Christian Today Australia had been given a privilege opportunity to talk to Reverend Dr. Gordon Moyes about his recent trip to China. Through this interview he gave a personal insight not just about his trip but the vision for Chinese Christians.
Q: In the Christian Democratic Party public meeting you explained the biggest number of hits to www.gordonmoyes.com derived from China. Could you explain the fascination the Chinese had with you?
Rev Moyes: Currently my website www.gordonmoyes.com received over 100,000 hits per day. We traced where the hits were coming from. We found out the largest visitors coming to our website based on country origin were China. Along with China there were also a large number of Chinese Diasporas especially from Singapore and Malaysia.
The fascination stems from my long connection with the Chinese people, which started from childhood till now. I still remembered when I was doing mission in Melbourne I provided hospitability to Chinese students when they came here to study. In the 1970’s I endeavour to build up a good relation with the Chinese Buddhist where I told them I was a Christian but I still conducted wedding services, funeral services and provided grief counselling to them where my role was simply to minister.
When I came to Sydney I was concerned about the Chinese Christians here so I started to establish a Chinese church in Sydney where I was the first preacher. I preached in English, which was then translated to Cantonese and Mandarin. Afterwards 3 Chinese ministers from China, Singapore and Taiwan were integrated into the church leadership. I started to slowly move out as they became more integrated.
Currently there were around 5000 attendances to the Wesley Mission Chinese congregation, the Wesley Mission International Congregation, the Wesley Mission International Fellowship, home bible study groups and a whole range of other activities.
You can see this long connection had been especially helpful in encouraging the large number of visitors of a Chinese origin to visit my website.
Q: Can you please share with us your personal reflection of your trip to China?
I wrote a few books based on the film I made while I was in the Middle East. The three books were ‘Discovering Jesus,’ ‘Discovering Paul,’ and ‘Discovering the Young Church.’ Each of the books were translated to Chinese and printed in China where each sold 500,000 copies.
The big interest in my books from China I believed was a thirst from the people who wanted to know about Christianity and how the message of the gospel was spread in the early world.
You must remembered that China had a long history with Christianity, which was documented in my film’ Inside the Great Wall’ where Christianity was spread to China very early on by Europeans such as Marco Polo and Francis Xavier. So there already was a Christian indigenous presence there.
In China there were a growing number of churches with over 90 millions Chinese Christians either registered under a government sanctioned church or an underground church. My wife and I visited both groups because we supported all Christians regardless of whether they belong to a government sanctioned church or they belong to an underground church.
While I was in China, I travelled on their public transport, which I called ‘hard seat’ where I talked with ordinary Chinese, sat with them and ate with them.
Through this I believed the Chinese people had a chance to meet me and from there they were interested in what I was doing.
Q: Can you please share with us you experiences in meeting with students who belong to underground churches?
Rev Moyes: Underground church was treated by the Chinese government with deep suspicion and in some cases outright hostility. The most aggressive in proclaiming the Gospel comes from the underground church. I believed they would be the next great thrust for Christians within and through Chinese Christians.
I heard harrowing tales of ‘Heroes of faith’ being imprisoned by the Chinese government during the Gang of 4’s reign for 23 years where they were subjected to unspeakable assaults both physically and psychological.
I still remembered one time we had to change our motor vehicles twice and walk down alleys to visit a group of students who belonged to an underground church. This was all recorded in my film entitled ‘Inside the Great Wall.’ When I met them illegally they had copies of my book. The students were pleased to see someone in the Western World who had published books in Chinese and who wanted to support them. They saw me both as radical and courageous in my active support for their cause.
When I met students at the university in Beijing they were singing hymns as me and my wife approached. I asked were you not scared. They answered that the university regulators know so does the religious police but every time they come we disappear into the shadows.
I was quite impressed where the students could move and disperse very quickly and then regroup through some methods such as SMS.
I conducted a bible study with them where they found my sermon to be both trustworthy and biblical. Currently I received emails from there where I had to guess some of their messages because of electronic censorship where due to sensitive words such as Jesus Christ or Church the email would be automatically rejected.
Q: Do you see a breakthrough for Chinese Christians where the message of Christ could be proclaimed freely?
Rev Moyes: I believed there are signs emerging that make this possible. The first is the Internet where unlike a physical border once you cracked the electronic surveillance then the message could flow freely. The second is the enormous economic prosperity being experienced by Chinese where many were moving up to the ‘middle class.’ Now they own houses, drive cars and eat out in restaurant. The influx of American televisions and films made them aware of their own government human right abuses. Sooner or later their tolerance for ignoring human rights would break and they would say we could no longer stand it. It was important to understand that along with economic prosperity it would introduce concepts of human rights and personal freedom.
Churches in Asia not just the Chinese community but South Korea along with Singapore and Malaysia were very strong in their determination to proclaim the gospel freely in China. It was interesting to note that currently South Korea sends out the most number of missionary in the world.
China suppressed and closed theological colleges and ministry training schools in the mainland but in 1997 when Hong Kong was given back to China there unwittingly took back 13 graduate schools of ministries and theology, which was regarded as some of the best in all of Asia. Through this hand over ministers and missionaries were raised up and sent to the mainland where the message of the gospel was proclaimed among China citizens.
Before China was isolated from the world because of its language, but this was changing where more Chinese wanted to learn English because it was seen by many as a sign of proper education. So the communication between the West and China is slowly breaking down making it easier to proclaim the message of the gospel.
Q: I was wondering whether you can give us an impression of overseas Chinese students studying here in terms of their Christian faith?
Rev Moyes: I found that the overseas Chinese Christian students were more zealous and devoted to the Christian faith compared to Australian born Chinese and European Australians.
In Wesley Mission International Fellowship we had street base evangelism where we invited people to come to church. If I asked a European Australian they would run 10 miles rather then talk to 10 people.
The Chinese however are more zealous and devout where they had no problems going to the street and asking their compatriot. They started off with a prayer, go out evangelising and then come back rejoicing enthusiastically.
Q: How do you see the Chinese Church being integrated into Australian Church so one body of Christ could be formed?
Rev Moyes: I believe it was through food and faith. At Wesley Mission our activities encourages a lot of eating. Through sharing a meal together one can build a good relationship with each other. It was important to share the faith together.
I came to a point in my life where through 40 years of maintaining a close relation with my friends I do not see them as Asians nor look at their background but I just know their name and I know they are my friends.
Thank you Reverend Dr. Gordon Moyes for giving us your precious time amid your busy schedule.
For more information on Reverend Dr. Gordon Moyes please visit his website at: http://www.gordonmoyes.com