Writings Of and Reflections On the Ministry of Pastor Wang Yi

The Harderwyk Preaching Team has been following closely, praying for and being shaped by the ministry of Chinese Pastor Wang Yi.  All three of our communities have heard him mentioned lately.  With that in mind, I wanted to collect in one place for easy reference a number resources to help others dig into the same sources that are affecting us.

Added Feb 3, 2023

Just this morning I came across the preface to the collection of Chinese House Church writings menitoned below.  It is a very helpful overview of that movement and Wang Yi personally.  CLICK HERE to read that.

Primary Sources

Wikipedia has a helpful summary of Wang Yi's written works that I will borrow in whole below:  (CLICK HERE for entireWikipedia Page.)

Wang Yi is a prolific writer, preacher and blogger. Many of his works have been compiled at wangyilibrary.org.

The following works have been translated into English:

1. Faithful Disobedience: CLICK HERE - Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement (Intervarsity Academic, December 6 2022)  

In 2010 Wang Yi compiled a collection of writings about the house church and their relationship to the Chinese government, including prominent voices such as Jin Tianming, Jin Mingri, and Sun Yi. In this English edition, the editors have provided introductions, notes, and a glossary, and included some documents from the time of Wang Yi’s arrest in December 2018. (CLICK HERE for a helpful review of this book from Brent Fulton on TheGospelCoalition.org and CLICK HERE for reflections on the book by historian Thomas Kidd.)

2. "My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience" CLICK HERE - This statement was written in 2018 in anticipation of his arrest. Shortly after his arrest it was posted online in English and shared many times around the world. (CLICK HERE for background on this statement from Joe Carter on TheGospelCoalition.org.  CLICK HERE for my own post with background on the reference to "the Lord's servant John Calvin in Wang Yi's statement.)

3. "Ninety-Five Theses: The Reaffirmation of Our Stance on the House Church" CLICK HERE - In August 2015, Wang Yi posted a document titled "Reaffirming our Stance on the House Churches: 95 theses" in an attempt to reaffirm the Chinese house church's position in the relationship between government and society. Echoing Martin Luther's 95 theses, these Chinese 95 theses demonstrate his opinion of the church-state relationship from the perspective of the house church.  

This document is divided into 6 sections:

• Theses 1–17: God's Sovereignty and Biblical Authority.
• Theses 18–31: God's Law and Christ's Redemption.
• Theses 32–39: Against the "Sinicization of Christianity."
• Theses 40–44: Church as the Body of Christ and His Kingdom.
• Theses 45–72: The Relationship between Two Kingdoms and the Separation of Church and State.
• Theses 73–95: Against the "Three-Self Movement" and Affirmation of the Great Commission.

Overview and Context Information

Outspoken Chinese Pastor Wang Yi Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison - From Christianity Today in December of 2019 - CLICK HERE

Chinese House Churches ‘Crazy for the Gospel’ by Trevin Wax - CLICK HERE for a summary and review of the book Faithful Disobedience.

Why China Might Have Had The Largest Unknown Modern Calvinist Revival Movement In Recent History: A detailed look at how Chinese Christianity revived and thrived under Communism. - Wang Yi first caught my attention with his references to the writings and ministry of John Calvin, of all people!  This article helps put that in fascinating context.  CLICK HERE

John Calvin's Thoughts On "The Wicked Ruler" - I have edited and reposted a previous post of my own.  CLICK HERE for the passage in Calvin's Institutes to which Wang Yi refers in his Declaration of Faithful Disobedience.

John Calvin's Thoughts On "The Wicked Ruler"

In his "Declaration of Faithful Disobedience" Chinese Pastor Wang Yi makes this fascinating statement: (CLICK HERE for an update and background)

As the Lord’s servant John Calvin said, wicked rulers are the judgment of God on a wicked people, the goal being to urge God’s people to repent and turn again toward him. For this reason, I am joyfully willing to submit myself to their enforcement of the law as though submitting to the discipline and training of the Lord.  

With some research, I was able to track this down to Calvin's Institutes (McNeil edition) - Book Four, Chapter 20 Section 25 which you see below (emphasis mine):

25. The wicked ruler a judgement of God.  But if we look to God’s Word, it will lead us farther. We are not only subject to the authority of princes who perform their office toward us uprightly and faithfully as they ought, but also to the authority of all who, by whatever means, have got control of affairs, even though they perform not a whit of the princes’ office. For despite the Lord’s testimony that the magistrate’s office is the highest gift of his beneficence to preserve the safety of men, and despite his appointment of bounds to the magistrates he still declares at the same time that whoever they may be, they have their authority solely from him. Indeed, he says that those who rule for the public benefit are true patterns and evidences of this beneficence of his; that they who rule unjustly and incompetently have been raised up by him to punish the wickedness of the people; that all equally have been endowed with that holy majesty with which he has invested lawful power. I shall proceed no farther until I have added some sure testimonies of this thing. Yet, we need not labor to prove that a wicked king is the Lord’s wrath upon the earth [Job 34:30, Vg.; Hos. 13:11; Isa. 3:4; 10:5; Deut. 28:29], for I believe no man will contradict me; and thus nothing more would be said of a king than of a robber who seizes your possessions, of an adulterer who pollutes your marriage bed, or of a murderer who seeks to kill you. For Scripture reckons all such calamities among God’s curses. But let us, rather, pause here to prove this, which does not so easily settle in men’s minds. In a very wicked man utterly unworthy of all honor, provided he has the public power in his hands, that noble and divine power resides which the Lord has by his Word given to the ministers of his justice and judgment. Accordingly, he should be held in the same reverence and esteem by his subjects, in so far as public obedience is concerned, in which they would hold the best of kings if he were given to them.

So as Paul writes Philippians from jail centuries ago, so this brother Pastor Yi now languishes in jail for his faith in our day. 

Providence: More Than Just A City In Rhode Island?

Benjamin Franklin, on the evidence of his own words, would not be considered an orthodox Christian believer by any stretch.  He knew George Whitefield personally - the "Billy Graham" of his day - and supported Whitefield's work with orphans, but never took Whitefield's message for his own life and faith.  

Of interest to me though, is that even as an unbeliever in the 18th century, Franklin's view of the world included the reality of the "Transcendent" that would be incomprehensible in our 21st century western culture.  There was more to Franklin's world, than simply the physical, cause-and-effect that was the inquisitive scientist in him.  Read through this collection of every use of the word "Providence" in his Autobiography.   CLICK for source.

• From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence.
• And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success.
• And this persuasion, with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations, or all together, preserved me, thro' this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion.
• I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.
• What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence; but, if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoy'd ought to help his bearing them with more resignation.
• That he governs the world by his providence.
• The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, properly situated, with intention to build, when Providence threw into our way a large house ready built, which, with a few alterations, might well serve our purpose.
• And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means.

This is exactly what the "Expressive Individualism" of our moment cannot imagine: a non-Christian, with a scientific inclination who recognizes a Transcendent aspect of reality.  Writers like Carl Trueman, to mention only one, have pointed out that Western culture now sees a world with only an "Immanent Frame" of physical, cause-and-effect.  There is no reality outside the purely physical and as a result, no reference point for morals, values or truth outside of one's own experience.  This "Immanent Frame" perspective has been building momentum and taking ground for centuries - read anything by Carl Trueman - but has now virtually taken over and displaced all other options.

IRONY ALERT: My search capabilities are a bit limited on this, but as best I can tell, in terms of speeches from national leaders in our own day, the last president to refer to Providence in a way that would be recognizable to Ben Franklin was Barak Obama, in a speech in 2012:

• "We draw strength from our victories, and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that providence is with us, and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on earth." 

Since then, our presidents only speak of Providence as the capital of Rhode Island.  That is how dramatically things have changed.  Friends, we have crossed a "tipping point!"