Every day, millions of Chinese Christians are willing to face poverty, prison, separation from loved ones, even death for the sake of Jesus.
One of those Christians is a man named Bob Fu, who now lives in the United States. His new book, “God's Double Agent,” tells the inspiring story of how he stood up to Chinese Communist leaders, was thrown into prison, and escaped to America.
Bob grew up desperately poor during Mao's so-called “Great Leap Forward.” His teachers recognized his intelligence and leadership skills—skills that led to trouble when Bob began criticizing the widespread corruption in the Chinese government.
In college, Bob led fellow students to the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. He escaped the June 4 massacre unharmed only because his fiancé had become so sick that he left the square to take her to a hospital.
Knowing Bob's leadership role in the demonstrations, the government forced him to write so-called “confessions.” Former friends were afraid to associate with him—even worse, some denounced him. At a low point, as Bob considered suicide, a classmate slipped him a little book—a biography of a Chinese intellectual who had embraced Christianity through the influence of British missionaries.
Bob writes that the story seemed to be “whispering deep truths to me with each new page.” He joyfully accepted Christ and promptly began evangelizing others. After college he went to work teaching English. But as God's double agent, he opened a secret school to train up ministers of the gospel.
Bob himself was about to receive the education of a lifetime. Christian dissident Alan Yuan had once told him, “If you want to be a faithful minister and follower of Jesus Christ, you should learn prison theology.” Prison, he explained, was where “you find out more about God and his faithfulness than anywhere else.” My friend Chuck Colson would certainly have agreed with that.
And when government officials discovered the illegal seminary, they threw Bob and his wife into prison. Despite harsh conditions, Bob witnessed to his fellow inmates, leading many to Christ.
After their release two months later, the unrepentant Fus added to their so-called “crimes” by purposely conceiving a child without government permission. But now they had to make a fearful choice: Stay in China where they would be forced to undergo an abortion, or attempt to escape the country. If they were caught, they faced long prison terms.
With the help of the underground church, the two fled to Hong Kong. But their troubles were not over. Britain was preparing to hand over control of Hong Kong to the Chinese. And that's when the Fus found out that the U.S. Consulate did not recognize religious refugees—only political ones.
Thanks to constant prayer, a miracle or two, and some determined American religious and political leaders, the Fus escaped on the last working day before the Chinese takeover. Talk about cutting it close!
There is much more to this exciting story, which you can read in “God’s Double Agent.”But let me ask you a question: Are you also willing to be faithful to Christ no matter what it costs—your job, your savings, your freedom?
As our religious freedoms come under increasing pressure (think about the HHS mandate and ENDA, for instance), many Christians here in the U.S. may, along with their Chinese brethren, have to “choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:13).
Please, come to the BreakPoint online bookstore to get a copy of Bob Fu’s amazing story, “God’s Double Agent.”
BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Publication date: November 15, 2013
