Wang Yi could have refused
the state and continued to function as a leader in the church. Resulting
punishment would be persecution. But instead he chose to actively disobey the
law and his activities ranged far beyond the mandate of the Church. He chose to
ignore building and business laws in order to construct a sizable facility and
to run a business outside the strictures of the law. He committed a crime and
while tangentially related to Church activity it was in fact outside its
purview. His malformed and imported ecclesiology and confusion regarding the
Kingdom and Classical (Enlightenment) Liberalism led him to believe that what
he was doing was somehow part of his Christian duty. He was fool but
unfortunately not a fool for Christ and he's paying a price for it, something
the Scriptures warned about.
I'm reminded of other Evangelical-minded leaders, people like
Kent Hovind. Now Hovind is certainly financially corrupt and yet his situation
is not all that different from Wang Yi, at least in principle. He decided to
flout the laws of the land, not for the gospel but for profit. And he was
convicted for it and sent to jail. He and his followers cried persecution.
Hovind wasn't persecuted, he was a criminal. You may not like the laws but the
powers that be are ordained by God and Hovind decided to resist the power and
paid the price.
As a quick aside I'm afraid a lot of these people employ
rather dubious arguments and it often demonstrates a woeful misunderstanding of
just how complex society is. As I've waded into the worlds of business,
government, law and finance I am struck by just how complicated the problems
are and how intertwined and seemingly irreducible they are. The system we have
may be frustrating and corrupt but at the same time there is a logic to it. I
say this while also admitting the more I explore it through research,
experience and conversation the more I am convinced that we (as Christians)
should more or less divorce ourselves from it as much as is possible. I was
thinking about all of this just the other night after spending over an hour on
the phone with an acquaintance talking about issues regarding the local water
authority. From legalities, to small town politics, to issues surrounding
engineering, liability, enforcement and the like I just remember thinking, I don't
want any part of it. I realise some believe this is bad citizenship, something
of a cop out. The truth is we're not called to be 'good citizens' as Babel
would have it. Pilgrims don't 'invest' in the society. They live there. They
obey the laws and yet they go about their own business and in our case it's a
'business' the lost world doesn't understand. They'll despise us and that's
fine. That's normative. If they want to build their Babel-worlds and societies,
let them. And yet understand this... if they don't, that's fine too. It
shouldn't matter to us either way. We can appreciate the benefits of the state
but never forget what it is... it's a blood-soaked mammon machine and utterly
corrupt. It has nothing to do with us. Turn on your tap, drink the water, enjoy
the benefit... pay your bill and don't complain. Is the system crooked and
broken? Of course it is. Some are more corrupt than others and there are always
strings attached for those who would be part of it. No one said life is easy.
But Wang Yi was looking for trouble and he found it.
But it's not even that simple. There are other charges and
extenuating circumstances and this is the real issue. Other underground pastors
have faced persecution and incarceration. This was especially true during the
years of the Cultural Revolution but over the past twenty-five years a lot of
churches have been able to function. It may not always be pleasant. There are
pressures and some have been jailed but Wang Yi has been singled out for his
socio-political defiance.
He didn't just defy the laws concerning registration... that
was probably the smallest issue of state concern in the case of Wang. His
defiance of the law and the financial system was an affront to the state and
set a bad example. But even worse Wang was to some degree and in some sense
wedding his activities with ideas, power, money and even direct contact with
elements within the United States... and even worse within the US political
Establishment. A celebrity high-profile activist now turned pastor, he was able
to meet George Bush in 2006 and traveled again to Washington DC in 2008 where
he met with lawyers and other activists. He was enlisting outside help and
inspiration to wage his social war against the Chinese state. And worse he was
effectively collaborating with China's enemies and the very forces that are
working to financially damage their economy and militarily encircle them. The
same state which Wang befriended collaborates with Beijing's enemies in Taiwan,
Tibet and Xinjiang and also consistently meddles and manipulates the
geopolitics on China's periphery. From Japan to the Korean peninsula to the
South China Sea the US continues to push against Beijing. Washington asserts
its control over the entire region. The history and geopolitics at this point
are irrelevant. Whether you agree with Washington, Beijing or disagree with
both state's claims really doesn't matter.
The point is, Wang decided to ally with the one against the
other. He decided to ally with and collaborate with the American Empire against
the Chinese one in which he lives. That's political activism. The hostility of
the state against him is basically rooted on this point. They view him (with
some reason) as subversive. In one sense we as Christians are subversive. The
gospel will pull men out of the world and destroy their obedience to the state
and its status quo. This is why Christians are under stress in places like
Russia. But Wang's subversion was much worse and of a different order. It
wasn't just 'gospel' subversion but political subversion, an attempt to use
external resources, the weight and influence of a hostile power to put pressure
on his government. And he did this while at the same time defying its laws
concerning tax, zoning, building and the like.
In some ways I'm surprised his sentence wasn't more severe.
Beijing knows that he's a high profile figure and backed by forces within the
American Establishment. His coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post,
testify to this. The sentence while harsh sent a message and yet given the
level of his activities I'm surprised it wasn't much worse.
He is to be pitied because I have no doubt he means well and
wants to serve Christ. However he's been misled by false teaching and it has
translated into him suffering as an evildoer a meddler in other people's
affairs. Had he simply decided to refuse, his actions would be praiseworthy.
But he didn't refuse, he resisted the
power, challenged it and worse worked against it by calling on an
aggressive rival great power and implicitly utilised its threats of large-scale
violence. People don't see it that way because they have not properly grasped
what the state is and what it represents. The state is violence and Wang worked
with a very violent and powerful state against his own and he got bit for it.
He thought he was just resisting the evils of the Chinese state but according
to Romans 13 he was resisting God and brought condemnation upon himself.
See also: