July 9th, 2004

Chinese Atheist Sees the Light!

Growing up in China, Brother Paul, believed his teachers when they said there was no God. But the deeply ingrained atheism of his youth only led him to search until he found the ultimate source of hope.

"I got an atheistic education," says Brother Paul, a member of the underground church movement in China. Brother Paul is currently studying in the U.S. and hopes to return to evangelize his country. "Our teachers told us the Bible was an old thing, superstitious and out-of-date," he says. "We just believed what the teacher told us."

Brother Paul's grandmother was an orphan raised under the nurturing influence of missionaries working with the China Inland Missions, (now Overseas Missionary Fellowship). His parents were Christian lay workers who could not overcome the Communist influences on their son.

"My parents tried to evangelize me, but I always said no," Paul says. I refused to become a Christian," he recalls.

He received his first government job after graduating from high school, but soon he began to entertain serious philosophical questions about life. "I began to wonder about the purpose of life in this world," Paul said. "According to the atheist theory, after you die there is nothing. I felt very helpless. I hated to live in this world any longer."

One day Paul's mother approached him and asked if he would consider attending a newly reopened seminary run by the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) which was heavily controlled by the government.

"I knew nothing about the seminary before that," Paul says. "Seminary was a totally strange thing- in China. We'd never heard that name."

Surprisingly, Paul was open to her entreaties. "I thought it was an academic institution where I could get my questions answered, so I said yes." After Paul had been at the seminary a short while he realized he made a big mistake. "After I went there I realized it was the wrong place for me because I didn't want to be a Christian," he recalls. "But gradually I began to read the Bible and found it to be an interesting

book-- totally different from what my (former) teachers said."

Brother Paul was strongly attracted by what he read. "I made the decision to keep reading and realized there is a true God and we should believe in Him." But even after believing in the existence of God, he had trouble acknowledging his selfish condition or his need of a Savior. "It was a painful journey. I resisted admitting I was a sinner," says Paul, "but gradually by the illumination of the Holy Spirit I knew I was a sinner and I saw Jesus as my precious Savior. More and more I learned the truth and I accepted Jesus as my Savior."

Brother Paul wants people outside China to know about the true condition of the church in China. He urges people to read David Aikman's book "Jesus In Beijing" and watch the video "The Cross" which is an accurate picture of the church in China today.

Readers may also want to read "Red Runs The River" posted on this site for more information about the persecution believers are enduring in China even today for the cause of Christ.