Early Rain Covenant Church leader Wang Yi has been sentenced
to nine years in prison, a harsh sentence by any measure, but these are hard
times in China. The Church is suffering a state clampdown and the state itself
is under great stress. Great power politics, domestic politics, the threat of
external war and internal dissent have created a volatile situation, and Wang
Yi has walked right into the middle of it.
The gospel will certainly bring us into the thick of trouble
and the world will oppose us. But at the same time we are repeatedly warned in
the Scripture to make sure our suffering is for the Gospel and not for meddling
in the affairs of men or being a busybody in other people's matters. We are warned
not to suffer as wrongdoers, which is a shameful thing.
Wang Yi was sentenced for inciting subversion of state power
and illegal business operations. Were the charges regarding business a case of
Beijing's hostility to Underground (or House) churches?
It's not that simple. While there has been a clampdown on
house churches as of late for many years the state more or less looked the
other way, especially if these churches kept a low profile. Beijing is
concerned with subversion, political activity and outside money creeping in
(unnoticed) and influencing their system. Officially churches are supposed to
join the state organisations, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) for
Protestants and for the followers of the Roman rite, the Chinese Patriotic
Catholic Association (CPCA). Congregations that are faithful to either the
Scriptures or the See of Rome have refused to do this and rightly so and there
has been persecution as a result. And yet, throughout much of the 1990's and
early 2000's these organisations were allowed to flourish... again, as long as
they kept a low profile.
Wang Yi did not keep a low profile. While in a sense we could
say the expansion of the gospel must be undertaken with boldness and even in
defiance of authority and laws, a statement which is true enough, there are
secondary issues and questions of legality.
I am not saying the gospel message should in any way be
compromised or watered down but certainly laws concerning labour, tax, business
licensing and buildings must be obeyed. We may not like these laws, indeed we may
not like them in our countries but if we are going to be obedient to the
dictates of Romans 13, we have little choice... aggravating and painful as it
sometimes can be.
For example some may consider it a good thing for a
congregation to have a proper building, but is it necessary for the gospel, for
the church to function? The answer of course is no. But those who think so wade
into a larger set of social questions and laws. The Church can function just
fine without coming into conflict with the laws concerning the aforementioned
areas but few seem willing to do that and thus they create problems that could
otherwise be avoided.
The attachment to such models is aggravated by ecclesiology
and the 'pastoral' system but these are secondary issues. By this I mean
congregations that should probably split into new congregations led by
plurality of elders instead grow large because of attachment to a pastor. The
pastor becomes the focus and then the congregation is forced to deal with the
logistics of housing dozens and hundreds of people rather than operate as
multiple (or even dozens) of smaller congregations spread out over an urban
area or region.
Underground Churches in China have dealt with this in
different ways. There have been some rather large congregations that due to the
laws and the need to keep a low profile have worshipped in warehouses and other
such places. It may not be the most pleasant setting but it worked. The TSPM
(state registered) congregations flourished in the 1990's and 2000's and were
able to build grandiose facilities along the lines of what is found in the
West. Some lauded this, others viewed it as a sign of their compromise. While
we have to follow the laws of the land when we operate on a social level... in
terms of property and the like... we of course should not submit when it comes
to any kind of licensing, registration and frankly I don't believe we should
submit financial information to the state either.
This will cause conflict enough, but to then defy the state
in the realm of business, real estate and zoning is to pour fuel on an
unnecessary and deliberately provocative fire. That's not keeping a low
profile. That's looking for a fight and challenging the political authority of
the state.
But what did Wang Yi do? He tried to have it both ways. He
insisted that he and the congregation had the 'right' to refuse registration
and to operate a large building, with a payroll and attached businesses like a
bookstore... all in defiance of the state.
There is a subtlety here that needs to be understood. Again,
we must refuse to register. Now I write this in the United States where
probably over 99% of congregations voluntarily register and allow the state to
impose financial rules and affect polity and churches happily embrace this
intrusion so that they can receive tax benefits. I say this to their shame, but
their polities all too often are rested in real estate holdings, financial
transactions within the banking system, legalities and other concerns.
I continue to argue this arrangement is a mark of shame on
the American Church and shouldn't be embraced. But suppose the registration was
perceived as not just subversive to the Church but hostile. The Church would
rightly refuse. On what basis, on the basis of rights or the Constitution? No,
our basis for operating as the Church, meeting together to worship and
spreading the gospel as individuals out in the world is not a 'right'. Rights
are ideas and concepts which flow out of the Western philosophical tradition
and while there are antecedents they more or less are rooted in the period
leading up to and encompassing the Enlightenment. The Classical Liberal
paradigm (and Renaissance Humanism which preceded it) has been fused with
Christianity and has sowed no small degree of confusion and it has produced
error and even heresy on a massive scale. This is especially true when combined
with certain political and cultural theologies which can only be described as
aberrant. Because the Magisterial Reformation which was still committed to
political Christianity overlapped with this period that we often refer to as
the Renaissance and Age of Reason, the historical theology of the Protestant
movement has been shot through and intermingled with such external influences.
And while there have been movements and attempts to reform and even purge this
sort of thinking, it simply will not go away and is at present largely
dominant.
So let's be clear. We can refuse the state out of obedience to God but this should not be wed
to an Enlightenment concept of human rights.
The New Testament doesn't argue on this basis and neither should we. Just
because the philosophical and political history of the Western tradition has
gone through various developments and permutations doesn't make it right and in
fact confusion on this point has misled many people into social struggles and
even wars and other forms of violence, all in disobedience to the Scriptures.
We refuse to obey and go about our business. We don't appeal
to the state or to the humanist Classical Liberal tradition. We simply obey God
and press on. Our status and mission are not dependent on the state. This will
lead to persecution. We're told as much in the Scriptures. The problem is the
Church which has for centuries been corrupted by the quest for social status and
power won't have it and has developed a large corpus of theology and philosophy
around this disobedience to the Scriptures. The fight for rights and power and will
use political and even military power to get their way. Wang Yi is the heir of
this error which has been exported across the globe especially over the past
thirty years or so.
We will be persecuted and suffer. We're called to this and in
fact the New Testament indicates it's normative. The Church has also been
corrupted by wealth and one cannot build wealth and invest in business when
there is a lack of security. It's too risky and so once again in disobedience
to the Scriptures and in refusing to live as strangers and pilgrims on this
Earth, the Church has created a theology of wealth and riches which amounts to
little more than Scripture twisting.
We are also told that in order to avoid persecution we may
flee but oh hard it is to do when we've invested our lives in properties,
businesses, investments and the like. It's too hard to let go, so people tend
to fight. The New Testament calling to be a pilgrim will inevitably mean
second-class status which is anathema to the many forms of Dominion
Christianity, which more than anything seeks primary status, respectability and
security. You can't have both. In fact I believe someone said something about
not being able to serve God and mammon, a point that is often preached on but
is rarely understood and often undermined in the very sermons it is addressed.
Wang Yi decided his church had the 'right' to build a large
building in defiance of the authorities. And it had the right to run financial
and business operations in defiance of these authorities.
Where did he get that right? He's been misled and undoubtedly
believed it came from the Scriptures, which it does not.
I am all too familiar with the frustrations and even
maddening experience of dealing with state bureaucracy. The zoning and building
codes are frustrating, sometimes capricious and deeply rooted in political and
corporate corruption. I absolutely loathe the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA). It is a terrible law that has made it very difficult to run a small
business and has played no small part in turning decaying older parts of town
into wastelands as the costs of remodeling and improvement are pushed beyond
the pale. This results in waste and destruction as it ends up being more cost
effective to simply tear otherwise sound buildings down.
I have no love for the labour laws of our land. As one who is
self-employed I find it all too frustrating that in order to even employ my
adult children I have to navigate the world of taxes, employer contributions to
social security and unemployment and deal with insurance associated with
worker's compensation and the like. As a result I work alone. I know many
Christians who flaunt these laws and I am well aware of the loopholes. There
are Christians who work illegally because they believe they have the 'right' to
do so and others who work the system. I wrestle with the loopholes because
while legal they often involve a degree of dishonesty and deception. Rather
than hire 'employees' you can turn your 'employees' into 'subcontractors' and
thus rather than issue a W-2 at the end of the year, you give them a 1099. I am
well aware of these games but to play them you have to basically lie to the
state and the insurance company which issues your liability policy.
Some states don't require these policies and I understand
that but many (if not most) states do. And then of course there are federal
laws as well.
I know a lot of Christians who out of a confused conflation
of libertarian thought and bad theology believe they can just ignore these laws
but they're wrong.* These laws may be frustrating but they're not sin, they're
not causing us to sin. Again, I know the arguments about tax, unrighteous and
illegitimate government and the like but they're simply wrong. Paul commanded
us to pay the tax and wrote those words under the auspices of Nero and the
Roman Empire. The ruler was wicked and the revenue would certainly be used to
wage evil wars of conquest and build pagan temples. It doesn't matter because
the state is not holy and only serves a temporary purpose of restraint. Even a
bad state is better than no state. Our modern semi-Pelagian Enlightenment
humanist compromised thinking struggles to understand this, all the more given
the isolation and relative stability of the American experience, something most
of the rest of the world does not experience.
Continue Reading Part 2
Continue Reading Part 2
*I will grant there may be times when the state makes it all
but impossible to legally work and to support one's family one must work 'under
the table' as it were. And yet it would be hard to make that case in the United
States, despite the arguments some libertarians have made. Ironically, it is
the illegal immigrants from Latin America who could probably make that case
with some plausibility. For some their own societies and economies have been
destroyed by the American Empire, or at the very least Wall Street and Pentagon
played a significant part in their destruction. As a result they head north and
look for work and a modicum of security. And yet they're denied the ability to
work legally. Out of choices some simply flaunt the law and work anyway, even
though in many cases they're exploited.