God is Red, The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China

 

God is Red, The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China 

by Liao Yiwu

I started reading this book a week ago and I finished it today. 

Like I was saying, the book was translated by Wenguang Huang and he noted that the author, Liao Yiwu, is "one of the most prominent and outspoken contemporary writers in China today. His epic poem 'Massacre' composed in 1989 in condemnation of the government's bloody crackdown at Tiananmen Square, landed him in jail for four years." He has subsequently been researching the Falun Gong group, and was pursued and investigated by the government as well. He got interested in Christians in China as part of his wider project about people living at the margins of society in China today. He remains an unbeliever, which in a sense made the book quite an interesting read from an outsider's point of view but as Huang said, "the journeys brought him kinship with millions of Chinese Christians who are finding meaning in a tumultuous society."

It is indeed a very good read. The tone is conversational as Liao reconstructed his interviews with the people in dialogue form allowing us to hear them as they are. 

It is also a painful read. I cannot imagine the atrocities, persecution and suffering that they went through. And what I am thankful for are the missionaries who were there with them before they were deported when the Cultural Revolution started. The missionaries certainly plowed and planted and harvested and is now still harvesting many believers in the Lord. 

pearlie