Persecution, Growth, and the Underground Church

Persecution, Growth, and the Underground Church

The Lost Discipline of the Love Feast – Part 4

The parallels between the underground church in China and the early church of the first three centuries are striking.  Both suffered intense persecution, being declared enemies of the state.  Both responded by holding fast to the foundational tenets of their faith theologically and in practice (Acts 2:42).  And both did more than just survive— they thrived.  So much so that Constantine was forced, among other reasons, to issue the Edict of Toleration, and later the Edict of Milan,¹ because of the growing number of believers in the empire.  Scholars estimate that by the end of the third century, over 10% of the Roman population were Christians, not counting a vast number of slaves.²

Fast forward seventeen hundred years and we have the same scene played out in our time, only bigger.  Instead of the persecution by the Roman Empire, we see the grand persecution of the church under Mao’s People’s Republic of China beginning in 1949 when atheism was established as the official state religion.  Soon, missionaries were expelled from China, churches and schools were closed, their property confiscated, and pastors and church leaders were imprisoned or condemned to labor camps.

No longer was there freedom of religion or assembly or the right to worship.  Instead, like the early persecuted church, believers were forced underground to practice their faith.  And the results of China’s state-wide treatment of Christianity was “legendary,” says Paul Hattaway, director of Asia Harvest.  He continues, “For thirty years, they have shown the world how to be the church Christ intended.”³  Some estimates suggest there are more Christians in China than Communist Party members, totaling over 150 million and growing by over 30,000 per day.  In fact, it is reported that over half of all believers in China choose to worship in an underground church than in one approved by the state.  Let that sink in for a moment.


The Underground Church in China

How did this happen so fast?  And how did the underground church in China grow so quickly under persecution when the church in the West has seen decades of decline over the same period?  What are we missing that they have found?  Or what do they know and practice that we have conveniently forgotten?

The history of Christianity in China is marked by periods of rapid growth amidst brutal persecution.  Ever since the communist takeover in 1949, Christians in China have faced oppression from the atheist government and have been forced to worship underground, or in homes, buildings, or barns, anywhere away from the watchful eyes of the state.  Yet the church continues to grow at an astonishing rate, unparalleled in modern history, primarily through underground house churches operating illegally outside of state control.  Through courage, faith, perseverance, and the willingness to adapt to change, these unheralded believers have found innovative ways to live out the Gospel, even in adversity.  The underground church in China may be a prototype of the future church in America.  But we’ll write more about that at a later time.

Believers met in homes, apartments, barns, or anywhere they could gather without being noticed, since public meetings often led to arrest and imprisonment.  Yet, they persevered and adapted, just like the early church.  House churches were free to share their faith as they desired without any state interference.  They could properly train leaders without the government dictating what was taught, much like Bonhoeffer’s “illegal” seminary for the Confessing Church in Finkenwalde.  They could worship the Lord as the Spirit moved, without coming under cultural and governmental scrutiny.  Again, just like the early church while facing Roman persecution.  And their commitment to each other and their faith in the Lord became contagious to a generation seeking something real, something they could believe in— which may explain the rapid growth of the underground church that lived in obscurity and poverty.

But the question for us is not the extent or degree of state persecution the church in China experienced, but what they did to shine so bright during times of great satanic darkness.  How did they allow their light to shine so “they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16)?  What was life like for them in the underground church?  And why do over half of the believers in China today still choose the underground church over the visible state-sanctioned church?


What is Worship Like in an Underground House Church?

As in the first three centuries, the underground church in China met primarily in homes or other isolated locations, usually at different times on different days of the week.  By meeting in homes, the underground church could share full meals with one another, echoing the agape or love feast practiced by the early church but forgotten for centuries.  Re-establishing the love feast as a foundational aspect of their worship together was one of the first things the underground church did— and they established it for the same reason the Lord instituted the practice in the first place (Acts 2:42).  For them, the love feast served the same purpose it did centuries ago, binding believers together in the intimate spiritual unity and love only a relationship with Christ could bring, while strengthening their joint submission to Christ and each other (John 17:21).

Eating together in their homes allowed members to know each other deeply and care for each other as a family.  Sharing stories, struggles, hopes, and prayers during the feast forged deep emotional bonds vital in keeping the church together while suffering persecution.  Participation in the love feast required sacrificial giving by those with more financial means to freely and joyfully supply the physical needs of those in the body of Christ with less (Rom. 12:4-5).  For poor Christians in house churches in China, the weekly love feast might be the only decent meal they would eat all week.  And the unity, love, selflessness, and care shown through the feast gave them hope and spiritual strength to endure hardship the rest of the week.  Just as in the early church, the shared meal reinforced that believers belong to one another as members of Christ’s body as children of God (Rom. 8:16-17).  It was a tangible demonstration of the family of God caring for its own.  And it is how the church was meant to function from the beginning.  Still not sure?  Then read it for yourself in Acts 2-6.

Both the early church and the underground house churches in China rely on the power of this communal meal to unite them in a steadfast spiritual community— all for one, and one for all as brothers and sisters in Christ.


“What Have You Learned, Dorothy?”

If the greatest revival of Spirit-empowered church growth in the last century has taken place under great trials and suffering of the underground church in China, and if the greatest apostasy and compromise of His church has taken place in Europe and the United States, which have freedom of religion cemented as part of their cultural charter and churches and cathedrals on almost every street corner— and if the underground church went back to the basics of the faith, back to Acts, in practice and belief— then it would appear they may have discovered the Holy Grail of Christian living, of pleasing God, of living the surrendered, sanctified life, which is taking God at His Word and not altering or changing it for tradition or convenience sake.  One long sentence, I know.

And if any of that is true, and I am convinced that it is, then we have much to consider as the church in the West.  There is apparently much we must do as His church that we no longer consider relevant in our version of church today.  And there is much we must stop doing as His church that we should have never started in the first place.  This means everything, and I mean everything, about church and our accepted relationship with Him must be re-examined under the light of His Word and not based on our cherished traditions.

One last thing before closing.  Please don’t think this is all about a meal, far from it.  The meal, the love feast, is just the vehicle God uses to bring us together as one in His church.  It’s not about adding a meal to our crowded Sunday service.  It’s about the meal serving as an opportunity for us to become more like our Lord.  To do that, our attitudes about each other must change.  Our acceptance of fellowship as being nothing more than a surface-level conversation with casual friends over a chicken dinner must change.  We must desire to be more than what we are today if we expect Him to move in our midst.  But I think we already knew that, didn’t we?

Can you see why the enemy worked so hard to remove the love feast from the arsenal of tools the Lord used to create men and women of God in His church?  And can you see why we are in the lukewarm, Laodicea shape we are in today (Rev. 3:16)?

But all that can change.  It doesn’t have to stay the same.

And it can begin with you this Sunday.


Notes

1. The Edict of Toleration, issued in 311 AD by Emperor Galerius, granted some rights and tolerance to Christians, ending official persecution, while the more expansive Edict of Milan in 313 AD, under Constantine I and Licinius, provided full religious tolerance and rights to all religions, establishing Christianity as an accepted religion in the Roman Empire.

2. Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton University Press, 1996. p.6 – “By a hundred years after the Crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity had achieved significant penetration of the urban centers of the Roman Empire, reaching approximately 6 million adherents by 300 AD, or about 10 percent of the Empire’s population.”

3. “The fortitude of the Chinese house church is legendary. For thirty years, they have shown the world how to be the church Christ intended.” – Paul Hattaway, director of Asia Harvest ministry, quoted in “The Heavenly Man” by Brother Yun (2002).


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Will You Survive the Coming Blackout?

Will You Survive the Coming Blackout?

Now, even FOX News is covering the inevitable.  The following is from Doug MacKinnon and was posted on the FOX website on Sunday, June 23, 2019.

We will speak much more about this on our website beginning in mid-July.  But for now, read this and consider what Doug says.

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Will You Survive the Coming Blackout?

There are many never-ending debates between Republicans and Democrats.  Impeach vs. don’t impeach; capital punishment vs. life in prison; wall vs. no wall; legalizing marijuana vs. not; self-driving cars vs. human drivers; Red Sox vs. Yankees; takeout vs. home-cooked; or Gone With the Wind vs. any other movie.

All of these issues are stunningly important, right up to the second where cataclysm falls and creates a nightmare scenario that so many fear.

That cataclysm is a complete loss of electricity and every mode of convenience and survival we take for granted.

The largest red flag on this issue in years just waved in South America.  Last weekend, tens of millions of people in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay found themselves in a complete blackout.  In one moment, they had electricity.  The next moment, they had none, and they were catapulted back to the 1800s.

Only much worse.

People in the 1800s were not dependent upon electricity for their jobs, money, communication, Internet, transportation, education, security, medical services, prescriptions, water, and very lives.

The national power grid of the United States is truly a mess held together with, as the joke goes, by not much more than “baling wire and chewing gum.”

The average age of large power transformers in the United States is 40 years.  Seventy percent of all large power transformers are at least 25 years old.  It’s little wonder that, according to data from the Department of Energy, the United States suffers more blackouts than any other nation in the developed world.

The overall system is so weak, so taxed, and so vulnerable that in 2003, over 50 million people in the United States and Canada were hit with cascading blackouts simply because a tree branch fell on a power line in Ohio.

Because the infrastructure is so antiquated, weather triggers multiple blackouts per year in the U.S.  Blackouts which collectively cost the nation upwards of $30 billion in spoiled inventory, lost wages, and repair of the grid.

Unfortunately, weather is becoming the least feared trigger of a blackout.  In the age of terrorism and increasing cyber-threats, our power-grid getting taken down by a hack is no longer seen as a question of “If it will happen,” but rather, “When it will happen?”

The U.S. government is so rightfully fearful of this, that last November, it ordered DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to war-game a complete cyber take-down of the U.S. power grid.

An exercise they are now wisely running on a regular basis.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, just last year, hackers – strongly suspected to be Russian – gained access to a number of utility control rooms in the United States and got to the point where “they could have thrown switches.”

The DHS report further stressed: “Russian government cyber actors targeted government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.”

Aside from the Russians, the Chinese, North Koreans, other terrorist states, and even cyber-extortionists, are targeting our power grid on a daily basis.

That clock is ticking.

Unfortunately, much like any large terrorist attack, when an extended regional or national blackout hits, you and your family will be on your own. No one is going to ride to the rescue.

How will you survive?

In the blink of an eye, you will lose access to money, food, gasoline, communication, medicine, medical attention, heat, air conditioning, and security.

Gone.

Even though most don’t do it, residents of California and Florida are reminded every year to assemble their “two-week” survival kit. In California, it’s because of earthquakes. In Florida, it’s because of hurricanes.

Survival kits which include water, non-perishable food, medicine, first-aid kits, batteries, a radio, flashlights, candles, cash, a hand-crank charger, with smaller versions of all for your vehicle and office.

The federal and state governments should be issuing that same reminder to every citizen in the nation about the coming blackout. It truly is not a question of “if,” but of “when.”

A night on the town for a movie, dinner, a sporting event or a political debate is great fun until none of it matters and your survival is literally at stake.

Make a plan, because you will be on your own.

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369: Vote for Those Being Led to the Slaughter

369: Vote for Those Being Led to the Slaughter

This has been one of the most contentious election seasons I can remember.  Good people have been dragged into the mud with lies and character slander for the sole purpose of trying to win an election.  Which raises a few questions for the Christian.

How does a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, who is also a citizen of the United States of America, reconcile their responsibility as citizens to both?  Especially in this election.

What is the purpose of human government?  And what is our duty towards that government?  But what if that government is oppressive?  Are we to obey a government that commands us to sin?  Then what are we to do as Christians when we are appalled by the corruption in our own government?

Have you ever asked yourself these questions?  I have.  To find the answers from Scripture, keep listening

The following is a study on the Kingdom of God and human government.

To download the slides for this message, click – HERE

Download this episode (right click and save)

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245:  A Warning to the Church and the Nation

245: A Warning to the Church and the Nation

We are living in troubling, turbulent times… but not unlike the times of the prophet Jeremiah.  In Jeremiah’s day his nation was facing destruction and decay both from within and without.  The judicial system had been perverted and compromised.  Infant murder (abortion) was rampant and the people were engulfed in sexual sin.  Does that situation sound familiar?  I thought so.  Sounds much like today, doesn’t it.

So listen to see what Jeremiah would say today to both the church and the nation.

The following is a study on Jeremiah 7:1-34.

Download this episode (right click and save)

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Coming to a Church Near You…

Coming to a Church Near You…

As we have repeatedly warned, you and your church need to begin to prepare for the coming persecution against Christians in this nation.  You need to open your eyes and wake up and see that it’s right around the corner.  For me, this looks like we are living in Nazi Germany in 1938.  Remember?

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Check Out What’s Flying Over Our Embassy in Israel

The U.S. ambassador to Israel hoisted a gay pride flag over the American embassy in what is believed to be a groundbreaking moment.

“Proudly flying the colors,” Ambassador Dan Shapiro wrote on the embassy’s Facebook page. He posted a photograph showing a rainbow colored flag flying alongside the American flag outside the embassy in Tel Aviv.

“For the first time in history, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv has raised the Pride flag together with our American flag,” Shapiro wrote.  “We are proud to join with the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo and its residents in celebrating LGBT Pride Week.”

So the Obama Administration publicly endorses and affirms the gay rights movement.  Meanwhile, American military personnel are being ordered to remove Bibles from their desks and Bible verses from their walls — lest they be accused of publicly endorsing or affirming Christianity.

Some might call that a double-standard.

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From Todd Starnes.  You can view the original post here.  Fox news also reported on this here.

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