by Billy Graham
Our formal invitation, as I said, came from the China Christian Council, which was officially recognized by the government and also was affiliated with what was known as the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement.” The term refers to China’s churches’ policy of being “self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating” and underlines the churches’ independence from foreign influence and support. The movement had its roots in the thinking of nineteenth-century American Presbyterian missionary John Livingston Nevius. His ideas were rejected by his co-workers in China but eventually adopted by missionaries in Korea, where the “Nevius Method” was credited with the rapid growth of the Korean church.
On the other hand, millions of Chinese Christians worshiped either as single family units or in so-called house churches, meeting as regularly as possible. These groups of believers were sometimes referred to as “meeting-point Christians.” Many of the house churches were not affiliated with the officially sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement. In many instances, they rejected the leadership of that body and its churches because of their ties to the government.
I did not want to offend either group, but I knew there would be pressure, especially from the Western press, to take sides or even to make some statement opposing the government’s policies toward either group.
In addition, I knew China could be a political minefield. Al-though relations between the United States and China were more cordial than in the past, a number of thorny issues still remained, including human rights.
As had been the case in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, I would need to weigh my statements very carefully to avoid misunderstanding. I had already sought advice from a wide variety of people knowledgeable about China, from former President Richard Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, who had made a trip to China shortly before.
Immediately following the Helsinki Crusade, I flew to Tokyo for a few days of rest before continuing on to Beijing. By the time my longtime associate Henry Holley met me at the Tokyo airport, I was very tired and was suffering jet lag aggravated by vertigo and a bladder infection. One night I got out of bed, tripped over my briefcase in the dark, and ended up on the floor, with broken ribs and other internal injuries.
Henry took me to three different medical specialists in Tokyo; all agreed I must not undertake the trip to China. Indeed, the physical damage was so great that I had to be flown back to the United States for treatment at the Mayo Clinic. The aftereffects lingered for months, eventually involving surgical removal of one rib.
We worried about the impact of canceling the visit. Would our hosts understand the situation, or would they assume I had come up with a “diplomatic illness” and was really canceling for some obscure political reason? If they drew the latter conclusion, the trust we had so carefully built up with Chinese officials would be shattered. Al-most certainly, in that case, we would never have an opportunity for a renewed invitation.
We took pains, therefore, to communicate my medical situation as fully as possible to them and to Ambassador Winston Lord at the American Embassy, both by telephone and through a letter that Shorty Yeaworth hand-delivered to our hosts.
Fortunately, they all understood and graciously accepted the situation. In the Lord’s mercy, we were able to reschedule our itinerary and engagements for April 12 through 28, 1988. Following my release from the Mayo Clinic, I canceled everything that I could in the next few months and devoted as much time as possible to preparations for the trip.
Before our arrival in Beijing, several of our advance crew flew in from Hong Kong. On landing in Beijing, they experienced a fierce dust storm blowing in from the Gobi Desert, which ruined the film crew’s plans to shoot scenes around the city before our heavy schedule began. On Tuesday, April 12, we arrived at the Beijing airport via a stopover in Hong Kong. Playing over the intercom of our CAAC (the Chinese airlines plane), Ruth noticed, was the song “Bridge over Troubled Waters.” A bridge was exactly what we wanted to be! We even had the drawing of a bridge as the logo on our special luggage tags.
As we got off the plane, fine dust, almost like talcum powder, still hung in the air from the dust storm and caught in the throat, making speaking without coughing difficult. Ruth remembered such storms from her childhood.
We were given a red-carpet welcome at the airport by our two official hosts, Ambassador Zhang Wenjin and Bishop K. H. Ting, president of the China Christian Council. Ambassador Zhang, as I have noted, was president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a title that did not begin to describe his courtesy and helpfulness. He was often described as “Mr. Integrity,” and was among those who had negotiated with Henry Kissinger in confidential talks some years before. The association’s vice president, Liu Gengyin (whom Ruth had met in 1980), was also there.
In addition to Bishop Ting, the China Christian Council was represented by its vice president, Han Wenzao. American Ambas-sador Winston Lord was on hand too, to remind us that we were not out of touch with home.
The drive into the city from the airport took us past rows and rows of newly budding willows, flowering forsythia, and blooming fruit trees, a reminder that spring was at hand. Ruth was amazed at the traffic and the construction that had taken place in Beijing since her visit eight years before; skyscrapers were rising, and the old one-story dwellings that used to blanket the capital city were rapidly disappearing.
The next evening, we were given a welcome banquet in the Great Hall of the People. This building is a massive architectural marvel in the center of Beijing. Constructed in less than a year, it is the home of the National People’s Congress.
Outside, the building looked more Russian than Chinese; but inside, each room was decorated with magnificent wall-hangings and furniture of a distinctively Chinese character. We were told it had a separate banquet hall named for each of China’s twenty-seven provinces and numerous other assembly rooms.
I sat at a huge round table beside Ambassador Zhang amid other distinguished officials, including Bishop Ting, Zhao Puchu of China’s Buddhist Association, and Ambassador Lord. In the introductory remarks, Ruth was called “a daughter of China” and I “a man of peace.”
In response to their greetings, I stated my conviction that Jesus Christ was the only hope for lasting peace in the world, as well as peace with God through the Cross. That was the keynote of all my speeches, sermons, and remarks during the next two and a half weeks.
As the first course was served, Ambassador Zhang made an announcement through his interpreter, Mr. Su Guang: “We know that present here are many believers of Christianity. We also know that they have this habit of praying before meals. We all respect this habit. So those of you who want to pray before meals, we respect you, and please go ahead.” We prayed silently and gratefully. Never in all my previous travels in the Communist world had this happened.
During the dinner, Bishop Ting took a worn photograph from his wallet to show Ruth. It was of his mother, who had died recently. “She prayed for me every day,” he said simply. “I miss her very much.”
How quickly my notions about China and its people, in spite of my briefings, were shattered! In a span of seventeen days, covering two thousand miles and five major cities, we packed in more speaking and preaching engagements, interviews, social events, and even sight-seeing than I remembered from any other trip I’d taken (though not as much sight-seeing as I would have liked). Journalist Ed Plowman and photographer Russ Busby chronicled the entire odyssey, which evolved into a pictorial book published by the BGEA. We also took a television crew with us to document our trip. Both foreign and American press interviewed us at many stages, but their coverage hardly hinted at the impact all those experiences made on me. Several events remain as special highlights in my memory.
One was our visit with Premier Li Peng, who had been chosen as head of state just two days earlier by China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress. His main task wa
s to administer the country’s modernization policy. He invited us to visit him on Saturday afternoon, April 16, at a traditional Chinese-style building called the Pavilion of Lavender Light. It stood in a corner of the ancient walled compound known, in the days of the emperors, as the Forbidden City; this is the area in which high-level government officials live today. I was his second foreign visitor, the first having been President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines. I knew Premier Li was somewhat familiar with us, since our visit was preceded by personal notes of introduction from Nixon, Kissinger, and Bush.
“Although we have different faiths,” the premier said on greeting me through his interpreter, “that doesn’t matter and will not be any obstacle to our dialogue.” I found it interesting that he seemed to be referring to Communism as a “faith.” A slightly different wording of his statement appeared in the Chinese press: “We don’t have the same ‘God’ but . . . it doesn’t prevent us from having a good talk together.”
In either version, whether he used the word faith or the word God, his was a striking statement. It suggested that in the heart of every human being lay an awareness of the need for something, or Someone, higher than ourselves to give meaning to life—even the heart of a Communist. Whatever his statement meant to him, it gave us a point of contact with each other, and we moved on to matters of mutual interest, including the need for morality and ethics in society.
We sat side by side (with Ruth next to me), facing the rest of the room. Three interpreters—including our friend Sidney Rittenberg—were just behind us. Premier Li and I chatted amiably for fifty minutes as we sipped hot tea.
He asked us if we’d had a nice trip, talked about the room’s furnishings, and reviewed his plans for China’s modernization. When it came my turn to speak—the guest was expected to take equal time and no more—I got carried away and took off on the Gospel. “You really do believe what you preach!” he said, when he could get a word in edgewise.
Although Premier Li frankly stated that he was an atheist, he and I also discussed the potential role for Christians in China’s new environment of openness. Diplomacy would have prevented me from quoting his words if the Chinese press had not, the following day, reported them in some detail. “China can never be prosperous and strong only with material development,” he said. “It also needs spiritual forces. . . . To become a strong country, material achievement alone is not enough. We need moral power too. There are four fundamental elements for building up moral strength, namely: ideals, discipline, morality, and culture. It is important to start from young people, to give them cultural education.”
In fact, the present Chinese constitution, Premier Li told me, guaranteed freedom of religious belief. With amazing candor, he made a concession that was also reported in the Chinese press: “In the past we didn’t practice it in full. We are trying to correct the past.” Then he added, “But I must say that there are not too many believers in China.”
Somewhere in the conversation, I commented that maybe fifty years from now, China could become a leading world power in the moral realm.
“I hope so too,” he said almost wistfully. “But at the present time we have many problems. All sorts of criminal behavior happen among the young people. They refuse discipline.”
Our visit with Premier Li had an unexpected side effect. By going public on television, on radio, and in the press about our private conversation, the premier created visibility and credibility for us that we could never have gotten otherwise and opened many doors for us. For example, later we were able to have frank question-and-answer sessions after my talks to professional groups, students, politicians, and church leaders. In addition, it gave an unusual degree of visibility to the Christians and churches of China I was visiting.
During the trip, we also met with a wide range of civic and political leaders, such as the mayor-elect of Shanghai, Zhu Rongji, who later became China’s vice premier for economic development. Accompanied by the former mayor of that city, Wang Daohan, our group had a refreshing and informative cruise up and down the busy Huang Pu River, which at Shanghai reaches the China Sea and forms the harbor of this great commercial port. We also had dialogue with teachers and scholars in academic settings such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and the Institute of Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, a joint effort between Nanjing University and The Johns Hopkins University.
Especially memorable was our meeting at Beijing University (also known as Beida University). It had been founded by missionaries, and its first president was Dr. John Leighton Stuart, a missionary who also was the last American ambassador to China before the Communist Revolution. We met in the splendid old Chinese-style residence in which Dr. Stuart had lived. The students and faculty who had been selected to attend asked numerous questions, including some dealing with the nature of the soul and the meaning of personal faith.
In addition, we met with members of the diplomatic and international community at a luncheon at Ambassador Lord’s residence; several religious leaders were there also, including China’s leading Buddhist, Zhao Puchu, and countless fellow Christians whose fortitude and faith under past sufferings put me to shame. Ambassador Lord’s wife, the well-known writer Bette Bao Lord, returned from the United States just in time to be hostess at the luncheon; she was a delightful and knowledgeable conversationalist.
In no place we visited was there any restriction on what I could say, and I took advantage of that to expound the Gospel to respectful and attentive audiences.
At Nanjing University, I noticed a contrast between the Amer-ican exchange students and the Chinese students. The American students wanted to know about the political and economic situation at home; theirs were secular, materialistic concerns. The Chinese, on the other hand, asked mainly religious and philosophical questions. In America the role models for students are more often than not entertainment or sports stars, but in China they have traditionally been scholars and philosophers.
Wherever I met with Chinese scholars, I was impressed by their focus on moral topics. They were concerned that the modernization program be undergirded with moral values, as the premier had indicated.
The 200 seminarians I also addressed in Nanjing embodied the promise of a spiritual revival in China, and I was deeply impressed by their commitment and their ability.
In contrast to these academic settings was our brief sightseeing visit to the Great Wall. For all that I had read about it, it was spectacular beyond my imagination: fifteen hundred miles long—so extensive that our astronauts were able to see it from the moon— and in parts twenty-five centuries old.
At the wall, a group of delightful young schoolchildren gathered around to serenade us with patriotic songs. We sat down cross-legged on the pavement while our group reciprocated with some Sunday school choruses.
Then Chinese-born Dr. Charlotte Tan, a distinguished leuke-mia specialist from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City (who was traveling with us), taught them in their own Mandarin language to sing “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, for the Bible Tells Me So.” (Dr. Tan is known and respected throughout China and was in great demand to give lectures at leading medical universities while with us. Her husband, Dr. Moses Hsu, also accompanied us; he is a noted scholar and Bible translator for the American Bible Society.) Ruth enjoyed the very thought of my singing to the children, since I can’t carry a tune. Charlotte Tan and my son Franklin joined in to help drown me out.
Certainly, a major highlight was the opportunity to preach in a number of churches. Visiting with Christians who were part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, as well as those involved in the unregistered or house churches, I sensed a tremendous spiritual vitality. When I preached in historic Chongwenmen Church in Beijing, with Hong Kong seminary president Philip Teng as my interpreter, 1,500 people packed the 700-seat sanctuary.
As I entered, I noticed women kneeling at the altar and praying. Among the crowd at the service was a delegation of ethnic Chin
ese from Brazil. I urged my listeners to include in China’s ambitious modernization program a moral and spiritual renewal as well—or a values system, as I explained to Charles Gibson when he interviewed me via satellite from Beijing on the Good Morning America program. Most of all, I urged them to open their hearts to Christ and His transforming power and love.
Congregations of thousands gathered also when I preached in the Muen Church and the Pure Heart Church in Shanghai. These and other churches in Shanghai—twenty-three Protestant and twenty Catholic—had been packed every Sunday since the government allowed churches to reopen beginning in 1979. In fact, I was told, some people got up before daylight to make sure they had a seat inside the church. In my limited experience, the Chinese congregations were always attentive, with many people taking notes as I spoke. In some churches, I saw people line up at book tables to buy Bibles and other Christian literature.
We experienced worship in less formal settings as well. In Guangzhou (formerly Canton), we veered off the main streets, going down dark winding alleyways. The Chinese coming toward us must have wondered just where these foreigners were going. Soon we could hear singing ahead and above us. We arrived, unannounced but not unexpected, at a three-story building that held an independent house church. People were crammed everywhere, including on the stairways; three-quarters of them appeared to be young. On the first two floors, they were watching color television sets that were monitoring the service on the third floor. One of the security people assigned to accompany us everywhere eventually cleared a way up the stairs to the top floor, where the pastor wanted me to speak. It seemed as though everyone had a Bible, and it was clear that they knew their way around the book.
I gave a “greeting” for about twenty minutes, hoping that my unplanned participation would not cause any trouble for them with the local authorities. It was so hot and crowded that for a moment I felt dizzy and thought I was going to faint.