I Have Overcome the World

I would like to share with you my experience under Communism and how my story has shaped my understanding of the value of human life and all of life. 

Two significant events in my life spearheaded my search for the meaning of life outside of what I had been taught under Communism—the first was when my dog was killed by members of the Chinese party when I was 13 or 14 years old; the second event was the June 4, 1989 massacre during a student-led demonstration in Beijing. 

The truth was, I was not free—I couldn’t protect my dog; others decided for me. I couldn’t choose my college major; I was told by the government to study electronic engineering. And then when I saw the Chinese government take the lives of students of their own free will on June 4, 1989, the trauma from that event woke me up.

My dream was to love my country under Communism; and part of its appeal was its larger-than-life vision. When I was eight, I joined the Young Pioneers; this is preparation for becoming a devoted Communist. I put on a red scarf, the Communist motto of giving your life to country, making a vow to be a successor of Communism.

I was a good student and grew up as a boy in the countryside until I had to move to the city near my father’s factory. My father and his colleagues were part of what was known as a liberation factory. When China and the former Soviet Union became enemies, Chairman Mao brought liberation workers to the center of China to work in one of these city factories. 

The factory formed a working unit and under this typical Communist unit, we were given everything we needed by the government—school, job, house, etc. My father’s factory was a unit of 2,000 people; we were like a big family, and I referred to my father’s colleagues as “uncles”.

During that time, a big campaign of the Cultural Revolution was to kill all of the dogs in China, believing they were diseased. As a boy, I had been able to protect my dog in the countryside, but now having moved to the city, my father’s colleagues thought my dog was theirs to eat. I felt betrayed. I believed that I could not trust these uncles who killed my dog for their drinking party. They gave the best for their country, but how could they kill my dog? 

In high school, I began to study dialectical materialism and I learned how to argue. I had joined the Youth League to make me ready to join the Communist Party.

But I began to ask myself, is this the truth? They killed my dog; they didn’t listened to me at all. Even worse, they killed people. How could they kill people? 

I began to search for answers in college. I realized that freedom is so precious. But I knew I wasn’t free—I wasn’t free under Communism and I felt trapped inside. When a missionary I met in college shared with me that no one comes to the Father except through Me [Jesus], that God is the sustaining force and my heavenly Father, that He loved me and gave His Son for me, I discovered freedom and that Somebody cares. For freedom Christ has set us free!

Why do we value life? Because we have the image of God, and others are made in the image of God. God came to give us abundant life; and there is meaning in life through the whole world that God created. God is going to rule with justice and righteousness; and the government will be on his shoulders. This is the deep longing of creation. 

For many Communists, they are searching for meaning. Similar to the books of Acts where everyone in the community laid down their belongings for one another and cared for the poor, Communism attempts to project this same vision. I longed to be in a community where people cared for each other. 

Karl Marx said Capitalism was not fair, but I came to understand through the Biblical worldview that the fundamental problem was sin. Under Communism, we had a global agenda—we wanted to liberate the whole world. But when I became a Christian, I saw that there is an even bigger vision—the Kingdom of God, and the call to disciple all the nations. This includes the many unreached and minority groups all over China. Our call is to liberate people from sin through Christ.

Through the events experienced by my generation, God used it to lead us to a search for the truth and most of us found Christ. The fruit of this was the establishment of campus ministry and the urban church since the 1990s. 

But since the 90s and the liberal theology that has taken root in Christianity, Communism as an ideology is coming back as a dominant religion with people seen as gods to liberate people from economic disparity. Even in Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the first line talks of “the spirit of Communism”; it’s more than an ideology; it’s a religion. 

The situation in Hong Kong is showing us again the grip of Communism and its enslavement, but I don’t think the church is waking up to it. This is a wake up call to China and Hong Kong for people to pray! The Christians under Rome understood this. We demolish strongholds that set themselves up against the true knowledge of God! We need to help the younger generation to understand what’s going on, and to understand the deception.

But more than anything we need to understand this: “In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

God is using all of these circumstances to wake up the church!