China from page 1
China from page 1
China to work with me because of his religious activity . ( A few days later he was readmitted .) However , I could not observe even a hint of fear . They refuse to be intimidated . After Early Rain ’ s pastor met with President George W . Bush back in 2006 , he was roughed up upon returning for allegedly having brought shame to China . Yet they are unfazed . They regard the authorities with contempt , calling them “ bandits .” In August of 2015 the Early Rain Church published their own “ 95 theses ,” addressing the church-state relations in China and what they call the compromised “ sinicization ” of Chinese Christianity .
Chinese Calvinism Pastor Wang draws from Calvin , Augustine , Samuel Rutherford , and the Westminster Confession in this document , directly rebuking the “ Three-Self Patriotic Movement ” of government-approved churches . Wang calls it a “ movement of Antichrist .” Calvinism is growing among the 80 million Chinese Christians , and Reformed titles are selling “ like hot cakes ,” according to one account . They have started a classical Christian day school , “ Covenant Reformed School ,” one of 200 to 300 Christian schools now operating in China . Plans are in the works to start the country ’ s first Christian
liberal arts college . Chinese Christians are manifesting an instinctive sense of Christians all through the centuries : we must educate our own . How can a house church start a college ? Not with a large campus , but with a few committed leaders and 20 students . They even have a growing pro-life movement . They have developed a “ book of church order ” and a hymnal with a number of metrical psalms .
Reformed worship The service I attended was recognizably Reformed . It used several fixed forms : the Apostle ’ s Creed , the Lord ’ s Prayer , the doxology and the Gloria Patri . It featured good hymns , substantial Bible readings , free prayer , a 70-minute sermon . I am pleased by what I saw of what I have for years encouraged : the unity of the international church in its worship . I sought to highlight this in my lectures . In the course of our five days together we sang 32 psalms and hymns . How did we do that ? The seminary had a Chinese hymnal with over 800 selections , including a psalter in the back . I thumbed through it on the first day and was able to identify from the few bits and pieces of English at the headings about 50 that overlapped with our own hymns . I sang in English , they , of course , in Chinese . For example , we sang such favorites as these :
Holy , Holy , Holy Now Thank We All Our God Great is Thy Faithfulness Rock of Ages When Peace Like a River Like a River Glorious Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah A Mighty Fortress , Etc .
We also sang , to the same tunes as we use in the Trinity Psalter , Psalms 1 , 23 , 42 , 100 , 103 , 110 , 122 , and 145 . Good music is good music and good hymn / psalm tunes are good hymn / psalm tunes in every culture . It is not without reason that so many Asian children are learning Bach , Handel , Mozart , and Beethoven on their violins and pianos . This Asian sense of the beautiful bodes well for the future of historic Reformed worship .
Rudyard Kipling wrote , “ East is East and West is West , and never the twain shall meet .” In one sense he was right . China is a very different place than Savannah , GA . On the other hand , he was utterly wrong . East and West do meet . Where ? In Christ . East and West , Chinese and American , red and yellow , black and white , are all one in Christ .
– TLJ
PAGE 2 SEPTEMBER 2018 IPC