BEIJING - "Some of you here will speak in
tongues, some will see visions, some will cry,
some will sing, some will collapse, and some will
just remain calm. The Holy Spirit will manifest
itself in different forms. Just be natural and
accept it in whatever forms it is revealed to
you."
Reverend Jiggu George Bogi was
addressing a congregation of Christians last
Friday at a Korean church in Beijing. The
background hymn music in the room turned louder so that
everyone would feel
comfortable to pray aloud. The atmosphere was
already highly charged after the charismatic Bogi
had just delivered a powerful sermon on the Holy
Spirit and Christian mission.
"The Holy
Spirit that came upon the 120 disciples in
Jerusalem 2,000 years ago will come to you
tonight," Bogi said.
Bogi walked to a
woman in the second row and placed his hands on
her head. The woman, looking in her mid-20s, soon
collapsed. Bogi walked to the right to a lady in
her 40s who was praying and crying. When Bogi laid
his hands on her forehead, she began to pray more
zealously. Less than a minute passed before she
also fell down.
Three Korean pastors at
the church assisted Bogi. They walked around the
crowd and prayed for them. In various pockets of
the crowd, many more people collapsed.
A
girl, probably aged 7, lifted her two small hands
high in the air as if to capture "the gift of God"
that a pastor said Jesus had promised in the New
Testament. She became visibly emotional and
started to cry as if something made her very upset
or sad.
A man in the corner started to
speak in tongues. A woman next to him cried.
Someone behind them began to clap his hands
wildly. The room gradually became a whirlpool of
surreal drama of wailing people. The loud gospel
hymn music filled the whole room, packed with some
200 passionate believers, as if that were the
source of magic that had put a secret spell on
them.
To an uninitiated eye, watching
these "spell-bound" people would be an uncanny,
almost apocalyptic experience. But in the Korean
experience of Christianity, a scene like this is a
regular feature of religious life. Many Koreans
regard speaking in tongues as proof of personal
salvation. More importantly, the Pentecostal
promise has always been a powerful driver for
Korean Christians' evangelical enthusiasm.
The Pentecostal promise of
China Among the many questions that arose
during and in the aftermath of the six-week South
Korean Christian hostage crisis in Afghanistan in
August and September was why South Korea - a
country with just over 100 years of Protestant
Christian history - was so driven by the zeal of
spreading Christian teachings abroad, including in
a disputed war region far away from the home
country.
It is known that the 23 South
Korean Christian volunteers in Afghanistan - all
from the same Saem-mul Church in Bundang just
south of Seoul - wrote their wills before they
boarded the airplane that took them to Kabul. That
means they were actually mentally prepared for the
possibility of dying in Afghanistan.
What
has been missing in the discussion, however, is
the lack of speculation of where a second Korean
Christian incident could happen. China, officially
an atheist nation but one that "guarantees"
religious freedom in its constitution, only
permits state-sanctioned, registered churches to
operate and has a blanket ban on missionaries, is
a likely site.
Religious freedom in China
seems to vary largely according to the whims of
local authorities and political and social
currents. Municipalities such as Beijing, Shanghai
and Shenzhen and others have state-sanctioned
churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, for both
foreign and Chinese believers. Rows between the
Vatican-sanctioned Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal
Joseph Zen Ze-kiun and the mainland-sanctioned
Catholic Church have erupted for at least a
decade, usually over ordination issues.
Shenzhen, for example, has 26
state-sanctioned Chinese-speaking Protestant and
Catholic places of worship, including an
8,400-square-meter, ark-shaped, four-story house
of worship that can hold up to 2,000 believers
with services in Korean, Chinese and English,
according to Li Jianping, director-general of the
Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs.
The congregation is part of an estimated 15 to 20
million "approved" believers nationwide, a figure
that is said to be growing rapidly.
There
are also an unknown number of "underground" or
"house" churches, typically secretive worship
sessions held in private apartments. The total
number of underground and "approved" Christians
isn't known but some estimates, such as that of
The World Christian Database, put the number as
high as 111 million, of whom 90% are Protestant,
mostly Pentecostals.
South Korea sends the
world's largest army of some 17,000 Christian
evangelists abroad, only after the US. And
currently, many, if not the majority, of them are
in China. When you type "Christian mission in
China" into the Korean Google, it will retrieve a
whopping 1.3 million results, showing the
tremendous Korean Christians' interest in China.
Just like many multinational companies see
China as a big market with a huge potential that
needs to be exploited, the army of Christians see
China as a place where, they say, God wants to be
manifested in the 21st century. Particularly,
South Korean Christians see China as the "axis of
world Christian mission".
"There are one
billion customers in China; there are also one
billion lost souls in China too," a pastor said.
There is a palpable enthusiasm among
Koreans for a Christian mission in China. "In a
not too far into the future, China will respond to
the call of God and will transform into an outpost
for evangelizing the world. God loves China and
has a great plan for it," Kang Tae-kyu at Mokwon
University wrote in his master's thesis.
A
prominent problem with South Korean missionaries'
work in China is that their activities are easily
exposed to the Chinese authorities due to their
aggressive and risk-taking evangelizing.
Some South Korean missionaries have been
deported from the country. Several have also
served time in or remain in Chinese prisons,
accused of trying to convert North Korean refugees
or for smuggling them to South Korea.
When
a foreign missionary is caught proselytizing to
Chinese nationals, he or she will be subject to an
investigation, usually followed by deportation.
Once deported, the missionary will not be allowed
to enter China again for five to seven years.
According to the China Aid Association, in
the one-year period as of May 2006, some 1,960
pastors in "underground" churches in China were
arrested.
Given the huge presence and open
tactics of South Korean missionaries in China,
some worry that a version of what happened in
Afghanistan could happen in China. The South
Korean ambassador to China, Kim Ha-joong, himself
a devout Christian, at one time was said to have
appealed to the Korean Christians in China to
"moderate" their enthusiasm.
Korean
Christians call themselves "the second Israel",
meaning they have the spiritual responsibility for
spreading the "Good News" to the rest of the world
in the 21st century, just as Jerusalem was the
origin of Christianity some 2,000 years ago. Many
South Koreans strongly feel that Christianity is
responsible for the nation's economic and
spiritual prosperity and feel obliged to take up
the mission to share the "Good News" to other
people.
That kind of determination was
clearly felt after the Korean Christian hostages
in Afghanistan returned home with two dead
members. The church's pastor created a controversy
by saying that his church would continue to send
its missionary team abroad. But as part of the
deal to free the hostages, the South Korean
government promised the Taliban that it would
prevent missionaries from traveling to
Afghanistan.
Some moderate Korean
Christians say that missionaries often fail to
understand and respect different religious and
cultural backgrounds, including those in China.
They argue for a more open and "legitimate" way of
conducting missions in China that doesn't violate
the Chinese law. For example, they argue that
Chinese businessmen and professionals would be
more interested in Christianity if foreign
Christians were better role models. They believe
that showing by example is a more non-invasive,
effective and safe way for Chinese people to take
a positive view of Christianity.
Emboldened by the Holy
Spirit The time was now nearing midnight.
The enthusiasm in the room, however, didn't
subside. Bogi emboldened the believers with
biblical miracle stories such as "Daniel in the
lion's den", and he emphasized the importance of
"receiving the Holy Spirit" which can act as a
protector.
"I believe that in seven or 10
years from now, God will work mightily in China,"
Bogi told the Korean congregation. "There is a
reason why you are in China. God called you here.
There is a mission. God has destined you to bless
China."
Sunny Lee is a
writer/journalist based in Beijing, where he has
lived for five years. A native of South Korea, Lee
is a graduate of Harvard University and Beijing
Foreign Studies University.
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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