Billy Graham in China: Building Bridges

SPECIAL REPORT

It is still too early to appraise the full implications of evangelist Billy Graham’s recent three-week, five-city preaching visit to the People’s Republic of China, say analysts. But a number of Chinese Protestant leaders said in interviews that the visit boosted church-and-state relations to the best level since the Communists came to power in 1949.

Among surprises:

• Graham received nationwide coverage by Chinese television and the press, the first such attention given an American preacher or any evangelist ever. Pastors said the resulting public recognition of the church was a big plus for them.

• Newly chosen premier Li Peng unexpectedly summoned Graham to a 50-minute meeting. The main topic: Christianity and its potential role in China’s future. China needs “moral power” and “spiritual forces” if it is to prosper, Li volunteered. He also admitted candidly: “The Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief, but in the past we didn’t practice it in full. We are trying to correct the past.…” Veteran China hands thought it significant that the acknowledgement was reported in the Chinese press, a sure sign Li wanted it made public.

• Graham met with independent house-church leaders in several cities and spoke at a thriving but unofficial house church in Shanghai—with the knowledge, if not the blessing, of authorities and leaders of the officially sanctioned Protestant body, the China Christian Council (CCC). House-church congregations independent from the ccc have been harassed in some parts of China. But members of independent congregations now number in the millions, and they are multiplying steadily.

• The evangelist also met privately in Shanghai with ailing 86-year-old Wang Mingdao, one of the best-known churchmen in modern Chinese church history. “Be faithful unto death,” admonished Wang, who spent years in prison for his faith and is revered by many independent house-church pastors. The fact that he received Graham—a guest of the CCC—made the evangelist acceptable in the eyes of many house-church leaders and could, analysts theorize, cast the evangelist as a bridge builder between the ccc and the independents.

No Altar Calls

Graham preached to overflow crowds at Beijing Christian Church in the capital’s Chongwenmen district, at Mu-en (“Bathed in Grace”) Church and Pure Heart Church in Shanghai, and at pastor Samuel Lamb’s booming 1,000-member house church in Guangzhou. The Mu-en Church borrowed an elementary school next door to help accommodate the crowd of 3,000. There were no altar calls, but pastors told of persons who had received Christ in the services, and CBS Television aired the account of a university student who visited the Beijing church to hear Graham and said she had become a believer as a result.

The evangelist met with religious and government leaders in all the cities, and he addressed university and other academic gatherings in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai. Faculty and students alike quizzed him about spiritual and moral issues. A department head said Graham’s appearance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing was the first time Christianity was ever discussed seriously there.

In his meetings with political and academic leaders, the evangelist explained the meaning of the Christian faith. He repeatedly urged his listeners to make room for moral and spiritual renewal in China’s modernization program and to look on believers as assets in that regard. Addressing the question of world peace, he declared it could come only as individuals and nations turn to God.

In Huaiyin, as thousands lined the streets to watch, the Grahams toured the former Presbyterian medical-mission complex where Ruth Graham’s late father, L. Nelson Bell (a founder of CHRISTIANITY TODAY), was a surgeon for 25 years. Both the original hospital building and the house Dr. Bell built for his family are still standing. At a nearby church that Mrs. Graham knew as a child, a pastor, who, when not in prison, has been preaching since 1936, told of rapid Christian growth in the area and said his own church is packed three times on Sunday.

Progress And Problems

In Nanjing, Graham visited Amity Press, a two-year-old facility financed by the United Bible Societies and dedicated primarily to Bible publishing. It has printed and distributed 280,000 Bibles so far, said a spokesman, and was in the midst of another press run of 40,000 during the Graham visit. Many of the Bibles are sold at book tables operated by the churches and at CCC offices.

Ten years ago, every church in China was closed, with most pastors and leaders languishing in prison or labor camps. Since 1979, more than 4,000 Protestant churches have reopened, and there are thousands of “meeting points” (homes or other locations), all under CCC auspices. Official figures place adult baptized believers in CCC congregations at four million, but privately, leaders acknowledge a much greater constituency. Additionally, millions of believers belong to independent house churches. Some researchers in the West, including David Barrett, estimate as many as 40 million Christians in China.

A major problem, say leaders, is the graying of the pastors. There now are 12 Protestant seminaries in China, with 600 students, a third of them women (who are barred from ministry as pastors)—far too few to replace the ranks of the elderly and service the burgeoning church. Fears are expressed privately about the risk of doctrinal error spreading among untrained lay leaders (although observers say 90 percent of CCC clergy are theologically conservative).

In the face of such challenges, the visit of Billy Graham was a timely one, ventured one pastor, who was confident that somehow the evangelist has helped to build a bridge for the church into China’s future.

By Edward E. Plowman in China.

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