts tend to run away from it, if they’re not denouncing it.

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