True Jesus Church in China

Main article: True Jesus Church

The True Jesus Church in China is a non-denominational (independent) church that was established in Beijing, China, in 1917 and continues today in the People's Republic of China. The True Jesus Church was the first Chinese Christian group since the mid-nineteenth century Taipings to generate a creative and self-defined set of doctrines, and it was also the largest of the indigenous churches by the 1930s. This group practices faith healing, speaking in tongues, baptism by immersion, feet washing and Saturday Sabbath. By 1949 they claimed 120,000 members, meeting in 700 churches. Although banned in 1958, they were allowed to reopen in 1985 and since then, they have experienced rapid growth and have spread nationwide, although they are strongest in Jiangsu, Hunan and Fujian provinces. They strongly emphasis daily prayer, both private and public, and engage in vigorous evangelism.^[1]

Background

There were two causes which eventually resulted in the creation of the True Jesus Church; one was an external cause and the other an internal cause.

The Pentecostal movement

Main article: Pentecostalism in China

The external cause was due to several events that occurred in America during the beginning of the Twentieth Century.

In 1900, the Pentecostal movement had sprung up from the United States. Within the States of Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, a group of White American Christians holding worship services and praying. Suddenly, they began speaking in tongues, their bodies started vibrating, they also experienced spiritual laughter and other miraculous phenomenon. For example, a student named Agnes Ozman began speaking the Chinese language and was able to write in Chinese characters for three days. Hence this great downpouring of the Holy Spirit later became the precursor to the world renowned "Pentecostal movement" that was to occur six years later.

During April 1906 in Los Angeles, a small African American congregation, later to be known as the Apostolic Faith Mission, were holding a worship session underneath a grass house. For ten days, they prayed very fervently and were asking for the filling of the Holy Spirit unto their lives and also for the revival of the church of the end times. While they were still praying on the evening of April 9, the Holy Spirit came down abundantly on them like fire, they were joyously filled with the Holy Spirit, and miraculous events occurred there. As a result, the number of church attendants continuously increased non-stop to the point where the grass house could no longer accommodate all the participants. Not long afterwards, this news was spread to various parts of the world. Several overseas missionaries soon learnt of this new movement and, after studying their new teachings and praying earnestly for the Holy Spirit, they also received baptism of the Holy Spirit. They then vigorously preached the good news and thus setting off the first global wave of Pentecostalism.^{[citation needed]}

By 1910, the Pentecostal churches had organized a General Assembly and opened up theological colleges in the both the northern and southern parts of the United States which trained up to five thousand preachers. They then evangelized all over the world using names such as the Apostolic Faith Mission, the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Church, the Church of God and so on. Since they asserted that speaking in tongues is the evidence of having received the Holy Spirit, they were labelled in China as the "speaking in tongues group" (方言派).

As the number of Pentecostal church groups increased, they made efforts to unite together as the "Pentecostal Assemblies of the World". Their main focal points were:

1. The emphasis of speaking in tongues;
2. The viewpoint of a One True God;
3. They neither advocated for, nor did they oppose, their members worshipping on Sabbath (some worshipped on Sunday whilst others worshipped on Saturday);
4. They held that baptisms ought to be conducted in the name of Jesus Christ; however, the baptisms were performed with the head facing upwards and it did not necessarily need to be performed in natural flowing water;
5. There were no rigid rules with regards to handling the sacrament of the Holy Communion such as the use of unleavened bread and grape juice;
6. They placed particular emphasis on the development of a mature spiritual growth for each individual.

By 1907, the first missionaries from the Pentecostal churches arrived in China and a Chinese American pastor from a Congregational church in Hong Kong named Mok Lai-Chi (莫礼智) printed out the Pentecostal Truths newspaper (五旬节真理报) which spread the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit. At the same time, the Apostolic Faith Mission was also actively preaching in Shanghai. They stressed the need for receiving the Holy Spirit through speaking in tongues and, indeed, in those early days the works of the Holy Spirit were vividly seen. These were the early stages of the Pentecostal movement in China.

During 1911, an American pastor in North China, Berntsen,^[2] had formed the Apostolic Faith Mission ^[3] in Zhengding County, Shandong. They published the Popular Gospel Truth (通傳福音真理報) and placed greater emphasis on the issue regarding why Christians needed to receive the Holy Spirit. Berntsen later came to Beijing and changed the name of his mission group to "Church of God" shortly after joining them; he later switched again and joined the Assemblies of God. By this time, the Popular Gospel Truth newspaper publications were now able to be substituted with gospel pamphlets instead. People such as Zhang Lingsheng and his nephew Barnabas Zhang, who later became the early prominent co-workers of the True Jesus Church, were once members of this Pentecostal group. Paul Wei had also received baptism at this church mission before and later received the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Pentecostal movement was the background in which the True Jesus Church was later launched.

The church indigenization movement

Main article: Chinese Independent Churches

The internal cause was due to events that occurred from the final years of the 19th century till the early years of the twentieth century. Alyhough the Three-Self_Movement had been encouraged by missionaries as early as the 1870s, this did not gain momentum until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Chinese Christians suffered from the Boxer Movement, New Culture Movement and wave after wave of Anti-Christian Movements that swept China. Criticism and opposition to Christianity had also arisen from numerous Chinese politicians, intellectuals, the gentry and the masses. This caused many Christian intellectuals and pastors in China feeling perplexed, distressed, and in a state of shock or panic. Some Christians who had a national sense of justice and a pious faith began to reflect on what had been lost and gained so far from the Christian missionary work in China. They also started exploring the pathway for the churches in China to eventually break away from the influence and perceived association with Imperialism. Hence some Christians began to put into practice the idea of an independent Chinese church. For example, Chen Men-nan (陈梦南) established the Baptist Self-Support Church (浸会自立会) in Guangdong and felt that since the overseas churches belonged to the overseas countries, the churches in China ought to belong to the Chinese. He held that Chinese Christians should form their own independent churches and preach the gospel themselves and thus avoid being labelled as a "Western religion" (洋教) or associated with the European colonial powers. In 1872, Chen rented a house with some financial aid from Chinese Americans and commenced preaching. The following year, he formed the "Cantonese Guangdong Chinese Evangelical Mission" (粤东广肇华人宣道会) and created the "Chinese Evangelistic Chapel" (华人宣道堂). Not long after the 1900 Boxer rebellion, a Chinese Presbyterian named Yu Guozhen formed a self-supporting Presbyterian congregation in Shanghai. By 1906 he formed the "China Christian Independent Church" using the principle of "love the church and love the country, self-support and self-governance" as its main founding aim. Gradually, numerous other independent churches were established, after splitting away from their Protestant denominations, and were able to run their own affairs without outside financial aid, interference, or ecclesiastical control. This surge in church indigenization continued into the Chinese Revolution period of the 1910s and 1920s with up to six hundred independent churches throughout the country. The True Jesus Church was amongst those which developed and grew under such circumstances.

Early doctrines

The early workers of the True Jesus Church agreed on a long set of doctrines and practices by the time they put out their first newspaper in February 1919 - The Universal Correction Church Times (萬國更正教報). Some of the most important doctrines and practices adopted at this time were as follows ^[4]:

1. receive full immersion face-down baptism;
2. seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with speaking in tongues as evidence;
3. keep Saturday as Sabbath for worship;
4. Seek the power of healing and of exorcising demons;
5. in communion break the bread, not cut it;
6. implement the sacrament of foot-washing among church members;
7. have ordination by laying on of hands;
8. have no time limit for Sabbath worship;
9. all have the right to speak during services;
10. all be permitted to pray aloud during services;
11. seek revelation of the Holy spirit in choosing overseers, elders, and deacons;
12. if evangelists, not receive a fixed salary ^[5]
13. devote their heart, spirit, and livelihood to the Lord, and give at least ten percent of their income.

Interestingly, a brief comment after this list says that only those who abide by these provisions are true Christians. Another set of clauses defined a series of corrective measures which they believed must be taken by other Christian churches in order to become proper or pure. Other churches must:

1. stop using the Chinese term Shangdi (上帝) for God and use the Chinese term Zhenshen (真神, meaning "True God");
2. eliminate the appellation and the office "pastor" (牧師) ^[6] and ordain only overseers, elders, and deacons;
3. stop teaching the doctrine of the Trinity and teach the unitary and undivided True God;
4. baptize only in the name of Jesus, not that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
5. stop using denominational names and call themselves the True Jesus Church;
6. stop depending on finances or influence of foreigners;
7. stop baptizing by sprinkling, and only use immersion;
8. honor seventh-day Sabbath as the only proper worship day;
9. not restrict the right of prayer to only one person in the assembly;
10. not give set salaries to evangelistic workers ^[5]
11. not put time limits on worship services.

The above sets of church regulations and demands upon other churches appeared in the first issue of the church paper in February 1919. They show a highly developed set of orthodox doctrines, as well as a striking exclusiveness in their presumption to dictate drastic changes to other churches.

Early Evangelization work

By early 1919, the True Jesus Church had established itself in the Beijing-Tianjin corridor as a militant, millenarian sectarian church. There was no assurance that it would survive, however.

TJC missionary work in the Northern regions

The first place to which the church expanded beyond the Beijing-Tianjin area was Shandong. After becoming Paul Wei's partner in this new religious venture, Zhang Lingsheng returned Weixian. There a relative named Zhang Dianju, an antique dealer who had become a Pentecostal convert of Zhang Lingsheng years before, and other locals as well, became followers of the new church. The Weixian group implored Paul Wei to come to Shandong, which he did in mid-1919, making Weixian his vabse but influencing many in east-central Shandong. Wei laid hands on Zhang Dianju and ordained him as an elder. He now took the name Barnabas. Barnabas Zhang was to become an outstanding and powerful missionary of the True Jesus Church during the next several years, spearheading the rapid expansion of the church into central and south China. But in the meantime the movement's top leaders remained in Weixian for a time in the summer of 1919. There were also some dramatic incidents of confrontation and violent clashes between the new sect and the established Presbyterian church in Weixian, as some converts came out of the older churches to join the new group ^[7]

After 1919, the True Jesus Church grew. It did so without the two early workers. Paul Wei died in the fall of 1919, and Zhang Lingsheng, due to old age, soon confined his activities to his activities to his home area of Shandong. But Isaac Wei, son of Paul Wei, continued preaching in Northern China, and set up several churches.

Missionary work in the Southern regions

True Jesus Church in Changsha, Hunan.

Barnabas Zhang, as well as several other gifted missionaries and evangelists, spread the movement to the Southern areas of China in the 1920s. Henan province, and in particular Hunan province, became hotbeds of growth of the church, and by the mid-1920s Hunan was becoming its centre of gravity.

In 1923, Barnabas traveled to Shanghai to help pastor and nurture the church with the local preacher. He then headed to Wenzhou of Zhejiang province and the Fujian province, spreading the Gospel and setting up churches there.^{[citation needed]}

During this missionary trip, former Seventh-day Adventist Church members Thomas Guo and Silas Liu from Fuzhou province joined the True Jesus Church. Thomas was later remembered as having established the TJC General Coordination Board and The Holy Spirit News publication.

In 1935 Barnabas Zhang, Thomas Guo, Silas Lin and others preached to Xiamen, Zhangzhou and surrounding areas. It was in this region where Taiwanese left their former church denominations to join them. Together, they boarded a ship to Taiwan and three churches were established numbering over 100 believers, after preaching there for only forty days.

In 1927, the TJC coordination board sent Barnabas Zhang to evangelise South-East Asia and on his return journey, he established churches in Guangdong province

Church establishments in the provinces

• 1917 - The Beijing True Jesus Church in Hebei province
• 1919 - The churches in Shandong province, Hunan, Shanxi, Jiangsu, and Hubei were established.
• 1922 - The church in Henan province founded
• 1923 - Churches in Jiangsi and Fujian provinces established
• 1924 - Churches in Liaoning and Jilin provinces
• 1928 - The churches in Zhejiang province at Wenzhou,and Guangdong province at Guangzhou established.
• 1935 - Church established in Sichuan province at Zhongqi
• 1938 - Church in Shanxi province
• 1943 - Church established in Gansu province
• 1945 - Church founded in Yunnan province at Kunming

Important early church events

Not long after the True Jesus Church was formed, its development was very rapid. In 1922, representatives from all the Chinese provinces held their first conference. During their discussion they agreed to become a unified body and set out 15 basic rules and standards that is expected for every church.

During the 3rd TJC major conference, delegates approved the establishment of the General Assembly Board of China in Nanjing (moved to Shanghai the following year) and the creation of "The Holy Spirit News" newspaper bulletin. After an excited discussion, they established the basic teachings and beliefs of the True Jesus Mission.

A theological institution was opened to cultivate preachers that can help pastor the church.

The Barnabas Zhang incident

Brother Zhang was one of the early church workers; later, he claimed that he was the first founder of this church.

Zhang was discontented with the decisions made by the General Assembly; as a result, when Barnabas was sent by the church to South-East Asia, he then formed his own General Assembly in Hong Kong and became the head Bishop of the church and donning the attire of Cardinal or Pope.

Despite many attempts by church brothers to dissuade him, they continued to disagree; therefore, during a major church meeting in 1930, Zhang was excommunicated. Barnabas remained as head of the Hong Kong church until his death.

The January 28th Incident

Beginning with the takeover of Manchuria in 1931, Japan launched an aggressive military campaign that was aimed at taking control of China. This event sparked an underground anti-Japanese opposition throughout the country.

On 20 January 1932, a Japanese citizen was murdered which provoked a war in the Zhabei (閘北 district, North of Shanghai. Japanese planes bombed this manufacturing and residential district to shreds.

By that time, most of the residents living there had already evacuated and fled to safer parts elsewhere. However, the True Jesus Church General Assembly (which was in the Zhabei area) was holding the 6th delegates conference during that time. Japanese soldiers advanced to that area and wrongly believed that anti-Japanese rebels were hidden inside the church and were using it as headquarters. The soldiers quietly poured gasoline and ignited the whole church building which included the Holy Spirit Times newspaper printing factory.

Unaware of what had just occurred, the 21 church committee members continued with the meeting until they started seeing smoke fumes. Two of the committee members decided to flee from the building. Unfortunately as they were escaping, one of them was riddled with bullets on his leg (since the Japanese soldiers had surrounded the entire church building) and died shortly afterward - the other church member disappeared and was never seen again.

The remaining church members were frightened and decided to pray. Fortunately, the Japanese military officer heard the word "Hallelujah" shouted from inside the church and concluded that they were "good people". The Japanese soldiers then escorted the church members from the building to the safe foreign settlement zone. This is considered the worst disaster that this church had faced ever since its establishment fifteen years before. After this incident, the church headquarters was relocated inside the safer foreign settlements of the city.

The "Tribulation period"

Shortly after the Communist Party of China came to power in 1949, one of their main aims was to free the country from external forces of influence. Initially, Christianity was tolerated but the authorities quickly changed their minds and a law was passed to ban Christians evangelising or holding services. In practice, however, very few Christian groups are prevented from doing either. Every Christian denomination had to go to the government approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement church for services which were said to be monitored.

The following is a list of significant dates:

• 1950 - The "three self" renewal doctrine for churches proposed by government.

• 1951 - The outbreak of the Korean War stirs up anti-American sentiment. All foreign missionaries were ordered to leave the country.

• 1954 - Three-Self Patriotic Movement churches commences. The following year it becomes the only legal church. All preachers must undergo government training. The leadership of the True Jesus Church in China was brought within the Three Self Organization and subjected to increasing criticism.

• 1956 - Many underground family services secretly held.^{[citation needed]}

• 1957 - Numerous preachers including Isaac Wei were arrested and imprisoned for illegally holding services.

• 1958 - The True Jesus Church and all other Christian churches (save the Three-Self Patriotic Church) suffered from the government-imposed bans - The majority of the followers participated, along with other church denominations, in various "Christian unification services" to continue worship. (These operated under government surveillance). The church was accused of ‘illegal’ activities, including "causing the death of sick people through the refusal to allow medical treatment, and causing illness and death through baptism in freezing rivers". Such accusations must be set in the context of the decisive conservative movement during the Cultural Revolution in Chinese politics at the time and the substance behind some of the reports may be questionable.^[8]

• The only exception was True Jesus Church in Fujian which was still allowed to continue maintaining the original organization and hold services by themselves.

• 1959 - Only a few large churches left; the rest are closed down.

• 1966 - In June, the Cultural Revolution began, by August all churches were closed down.

The situation deteriorated into anarchy during the infamous Cultural Revolution initiated by chairman Mao Zedong where Christians were among those who were persecuted, martyred, attacked, and imprisoned by the communist authorities. Mao's young red guards forced people to hand over Bibles and they were burnt.^{[citation needed]}

On the outward appearance, evangelising came to a standstill; it seemed that Christianity in China had been effectively crushed. However, services were still secretly held in homes or underground and bibles were handwritten. Individuals started memorizing entire Apostolic letters and books in order to duplicate them later on.^{[citation needed]}

When the Christians' underground hideouts were discovered, they fled to other cities and provinces, carrying their Gospel with them and preaching to new faces.

It is said that many Christians climbed high up into the Wenzhou mountains where they could pray unhindered.^{[citation needed]}

Nevertheless, in the 1970s in Fuqing during the Cultural Revolution, one elder recounts how he witnessed the growth of the church, people copying hymnals by hands, and exchanging the equivalent of fifty-five kilograms of potato chips for a Bible.^[9]

The church situation from 1975 to present

In 1975, Richard Nixon, former President of the United States, re-established ties with Mao Zedong's government. Due to foreign pressure on human rights issues, their official policy changed to: "You can admit that you're a Christian but do not evangelise." The Cultural revolution had stopped by 1976.^{[citation needed]}

Since Deng Xiao Ping's took over the communist regime, the situation has improved as their tight grip has been relaxed. In April 1979, the first church reopened and gradually other churches followed. The number of Christians increased rapidly during this period and numerous miracles occurred. Nevertheless, people that are caught preaching will face a minimum prison sentence of 3 years.^{[citation needed]}

In 1980 a law was passed that allowed Christians to worship at specific locations and venues; evangelising elsewhere is prohibited. Seven prohibitions were listed. This includes: no secret family services, no building of churches, and no preaching.

After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 incident, Christians returned to underground services for only a brief period.

From 1996–present, China's welcoming open-door policy to foreign investors has lifted its economy to new heights and since China wishes to enter new markets and continue the prosperity, Christians can now hold services safely.

Of the current population of Chinese Christians, there are an estimated 2.4 million True Jesus Church members.

There is no well organised church governing structure so many areas still lack Bibles and other reference materials.

See also

Christianity in China portal

• Christianity in China
• True Jesus Church in Taiwan
• True Jesus Church in India
• True Jesus Church in Singapore.

Notes

1. ^ (Lambert, T. 2006, China’s Christian Millions, Monarch Books, Oxford, pp. 59-60
2. ^ The Chinese name he used in China was "贲德新"
3. ^ Although the "Apostolic Faith Mission" (使徒信心會) was the name mentioned in Chinese sources to refer to Berntsen's mission group, from English sources, the actual English name adopted was "Faith Union" (信心會). Nevertheless for the sake of avoiding needless confusion to the Chinese readers, the Chinese version of the name will be used
4. ^ (Wanguo gengzhengjiao bao 1919, 1:1)
5. ^ ^{a b} This clause is no longer practiced by the True Jesus Church today, and they now refer to the Bible passage that "The worker deserves his wages." as recorded in 1 Timothy 5:18 as justification.
6. ^ Matthew 23:10 records: "Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ." The word "Teacher" in the Chinese word is written as: "Pastor-title" (師尊). However it should also be noted that the original Hebrew word for "teacher" is actually "Rabbi".
7. ^ There is interesting documentation on this in U.S. Presbyterian records, as well as in the issue of the Wangguo gengzhengjiao bao (no.2) published in Weixian in the summer of 1919.
8. ^ 1988 book by Bob Whyte, an Anglican clergyman.
9. ^ 7 June 2005 Australian Refugee Review Tribunal Research Paper.

External links

• Official site
• Early christian missions in China
• China's church history
• True Jesus Church, Chinese website
• Northern churches website
• TJC, Hong Kong