Journal: Christian Apologetics Journal
Volume: CAJ 06:1 (Spring 2007)
Article: Obstacles To Evangelism In Contemporary China
Author: Douglas Russell

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CAJ 6:1 (Spring 2007) p. 71

Obstacles To Evangelism In Contemporary China

Douglas Russell, Ph.D.

Douglas Russell is a missionary to China. To protect himself and his friends in China, this is written under a pseudonym.

According to Norman L. Geisler, author, speaker, and professor of systematic theology, “Marxism [and Maoism] is the most widespread form of humanism in the world.”1 A confirmation of this assertion is found in China, the most populous country in the world with an estimated 1.3 billion inhabitants. By the most generous estimate, only 100 million (approximately 8%) of all Chinese are Christians, and they too have been raised with the humanistic worldview of Communism.

The implicit acceptance of Maoism is demonstrated by Jung Chang in her best–selling autobiographical work, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. In the conclusion Jung Chang reminisces about the death of Mao in 1976. She knew him to be a philosopher whose thought had shaped post–revolutionary China. However, the author was angered, incensed that the cornerstone of Mao’s philosophy was class conflict. There lingers in the mind of this thoroughly atheistic

CAJ 6:1 (Spring 2007) p. 72

young writer the evidence of moral absolute. Neither in China nor in Britain, where she lives, has anyone led her to understand that the existence of moral law leads to the existence of a Moral Lawgiver.2 Jung Chang is a microcosm of the evangelistic challenge of China today. How does one reach a modern thinker who has been robbed of any concept of the transcendental or the divine?

Meanwhile in present–day China school children continue to be indoctrinated into the atheistic worldview of Mao. An outward symbol of this indoctrination is the red scarf worn by almost all elementary school children. This is the simple uniform of the Young Pioneers, a world–wide Communist children’s organization. However, Mao wittingly or unwittingly pandered to the longing for God in his own people. Mao himself gave aid and comfort to a cult of personality. He referred to himself as “the Marduk of the contemporary Chinese.” This is a reference, a variant reading, of the disgraced Sumerian idol of Merodach referred to in Jer. 50:2.3 To this very day people study his works with a reverence due only to Scripture.4 Many lift their hands in thanksgiving to Mao before each meal. Still this yearning for transcendental reality finds no place in Chinese thinking. Sadly, their worldviews, the underlyi...

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