The Candlelight and the Sunlight
By Yu Feng
In 1990, I went to Connecticut as a visiting scholar. That experience greatly broadened my view of the world. I had a chance to get to know a different society. More importantly, a lot of Christians became my friends. I studied the Bible with them and had the opportunity to explore a whole new spiritual world and a whole new human psychology, none of which I had any chance of being exposed to in China.
Just a Fairy Tale Our Bible study was held on the first floor of a Baptist church of the Americans. The Bible study leader was an engineer who immigrated to America from Beijing several years back. At that time I had never seriously considered to become a believer of Jesus Christ because I was a stiff-necked materialist. My brain, trained for many years with materialist theories, had been occupied by an inflexible logic system and it had never left even a tiny bit of room for any supernatural concept. In my opinion, Bible stories were like many Chinese classic novels such as The Journey to the West, in that they reflected the imaginations of ancient people who failed to explain certain natural phenomena and social phenomena. With the advanced technology today, it was beyond my understanding that there were still so many believers of Jesus Christ who believed in heaven, hell, soul, next world, virgin becoming pregnant, resurrection, five loaves of bread and two fish feeding five thousand, walking on the surface of the sea, striking a rock to obtain gushing water, opening up dry land in the sea, touching a blind man to restore sight, so on and so forth.
Source of Strength What puzzled me more was that so many outstanding and renowned people had become pious Christians, including writers, scientists, politicians, military figures, doctors, professors, engineers, and businessmen. These people seemed to exemplify that Christian belief was paddled by a great source of strength. I attempted to explore the whereabouts of such a strength. But I was not able to go very far. I read the Bible with my Christian friends and listened to their interpretations. I had a lot of questions. Every time I tried to ask a question, they always seemed to reply, "This is God's mystery", or "This is God's sovereignty", or "This is God's act". Such answers couldn't really help me in any way. God almost became an excuse for them not to explore any questionable spots. I even suspected they were being perfunctory. After a while, I stopped asking questions and started to act like an outsider. Sometimes I even felt this kind of Bible study was not very different from the political study we used to have in China. One person talked and everybody else listened; all treated the words in the Bible as absolute truth; those who understood were supposed to believe and those who did not understand were also supposed to believe; nobody seemed to be able to discuss anything in depth. I had this kind of feeling mainly because I had stubbornly refused to accept Jesus and had not allowed any unproved ideas to slip into my mind. Further, the Bible study I participated in was not much more than simple narration of Bible stories and it did not provide enough materials to help an atheist like me to establish my consciousness of God. It was difficult for an amateur evangelist to help me in this way. Even professional pastors would find it hard to deal with stiff-necked materialists like me, who were used to exploring the world with our own logical reasoning and who had no idea how to feel the existence of God with their spirit.
Know More Nevertheless, my Bible study experience was not without any effect in my mind. Before I knew it, I had gradually changed my inner self after almost ten months of fellowship with those Chinese Christians. First of all, most of them believed there was a certain kind of spiritual world that existed beyond our common sense. Once I met a retired biology professor, who was a warmhearted Christian. I took the chance to ask him how a biologist like him could believe in God since modern science was so advanced that human beings were almost able to explain all the mysteries of the formation and evolution of organisms. This biologist told me that modern scientific knowledge could only strengthen, rather than weaken, his belief in God. He said that the more he knew about the mysteries of organisms' formation and reproduction, the clearer for him that it would be impossible for any of the living beings to emerge or survive without God's creation. His answer was like a thunderous blow on me and I couldn't find a word in response to it. Later on, I gradually found out that many scientists shared the same perception as this professor. In fact, the number of western biologists who strongly believed in Darwinism was quickly diminishing.
Just Believe Secondly, neither modern science nor philosophy were able to prove the existence of God, nor could they prove the non-existence of God. Christians' consciousness of God was based on faith. Atheists' unconsciousness of God was also based on faith. If we seriously thought about it, we would know that none of the philosophical works could provide justifiable proof that the physical world was without a beginning and without an end and that all were the results of their own evolutionary processes. It was based on faith to claim that physical world was infinite, and it was based on faith to claim that inorganic substance could by itself transform into colorful living beings. Therefore, it was not entirely impossible for a materialist to become a theist.
Deeply Touched Finally, I was deeply touched by several Christians' various deeds, which made me hope to live like them. I believed this would be the only way to meet my goal of an ideal life. Generally speaking, my Christian friends were straightforward, warmhearted, conscientious and real. Those with better spiritual life could even transcend the worldly fame, social status, power and wealth. Instead they wholeheartedly sought to live a pure spiritual life, to imitate Jesus Christ, to follow God's commandments with all their mind, and to lead a just and righteous life. Such people could be credited the true backbone of the nation and the pillar of the society. In contrast, today's Chinese society was full of lust and spiritual corruption. People were deceitful and skeptical. For a little bit of economic gain, or fame, or social status, or title, or power, they would often intrigue against each other, conspire and hurt each other with all kinds of cheap means. This was especially true for those with power. These people liked to teach with nice words in public and yet they plundered public properties behind the scene. Under their leadership, general social morality was weakening and crime rate was growing. Atheism destroyed the traditional ideology of fear of God, so that criminals became more and more fearless. Thousands of lawless modern Chinese enjoyed fighting against nature and fighting against men. In such a dark age full of corruption, the Christians' attitude toward life and their social behavior seemed to bring me new hope.
Three Ideological Approaches When I went back to China in October 1991, I still refused to believe in Jesus Christ although my ideology had undergone a tremendous shift. Since the incident of June 4 of 1989, Chinese intellectuals have begun their search for a new ideology. Their new points of view generally fall into three categories. The first is to emphasize traditional Chinese culture and attempt to uncover any living elements of Confucianism. People with this approach attempt to combine Confucianism with modern Western democracy and try to institute a nationalized cultural enlightenment. I believe that Confucianism contains certain everlasting reasoning that has long become invaluable inheritance of the Chinese nation. However, the spiritual force of Confucianism fails to satisfy me because it does not seem to be sufficient to resolve today's spiritual crisis of the Chinese people. The second type of view point is to continue to mimic Western humanism and seek complete modernization of China's political and economic systems. People with this opinion hope to establish a capitalized economic system with free competition. They also hope to establish a democratic political system with freedom of assembly, freedom of press and general election, and an educational system with humanism. I like an economic system with free competition and I also like a political system with general election, but I remain doubtful about this opinion because I believe the western apathetic culture has already reached its dead end, and its political and economic systems also contain many incurable defects. Besides, China's cultural tradition will also provide strong resistance against complete inheritance of westernized ideology and culture. After all, China can only walk its own way. The third kind of point of view is to carry on Marxist socialist ideology in conjunction with democracy , following the styles of mid-European and northern European countries to build up a democratic and humanistic socialist country. Nevertheless, considering the history and status quo of these countries and considering China's current situation, this opinion does not seem to be able to resolve China's social crisis. The experience of the mid-European and northern European countries does not seem to apply in a country with a population of 1.2 billion, let alone the fact that these countries are now also experiencing many hardships of their own.
Tree without Root Human strength and intelligence alone are insufficient to pull China as well the whole world away from the current crises; thus a source of strength and wisdom far greater than that of man becomes necessary. Like many people of my age, I used to hope for a better future. I used to hope that a heavenly world would eventually become reality following generations of hard work. What I did not realize was that it was necessary to lay a solid foundation before anything could be built and heavenly world was no exception. And yet history shows us that the foundation of heaven has never existed on earth. Human beings have abandoned God's will. They do not obey God's commandments and they want to sit in God's throne. They attempt to build a heavenly world with their own wisdom and righteousness. The result of this practice is far beyond their expectation. "Love comes from God" (I John 4:7) and "God is love" (I John 4:16). Without God, love would become water without source and tree without root. Without God, love would not last long and would be corrupted by sin, be controlled by greed and be contaminated by hate. The tragedies during the Cultural Revolution as well as many other political movements have more than exemplified how people who used to indulge themselves in fairy tales could step up and perform so many silly deeds of absurdity and cruelty, creating so much bitterness and wounds for other people as well as for themselves.
Need a Savior Revisiting all the materialistic doctrines I used to believe in retrospect, I started to realize the necessity for human beings to seek God. We cannot save ourselves. We have no choice but to rely on God's supernatural wisdom and strength. For this reason, I started to consciously seek God and I started to see myself converted from a materialistic atheist to a Christian believer. The ever existing corruption in the modern Chinese society also made me wonder about human's sinful nature. Why is it that those who used to "serve the people wholeheartedly" become lawless and corrupt much like all the corrupt officials in all ages? Is it that they do not have full devotion to what they believe or is it that they always lie to others? How about ourselves? We hate corruption all right, and yet if we were to become people with power, would we be able to keep ourselves from being corrupted? It is not that we intend to deceive others with pretty words; we often have good-natured wishes but bad practices. As Paul said: "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do¡Xthis I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19) "There is no one who does not sin." (I King 8:46). Chinese leaders may have the will to "serve the people wholeheartedly", and yet they are not able to transcend the deadly body so that they also become corrupt once there are temptations from outside.
Miracles During the first three years after I went back to China, I continually studied the Bible as well as other related books. My materialistic ideology gradually began to fall apart, and it started to become easier for me to realize the existence of God. Knowing God's existence does not suffice to make a Christian, nor does the recognition of God's power. There is still long way to go between believing in God and accepting Jesus' gospel. How, then, did I manage to accept Jesus to become my own Lord of life? Indeed, it used to be very hard for me to believe miracles like virgin bearing a child. These miracles would become real to me once I realize God's power. Why? Because I gradually realize our own limitation, the incompleteness of human knowledge and the unlimited sovereignty of God. While it is hard to comprehend God's act with our own limited knowledge such as scientific experiment, it will be pretty easy to believe in miracles once we believe that God has unlimited power. Nonetheless, believing in miracles such as virgin bearing a child or resurrection still does not suffice to make a Christian. In other words, while the teachings of Jesus seem to become more trustworthy, the living link between Jesus and us will still be missing.
Confucius and Jesus I often compare Jesus' teachings with those of Confucius and I find there are a lot of similarities between the two. Jesus said, "Do to others what you would have them do to you." (Mt. 7:12), whereas Confucius said, "Do not impose on somebody something you don't like." Jesus told us to avoid hatred and to control our temper, and Confucius also taught about forgiveness. Jesus proclaimed, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 5:10), while Mencius, the renowned follower of Confucius stated that one had to experience bitterness, hunger and physical hardship before he could be of any important use. Now that the moral teachings of Jesus are much the same as those of Confucius, why is it that we Chinese people do not submit ourselves to Confucianism but to Jesus the Jew? A Taiwanese scholar once claimed following a comparison between Jesus and Confucius that the Chinese people did not really need Jesus because they already had Confucius. His opinion did manage to stir up certain nationalist sentimentality. However, about two thousand years of Chinese history have cast a serious doubt on Confucianism and on its ability to save the world. History has clearly demonstrated that neither Confucianism nor any other man-made doctrines can change our inner self. None of them can provide us an eternal hope. Jesus Christ is able to change our inner self and grant us a spiritual life so that we all become new beings that are completely different from the old. We are also given a hope of eternal life. Confucius made a great contribution toward shaping up the ideology of the Chinese people and won respect from all Chinese people. Jesus, on the other hand, came to this world not just for the Jews but for all nations because He is savior of all. Confucius was a great thinker and moralist, whereas Jesus is the Son of God and He is both a man and God. Before Him, all thinkers and moralists become trivial much like a candlelight under the sun. Indeed, Confucius offered many interesting teachings, so did Sakyamuni of India the Buddha, Mohammed of Arabia the prophet, Plato of Greece the philosopher, and Aristotle and so on. If Jesus were but another great moralist, then we might as well not need Him after all.
Put On New Garment I accept Jesus as my Lord of life. Not that His moral teachings were any better than those of Confucius, but He is the Son of the eternal God. He is a man because He has experienced the bitterness of the world and He knows the weaknesses of mankind. He is God because He is the Son of God. Human beings cannot become their own masters nor masters of others. The only true master has to be God and His beloved Son Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly tells us that Jesus is the Lord and is the beloved Son of the eternal God. The relationship between Jesus and Confucius is the same as the relationship between Jesus and us, i.e., it is the relationship between God and man. When we put on new garment and become believers, all man-made moralities must be taken off like old garments. We can wash them, dry them and put them away like collectibles or show them in historic museums. Who would want to wear an old garment when a new garment is available? The sun has risen. Why don't we put away the candles?
***** Abridged from page 28-31, December 1996 issue of Overseas Campus Magazine. Yu Feng came from Gansu province of China asnd obtained a Ph. D degree in Education. He is now studying in a theological seminary in Canada. |