May 25. Xu Yonghai. Dr. Xu is a Chinese evangelical and psychiatrist who shares the gospel with everyone he meets. He is a social activist in a place where activism can be hazardous to one’s health. He is an “unlicensed” preacher in a place where all religious activity (Christian and other) is controlled by the government.
Dr. Xu has been arrested three times. On this date in 1997, Dr. Xu was arrested for “smearing the government” in an article he had written about the growth of Christianity. For that, he spent two years in a labor camp. Because of another article that he wrote in 2003, he was arrested again. This article was about how the government treated Christians in southern China. They charged him with “leaking state secrets.” He was sentenced to two years in prison. In 2014, he was detained for one month because he was running a house church.
Dr. Xu his fellow believers persist in the face of persecution; they explain that their predecessors faced much harsher punishments, including life imprisonment. Here is his story.
Rejoicing in suffering means more than just bearing it.
In 1997, Xu Yonghai wrote an article about house churches for Chinese Christians. And it cost him two years in prison. He did two years of hard labor. He served two years with no trial. Mandated by police authority, not the judicial system, this was the “labor re-education” system in action.
When he was released—undeterred, he continued his work for the Lord. He had a respectable job as a doctor, and in everything he did, he demonstrated unusual love and concern for others.
But in 2003, he faced another two-year sentence, and he was once again thrust into isolation from his brothers and sisters in Christ.
In prison, the police placed Xu Yonghai in one room for work during the day and a different room for sleep at night. Both rooms were designed to reduce his contact with other prisoners. And the rooms came equipped with nasty insults, physical assault, sparse meals, and heavy labor.
The work started at six in the morning and often continued until 8 or 9 at night, sometimes even later. But even this pain was nothing compared to the pain of missing his wife. That was unbearable.
He longed to continue his daily practice of reading and studying the Bible, but in prison, it was hard to get one. In November, he wrote to his wife to send a copy of the Bible to him in prison, the police told him, “In prison you can’t read the Bible.”
“Why?” he asked.
“The Code of Conduct for Prisoners stipulates: ‘You cannot practice and spread cults.’”
“Christianity is not a cult,” Xu Yonghai said. “The Bible is legal here. If you won’t let my wife send me one, once I’m released from prison I’ll have to tell people that Chinese prisons didn’t even let me read the Bible.”
“I have to consult higher authorities,” the guard said.
It took a few months for the guard to consult the higher authorities. In February, the guard returned and gave Xu permission to ask for the Bible from home. “Don’t preach it to others, though,” he said.
So Xu Yonghai got a Bible and read it often to receive comfort from the Word. He had heard of many other brothers and sisters imprisoned for their faith, who had believed they could not read the Bible and could not receive that comfort, but he didn’t want to lose hope without a fight. One of the passages that especially strengthened him was this:
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed,” (1 Peter 4:12–13, NIV).
The daily reassurance from the Word gave Xu Yonghai hope in his suffering and allowed him to remember the joy of Christ all the way until his release.
Today how can you renew your hope in Christ? Rejoicing in suffering means more than just bearing it.
“Wife of Chinese Christian Prisoner Appeals to Christians around the World.” Asia News. Asianews.it. December 10, 2003. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Wife-of-Chinese-Christian-prisoner-appeals-to-Christians-around-the-world-144.html
Yu, Katrina. “Chinese Christian Churches Targeted in Religious Crackdown.” SBS News. Updated January 8. 2017.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/chinese-christian-churches-targeted-in-religious-crackdown
Yina, Li. “My First Wedding Anniversary with My Husband.” A Hundred Schools of Thought Contend, 2 May 2006, https://blog.boxun.com/hero/201310/xuyonghai/14_1.shtml
Yina, Li. “My Husband Xu Yonghai.” A Hundred Schools of Thought Contend, 29 Jan. 2004,
https://blog.boxun.com/hero/201309/xuyonghai/34_1.shtml
Yonghai, Xu. “By Fighting for It, I Read the Bible in Prison.” A Hundred Schools of Thought Contend, 16 March 2006 https://blog.boxun.com/hero/201309/xuyonghai/91_1.shtml
Story read by Joel Carpenter