The True Jesus Church in China - Reviewing the Case Against YM Yang: Epilogue

Admittedly, as I was diving into this whole thing something struck me as odd. Why is it that so many are so opposed to Pr. Yang? Maybe the whole thing did start with a personal affront in a spiritual convocation in Europe many years ago, maybe it didn't. But how did it get to the point where so many people felt so adamant about destroying this man's livelihood and kicking him out of the church? As you've seen, these charges of "heresy" are really tenuous at best and in my opinion sometimes reveal more about the accusers than the accused.

One of the paragraphs early on in Pr. Chin's analysis is very telling, and may shed some light on why so many are so vociferous in seeing YM Yang out of the True Jesus Church. I should preface by saying this is only wild speculation, but it's the closest things to an explanation I can think of right now. Take it with a shaker of salt.

In 2013, between June and July, I was in Adam Road church conducting the China Members’ Fellowship. There was a sister from China who came to visit her relative. I heard that YM was in China attempting to unite the churches not affiliated with the north or the south. I asked this sister if this was true. She said that she knew this but that the Elder that YM seeks to associate with had already gone against the truth, conducting baptism in a dug-out pool. She asked, why does he still want to unite with them? So I thought even a young girl like her understood this .

It's pretty common knowledge that Pr. Yang has been communicating with some of our brothers and sisters in mainland China and there's been talk about him trying to find ways to bridge the gaps that have come between us in the 60+ years where we were separated from each other. And I can completely understand why he felt such a passion for this, as his own father was a member of the church in Nanjing before he went to Taiwan and became one of the church's most respected elders there.

Now I know that a lot of you may not know the full history of our church in China. I'll share what I know here briefly; I can't say this is the definitive story but it's what I've been able to piece together from history and from various accounts.

Our church was established in Beijing in 1917, only a few years after the revolution that ended 2000 years of imperial rule in China which established the Republic of China. Our church flourished and grew rapidly from 1917 to 1949, with churches in cities from Beijing to Nanjing to Shanghai.

But in 1949 a civil war happened in China, with Mao's communist forces defeating the armies of the Republic of China. Many of our church members fled with the Kuomingtang to Taiwan. But others had to stay behind.

The government of the new People's Republic of China moved fast to close the borders. Once that happened no one could come in or out. One of the tenets of this new government was to staunchly defend themselves against foreign influences. Part of that meant that outlawing freedom of religion.

During this time, our church moved underground. In the face of unimaginable hardship they continued to worship God as best as they could. From my understanding, it was the churches in the northern cities of China that bore the brunt of the persecution, most horrifically during the Cultural Revolution that resulted in 1.5 million people in the country being killed and millions of others suffering imprisonment, seizure of property, torture and general humiliation. My understanding is that the churches in the southern cities were largely spared of much of this persecution during this time.

Word has it that at one point the Northern churches faced a situation much like the ones the German churches I alluded to a few posts ago--some of the churches apparently were taken over by leaders who started to impose rules and regulations of man which, if not obeyed, would lead to members getting excommunicated. And through this there were among our members those who, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, kept the faith and became stronger amid persecution and corruption both inside and outside the church.

Between 1972 and today, China started to embrace some free market principles in its economy, and with that came a loosening of government control in certain areas. By the 1980s our church members were once again able to connect with our churches in the mainland. One of those members was Elder John Yang, who visited those he had served God with as a young man after over 40 years of separation.

Today, I hear stories of believers in these Northern regions who, against all odds and all logic, have adhered to the Five Basic Beliefs, who today practice baptism according to the Bible the same way we do, and who continue to receive the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues, signs, and miracles. Their membership which reportedly stands at 1.2 million brothers and sisters is larger than that of all the other True Jesus Churches around the world combined. 

If that's happening, it should be cause for rejoicing, right? But then again, I hear rumblings--including in that very passage that Pr. Chin wrote--that some in the IA and some in the Southern churches look disparagingly upon their brothers and sisters in the North and look upon any talk of "reunification" with disdain, as if finding common ground in our faith were somehow tantamount to lobbying for secular political unification instead of trying to find unity in Christ. 

Again, I'm not close enough to the situation to know any more details than this. I'm sure that if you talk to different people they'll have differing accounts. But if anything I say is even remotely true, I find it profoundly tragic.  

Pr. Yang seemed to be making inroads at reconciliation, carrying on what was started by his father, before he was stripped of his ministry and then stripped of his church membership. And then sure enough, the rumors began to be spread throughout the churches in China to have nothing to do with him as he was a "heretic".

And I cannot help but speculate, was his efforts in China somehow tied to this whole mess we've been talking about in the last 12 posts?

You might wonder why I, a member who was born in the United States and who doesn't even speak Chinese has such strong opinions on this.

Here's why. 

My mother was born in Nanjing in 1925 and grew up a member of the church there. I mentioned in an earlier post her testimony, but it bears repeating here.

As a teenager she went to a boarding school but was at the point of death to the point where her classmates carried her home so she could die there with her family. Elder Isaac Wei, the son of Paul Wei, came to visit. He prayed over her and lay hands on her, and she was healed. Elder Wei said to my mom, every Sabbath day, you should fast to remember the grace that God gave to you. And until the day she died, my mom would wait until 4:00 PM to eat or drink anything, even a cup of water.

My grandmother had a similar story. After Mom was born, my grandmother had a late term miscarriage--a boy. Her health deteriorated to the point where she was dying. But God healed her and she went on to have three more children, my aunt and two uncles.

Grandma was ordained a deaconess of the church in Nanjing, and she was loved very much by the brothers and sisters there. Mom said that our church brothers and sisters protected her; it was years later that I'd learned about the horrors that went on in Nanjing around that time and learned what she must have meant.

The Communists won their civil war against the Nationalists in 1949, and many who had ties to the Nationalists fled the country, including my grandfather and my aunt and uncles. The time then came for my mom, who was in college, to leave too. My grandmother sent her to the train station. And my mom remembered exactly what was to be their last conversation.

"Tell your brothers and your father and your sister--if you miss me, pray. If I miss you, I'll pray."

My grandmother chose to stay in China to continue to take care of the church. And then the Communists sealed the borders. No one could come in, no one could go out. And once that happened, aside from a few letters that were smuggled into and out of China my grandmother never saw nor communicated with my grandfather nor her children ever again. My grandmother passed away in 1967, just as the Cultural Revolution started to get into full swing.

A lot of people come up to me to this day and tell me about how faithful and loving they remember my mom was. Some old-timers who went to the Taichung church in Taiwan tell me that they remember my grandfather as a man of great joy. 

But no one ever talks to me about grandma. What I know about her I know from my mom.

My mom told me the story of the love our church members showed for her after she passed. The government forbade its citizens from burying their dead—all bodies were to be cremated. But in the darkness of the night our church members smuggled her body into a remote area in the woods and buried their beloved deaconess, placing a tiny headstone to mark her final resting place. I can only imagine the planning and the risk that these brothers and sisters went through, especially during that time when even any hint of defiance against the government was met with swift torture, imprisonment, or execution. And this definitely fell into that category.

Years later, when China finally opened its borders to allow travel from the United States, my mom went back for the first time after almost 40 years. This is what grandma's final resting place looked like, untouched after almost 20 years.

And this was the tombstone that our church members had made for her, still standing precisely where they had put it two decades earlier.

I never met my grandma, but she had a huge impact on my life. Whatever blessings I have today, and there are blessings in abundance, I can trace back to her and her faithfulness and love to God.

When mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer at first we went through the usual mourning process as we knew we were going to lose her. But very soon after I could see in my mom's eyes almost an excitement, because she knew that she was going home, and after 54 years of being separated the first to meet her at the gates of heaven would be grandma.

And so you see, when I think of the churches in China, whether the North, the South, or churches that are unaffiliated with either, I don't look down on any of them as somehow being second class citizens or members of a rogue church. These are my brothers and sisters, not just in terms of my ancestry but more importantly in the body of Christ and in the kingdom of God. Even though 66 years of separation may have come upon us, when you consider those among them who have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, can anything separate us from the love of Christ that we shared in common 66 years ago before the borders were closed? 

While I don't know the details of Pr. Yang's attempts to reconcile the Northern and Southern churches, I can sense that there's fear and distrust and disdain for his attempts to do so. Frankly, I don't know what's driving it.

I think on a surface level, sure, there are those who are concerned with "the doctrines being corrupted". But to these people I'll repeat something I said a few times now. What is it that you're afraid of? If you truly believe that you have the promised Holy Spirit in you and in your church, and Jesus Christ himself said that when the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide you into all truth, what is it that you're afraid of? Does God need you to protect him? Is your job to guide us into all truth, or is that the Holy Spirit's job? If the 10 Basic Beliefs are truly God's immutable truth, then why are you afraid of letting them stand on their own?

And on a more sublunary level, I have to wonder whether any of the resistance is of a more mundane nature. Are there those who feel that their "positions" or "prestige" will somehow be diminished if we looked upon the Northern churches as long lost brothers and sisters rather than as a deviant sect? I dare not speculate. But in the off chance that this is the case the question is still the same. What are you afraid of? 

I don't doubt that the Holy Spirit is with the churches in the South, as well as the churches of Taiwan, southeast Asia, and the western world.  However, I do not dare say that the Holy Spirit is not also with the churches in the North, whose faith unlike the others have gone through 66 years of testing under fire.

At the very least, I would want to hear their stories, and learn how the Holy Spirit led them during their most desperate times. I would hope that I would be humble enough to learn about their history and to hear what they received from the Lord with an open mind and not instantly brand anything they preach that sounds different than what we preach as "heresy" or "deviant". 

I believe that God would be very happy with the church if all of the True Jesus Churches everywhere could put away any human emotions, any precepts of men, any bigotry, any secular geopolitical biases, and any close-mindedness and come together like children in front of the Lord, asking for his wisdom and guidance on how to reconcile over 66 years of being separated.

Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the North during this time? Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the South during this time? Did imperfect teachings infiltrate the churches in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the western world? The answer is, probably yes in all cases.  Like I said, I have no idea what is going on as far as talks of reunifying the churches but I do know one thing—if anyone on any side stubbornly clings to their own opinions without leaving any room for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these people are doing a monumental disservice to the church and to the kingdom of God.

How much would the heart of God be moved if on the 100^th anniversary of the founding of our church less than two years from now if with humility we as one church were to approach Him and ask Him to once again guide us into all Truth and into perfection as one body, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead? 

I want to close with the English translation of something that Pr. Yang posted to Facebook a few weeks ago. I'll preface by saying that Pr. Yang tends to use literary devices like hyperbole, irony, imagery, and metaphor in his writing, so read it with that in mind.

Oh! My brethren of the North!

Living in the southern region, one often hears from pastors of the South that you've deviated from the truth; that your gospel is impure, and that you are no longer the beloved people of God. There are testimonies of you being punished by God because you invented your own versions of the truth. 

Thus, I am afraid to get in touch with you; fearing that I will be contaminated by you and in the process, lose my own salvation.

Like a porcupine facing a threat and bristling all my stiff quills in order to protect myself, I remain defensively prickly lest you lure me into losing my chance at salvation.

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That night, you who belonged to the Northern faction, upon hearing of my entry into the ----- region, traveled many long miles under cover of moonlight, cloaked in starlight, trailing clouds of dust to arrive at the place where you insisted on meeting me. 

Although we had no prior knowledge of each other's existence nor had any contact before this, you were adamant that in Spirit, you just could not believe the baseless rumors about me being bandied about in China.

Your face, though shadowed with deep lines of hard living, still shone with the intense love for God that is long absent from the eyes of the shepherds who pastor to the South. You did not have much time to chat because of the long journey ahead of you to get back home. But once we met, I wished that time could stand still so that I can listen intently to your insights of the many ways to unite the churches of the North and the South, and how to effect changes for the betterment of the church as a whole.

After you departed, I was left to toss and turn in sleeplessness, thrashing in the whirling eddies of TJC histories of the North and South.

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That night, you who did not know me at all, came to -----, a mutual meeting place. Even though we were merely 3 meters apart, you exclaimed loudly, "Little brother!" upon seeing me! Grasping my hands tightly, you declared that we were old neighbors! How could we now be split into the South and the North?! You said your father and my father were colleagues 60+ years ago. Our two families were neighbors in Nanjing, close to the GA headquarters.

After 1989 and the end of the revolution when China was finally open to visitors, my father went back twice to your home and asked to visit his Northern co-workers whom he had lost contact with for 40+ years. They talked about uniting the two factions in the Lord. You implored me to continue my father's heart desire, and to do my utmost to help reunite the Southern and the Northern churches into one loving entity. From that fateful night on, we were lock step together in traversing this vast land from the North to the South; later, you became the first Northern woman preacher to speak from the pulpit of a Southern church, and I was able to conduct a few Sabbath services in your church to the North.

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You, an Elder who wanted badly to withdraw yourself from the governing organization of the Southern branch, sent word to me via mutual friends that if I am to pass by your neighborhood, I must find a way to come and meet you secretly, away from prying eyes. 

After exchanging a few words when we finally met, you stopped and stared at me intently for a long while. Then in a trembling, emotional voice, you turned to the people around us and said, "how is it possible for me to believe that Elder Yang's child is capable of preaching heresy?"

You asked that I keep in contact with you from now on; and from your teary gaze I could sense the ponderous turning of the tides from both sides: a field long laid fallow, welcoming the influx of differing systemic organizations and factions.

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The first time I stepped into a Northern church, I was secretly amazed. The interior was reminiscent of the traditional Chinese hall in style, with a flag of True Jesus Church hung high behind the altar (pulpit), and written banners of the Five Doctrines, Ten Commandments and Twelve Standards adorning the side walls of the chapel. Following the sonorous, booming announcement from the service leader, "In the name of Jesus Christ we begin the service! Men, remove your hats; women, cover your heads!", the congregation did so simply and decorously. In all reverence and silence before the Lord, they begin their daily worship and praise. I too, joined them in prayer, facing the west, and sang songs of grace before meals.

(Image of TJC flag: Five Doctrines, Ten Commandments and Twelve Standards, to be preached to the whole world with the power of the Holy Spirit)

Workers of the Northern faction are fundamentally more praiseworthy compared to the South. They are less prone to find excuses when the Southern faction condemns them of wrongdoings at every turn; especially because they know full well that it was the Southern faction that deviated from the collective decisions with regard to the doctrines and regulations, achieved via the guidance of the Holy Spirit, during of the original national TJC meetings. The elderly members of the Northern churches were baptized in the deluge of the Cultural Revolution, their belief harshly persecuted and tested. In contrast, the Southern members were spared of such hardships. 

At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the church was controlled by foolish men, whose agenda kept it in perpetual darkness for years afterwards. 

Thank God, the Northern members remained loyal to the Lord and refused to bow to the follies of those foolish men in charge, even in the face of being threatened with excommunication one after another or even en masse! Amazingly, those who doled out the excommunications suffered the rapid disintegration of their flock, whereas those who were excommunicated were embraced by the mercy of God. They sought to gather back members who were lost or scattered, and evangelized broadly to all. An extraordinary phenomenon ensued, even to today, the year 2015: those who were excommunicated or ostracized by the church, no matter from the Northern or Southern factions, continued to thrive and attract new believers at a rate far greater than the churches who excommunicated them! These are the Northern churches who firmly believe in the five doctrines, 10 commandments and 12 standards; and who practice the customs of head covering, praying facing the west, and footwashing prior to imminent death. Their membership occupies a majority within all the TJC churches combined, a staggering 1.2 million!

The situation of the present-day TJC can be simply summed up: God has entrusted the rebuilding of a spiritual TJC to those who were excommunicated by the secular TJC!

An excellent demonstration of this scenerio is found in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the church at Xiushan, Fujian in July of this year. The church board members who organized the anniversary celebration were the same members who were excommunicated en masse by the Council of Elders in Fuqing a mere five year past. 

The two elders who blessed the congregation were ones excommunicated by the Wei clan of the North 10 years ago. The Sacrament of Holy Communion, the consecration, the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the cup, were conducted by a preacher who was excommunicated by the IA as recent as April of this year!

The Northern workers steadfastly refused to be cowed by the threats of hellfire from those in power -- although they themselves suffered alienation from spouses and friends, and riddled by slanderous slurs -- they remained unwavering and true to the cause of the Lord. Ten years later, God turned the humiliation of their excommunication into a glorious symbol of 'non-conformity with the secularized church, and thus remaining untainted'. Holy God, His love, mercy and righteousness are supreme!

It was never observed that any Northern believers who receive the Holy Spirit, did so only after collective, numerous, and protracted prayer sessions. Almost to a man, they speak the spiritual tongues as soon as they were baptized, and many miracles and wonders followed. 

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When the hymn and prayer are done, you gently and reverently untie the kerchief from your head with a practiced hand. I was astonished by your beauty! As lovely as the bride in the Song of Songs, the Beloved of God! 

After the solemn sermon of worship is delivered, you speak to me with forthright sincerity, punctuated by joyous shouts of laughter! How delightfully at ease is your frank and open heart; your guilelessness is a balm to all!

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The separation of these past 10+ years have not severed the loving ties forged in God's family. Although the South may appear to be more clever by comparison, your righteousness surpasses them by far. 

Oh, my brethren of the North! The weighty task of rebuilding the house of God is placed on your shoulders. Come! Let us carry this cross together, for the Lord will be our guide. 

God bless!

As I said, I don't have enough knowledge of the North nor the South nor this history of either to comment about either.

But one thing I do know. If we do have brethren in the North who are faithful to Christ and have kept the faith for over 60 years, and if Pr. Yang were indeed a vessel chosen by God to somehow work towards reconciliation but the recent actions against him somehow thwarted those plans, this would be a tragedy of monumental proportions. I would really fear for those who were behind those actions. And I would pray that it's not too late to undo the damage.

Again, I pray that God may have mercy on us. Something is not right here. But again, I have said my peace and now I leave it up to Him.