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Xi Shengmo

Xi Shengmo, whose birth name was Xi Zizhi, was born into a literary class family of traditional Chinese medical doctors in Western Zhang village near Linfen, Shanxi Province. Young Xi received traditional Chinese education which would one day place him among the ranks of the learned Confucian scholars. Among his friends, he was a high-spirited boy, very forceful in character and a born leader. But, when alone, there were always questions about human life, perplexing and disturbing him, and he longed for an answer to the problem of existence. When his father passed away, his estate was divided. Young Xi purchased a farm on the outskirts of the town. He now became a Confucian scholar who in 1851 obtained Xiu Cai (BA), the first of three literary degrees. He soon won the esteem of the humble villagers and was asked to mediate in quarrels, law suits and other emergencies. As a result, his reputation for wisdom spread far and wide. But with Xi, happiness and rest of soul were not purchased by such paltry trifles. His first wife passed way, leaving no children, and Confucianism did nothing to still the tumult of his soul. His study of Chinese classics, while stimulating the intellectual side of his nature, did not bring peace. At the age of thirty, he was married again, to a girl in her late teens, who became a loving and understanding wife. But the continued conflict in Xi’s soul was affecting his health. When friends suggested that an occasional use of the opium could do no harm and might bring relief, he decided to test its merits. Temporary exhilaration was followed by a deeper depression of spirit than he had suffered before, however. He soon became an addict and resorted to opium again and again, until he was only a shadow of his former self. Committed to death by his wife and friends, he was dressed in his best clothing and laid on his bed, awaiting the moment of departure. To his great relief, his world-weary spirit seemed to be leaving the body. Suddenly it was arrested by the authoritative command, “Go back! Go back!” Sadly, the order was obeyed and the sick man found himself again facing the realities of life. After his conversion, Xi never conceded that what had happened was the fantasy of a distorted mind, but felt rather that it was the voice of God. In 1877, a famine of fearful proportions stalked Shanxi province. For several years, there was no rain and, consequently, no crops. Thousands of people perished from hunger, diseases or suicide. In the midst of the distress, it was learned that two foreigners, David Hill (British Methodist missionary) and Timothy Richard (British Baptist missionary), had come to a nearby town. They wore Chinese dress, distributing food and money to the starving people. They also brought with them a religion of which the people of Shanxi never had heard. With the end of the severe famine in 1879, Hill and Richard conducted a unique type of literature evangelism at the time of the triennial examinations in Taiyuan, and offered prizes for the best literary essays on Christian themes, which covered such subjects as opium, images of the gods, and the regulation of the heart and life; the essays sought to lead scholars to examine the Christian faith. Urged on by his family to prove his prowess, Xi wrote four essays under four different names, and submitted them for examination. When the results were announced, he won three out of the four prizes offered. He went reluctantly to collect the prize from Hill at the missionary’s house in Pingyang, accompanied by his brother-in-law. Later Xi described the meeting: As daylight banished darkness, so did Mr. Hill’s presence dissipate all the idle rumors I had heard. All sense of fear was gone; my mind was at rest. I beheld his kindly eye and remembered the words of Mencius: ‘If a man’s heart is not right, his eye will certainly bespeak it.’ That face told me I was in the presence of a true, good man. Xi became Hill’s assistant in writing literary tracts and translating the New Testament. Within two months, he became a Christian and accepted Hill’s help in breaking his addiction to opium. After Xi started to read the Bible, the Book began to exert a great influence upon him, giving him hope of deliverance from the dreadful habit of opium smoking. One day, as he was reading the story of the crucifixion, he fell on his knees, with the Bible before him, weeping as he read. At that moment, he felt that the dying, yet living Savior, enfolded his weary soul in his great love. His search was ended; peace like a river became his portion. The slave of sin was now and forever the bond-servant of God. This peace did not last long, however; for a week, Xi neither ate nor slept. In the fierce combat between good and evil, he experienced almost every agony known to the human body. Weakness, faintness, dizziness, exhaustion, fever, chills, depression—-all attacked his enfeebled frame. When the struggle was most critical, the addict cried out, “Though I die, I never will touch opium again.” Through prayer “without ceasing” and Bible reading, it was revealed to him that only the Holy Spirit could enable him to conquer in the conflict. Xi said later of the Spirit: He did what man and medicine could not do. From that moment, my body was perfectly at rest. Then I knew that to break off opium without faith in Jesus would indeed be impossible. He was finally delivered from opium bondage and became a new man. When this victory over opium was won, Xi adopted the name Shengmo, meaning “conqueror of demons.” Along with a sense of abundant grace given him came an intense longing to spread the possibility of such an experience to men near and far. Soon he became convinced that he was commissioned by God to do that very thing. Thus, in a very brief time, he was converted, committed to holiness of life, and feeling a call to preach the Gospel. After Hill received a new appointment and returned to Hankou, Xi was baptized in November 1880 at Pingyang by J. C. Turner, missionary with the China Inland Mission (CIM). Subsequently he worked with CIM missionaries in pioneer evangelism in Shanxi and surrounding areas. His education, forceful personality, and spiritual gifts, together with a fervent faith expressed in a deep prayer life, quickly led to his emergence as a spiritual leader. Now the opium-drugged victims of Shanxi occupied Xi’s attention. The wide-spread use of the opiate required earnest and intense effort if the enslaved were to be rescued. His first attempt to do so was in a small town near his village. Since they were short of funds, Mrs. Xi sold some of her precious bridal garments and jewelry. They rented a shop and stocked it with medicines, and furnished it with Christian texts on the walls. For twenty years, the system adopted in this area became a pattern for between forty and fifty others that were opened as refuges for the users of opium. In each station, hundreds of persons were treated with pills that eventually Xi made himself by a secret formula which he believed was revealed to him by God. Loving care, presentation of Gospel truth, and much prayer led to the liberation of thousands of addicts, who then carried the news of their freedom to others. Every new patient was expected to attend daily prayer sessions. Indeed, only those willing to make prayer a major factor in their treatment were admitted. The pills, which took the place of expensive, imported ones, the supply of which had often failed at a crucial time, were the fruit of a season of fasting and prayer, plus Xi’s knowledge of native drugs. His notable achievement was to establish as many as 50 opium refuges in four provinces; these also functioned as centers for church planting. One of the largest of these centers was at Hongtong County, thirty miles north of Pingyang. These refuges were run by reformed addicts who had come through his system, first as patients, then as converts, evangelists, and assistant refuge keepers. Churches established as a result of the outreach by opium refuges were made up largely of recovered addicts. Xi remarked that his Christian life was a very real and constant warfare with the powers of Satan. His battle to develop that most effective evangelistic spearhead, the opium refuge project, met with opposition and difficulties. The only thing he could do was to ignore criticism and resist Satan with spiritual weapons. He relied on the strength of God, rather than his own. At times he became conscious of great fatigue and weakness, and these occasions became the call to much prayer and fasting, for it was in this way that he could know that some immediate, perplexing problem was to be prayed through. Always when he thought the will of God was ascertained, or the problem resolved, the unusual energy which was “usual” for him—- and which he considered to be from God—-was regained and the work resumed. Xi also developed a utopian community called Middle Eden, where he worshipped and ministered together with family members, 50 or 60 disciples, and many recovering opium addicts. Many of the hymns used in churches and the opium refuges were composed by Xi. These were published as Xi Shengmo Hymns by the Shanghai Presbyterian Press in 1912. Xi was an independent, strong-willed man. For the most part, he was respectful in his relationships with the Western missionaries, although some of them fiercely proud themselves noted that he frequently manifested an anti-foreign attitude. Not all agreed with his charismatic emphasis, his desire for control, nor his use of opium refuges as the principal method in his evangelism. Despite character weaknesses of impatience, dogmatism, and authoritarianism, which mellowed with years, he eventually came to exercise a ministry widely described as apostolic. His pastoral gifts leadership were recognized in 1886 when Hudson Taylor ordained him as superintending pastor over a wide area in Shanxi. Three groups of missionaries—-the seven CIM missionaries known as the Cambridge Seven, CIM single women, and CIM missionaries from Scandinavia—-worked under Xi’s direction. This reflected Taylor’s conviction that Western missionaries were merely the “scaffolding” in the building of an indigenous Chinese church. In 1895, Xi planned a conference in his own home village with the purpose of enlarging the refuge work. Two hundred persons were present, and the last sermon that he preached was unusually solemn. At the close of the conference, he decided to visit Mr. Dixon Hoste, who later was to succeed Hudson Taylor as General Director of the China Inland Mission. In the midst of genial conversation with Hoste, Xi fell to the ground unconscious. He rallied, suffering more from weakness than from pain. Within weeks, signs of a serious heart problem developed. For six months he remained with those who loved him. Xi ceased his labor and entered into everlasting rest on February 19, 1896. Sources Taylor, Mrs. Howard, Pastor Hsi: Confucian Scholar and Christian (1900; rev. 1949, 1989). Austin, Alvyn James, “Pilgrims and Strangers: The China Inland Mission in Britain, Canada, the United States and China 1865-1990” (Ph. D. diss., York University, North York, Ontario, 1996). Broomhall, A. J., Assault on the Nine, Book 6: of Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century (1988). Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of Christian Missions in China (1966). About the Author G. Wright Doyle, Director, Global China Center; English Editor, Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.

Did We Kiss Purity Goodbye

Not long ago, purity was something all Christians seemed to admire, and want, without qualification. Now, many professing believers associate the pursuit of personal purity with the scandal of “purity culture.” Christian pleas for purity, some claim, have spread fear, guilt, and shame instead. I encountered these concerns again as I researched and published a fresh plea for sexual purity. Some reformation was warranted. In some circles, the concerted effort for sexual purity in the nineties was a desperate effort to stem the tide of teenage pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion. In the eyes of many, sexual sin and temptation were the hordes outside the gate, and we needed extraordinary measures to hold them back. So they held rallies, published books, printed cards, and fashioned rings. And also (in the eyes of some, anyway) mass-produced shame, even as untold numbers made admirable resolves and were spared great miseries. Some, it seems, came away thinking of purity mainly as a means to marriage, to health, to earthly happiness, even to salvation, and not mainly as fruit of knowing and enjoying Jesus. Purity was not the final solution to AIDS, pornography, or teenage pregnancy; worship was. Purity wasn’t the ultimate key to a better marriage or better sex; worship was. But teenagers weren’t angsty about worship; they were angsty about marriage, sex, pregnancy, and disease, so that’s where the messaging often went (or at least what many kids came away with). Therefore, while teenage pregnancy and STDs did decline over the next couple decades (truly amazing when you think about it), many testified to experiencing more shame than freedom, more disillusionment than worship, more self than Jesus. And, in the process, some (certainly not all) missed the gift and peace of true purity. They may not have dated young or kissed someone before marriage, but they didn’t get to taste what God means by purity either. Lies That Spread in Purity Culture Calls for sexual purity were (and are) biblical and needed. Even in the midst of the good that was done through lots of preaching and discipleship during those years, several lies seemed to spread in the renewed emphasis on purity — each laced with enough truth to be taken seriously and yet with enough deceit to lead some astray. Lie 1: Sexual purity guarantees a happy marriage. Some heard, If you want to get married to a great guy (or girl), have a great marriage, and enjoy a great sex life, then abstain from any sexual sin. One commentator has called this “the sexual prosperity gospel.” It is true that sexual purity before marriage does guard and bless our future marriage, and it may improve our chances of marrying well and enjoying a healthy and happy sex life. But it doesn’t guarantee a great marriage. Sexual purity does not guarantee we will marry, or that our spouse will be wonderful and faithful, or that sex will easy or satisfying. Marriage is not a reward for purity in singleness, and prolonged singleness is not a curse for sexual sin. Sexual purity before marriage is a profound way to love your future spouse (if God brings you a spouse). More than that, though, it’s a profound way to honor God and experience more of his presence and power. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus says, “for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Lie 2: Virginity is what makes someone desirable. Some heard, If I want a godly guy (or girl) to want to marry me, then I should abstain from sexual sin. They went away thinking that virginity was the greatest gift anyone could give a future spouse and that those who kept their virginity would, again, receive marriage as a reward for their waiting. “Virginity is not the greatest gift anyone can give a future spouse; a genuine faith in Jesus is.” Virginity is a precious gift to give a spouse. Perhaps my greatest regret as a husband, a father, as a man, is that I did not practice the love and self-control of waiting for the marriage bed. Virginity, however, is not the greatest gift anyone can give a future spouse; a genuine faith in Jesus is. Make no mistake, your sexual history (or lack thereof) will affect your marriage for better or worse, if God gives you a spouse, but the effect will not compare to your lived-out love for Christ (or lack thereof). Virginity is not at the top of a godly man’s or woman’s priorities; Jesus is. Whatever the history, he or she is now most committed to marrying in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39). That means sexual sinners are not ruined for happy marriages if we turn from our sin and commit to pursuing purity in Christ. Lie 3: Girls are why men sin. Some pushback against “purity culture” has come from women who felt the burden was unfairly laid on them to keep men from sinning. Lust is every young man’s battle, and they’re tempted and fall because women dress and act immodestly. As a result, some women may have carried shame and guilt over the sins of their brothers — and some men may have left thinking they experienced lust mainly because women dressed inappropriately. Jesus did not diagnose lust this way. He pointed first to our own hearts: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:19–20). This doesn’t discount God’s real call to modesty, that women “adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control” (1 Timothy 2:9); nor does it dismiss that immodesty can feed sexual temptation and lust. But Jesus does not lay a man’s sin chiefly at the feet of women. A man’s sexual immorality comes first and foremost from within him. How Does God Motivate Sexual Purity? If these untruths compromised the cause for purity, how does God inspire purity? What kinds of realities does he rely on to kindle a grace-filled, Christ-exalting, joyful pursuit of purity, especially sexual purity? A good place to start would be 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, and especially verse 3: >This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality. Do you want to know God’s will for you? (Everyone, of course, does, and especially young people trying to figure out their lives.) This verse says God’s will for you is your sexual purity. In the wrong hands, the verse could become a prooftext for distorted teaching on purity, but I believe this passage still holds the cure for an ailing purity culture — and the catalyst for a new one. So how does Paul motivate sexual purity in 1 Thessalonians 4? In at least five profound ways. 1. Do you want to be free from lust? Again, beginning in verse 3, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5). Paul is preaching freedom from the tyranny of the passions of the flesh. Those who don’t know God are enslaved to their cravings. They do what their body tells them to do — and their body consistently tells them to defy the living God. And so they forfeit fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore — and their very lives — for fractions of joy and moments of pleasure. But those who know God realize that sexual immorality is not freedom; it is slavery. And sexual purity is not slavery; it is a truer, longer-lasting freedom (Romans 6:6–7). 2. Do you want to experience the power of God? God not only calls us to sexual purity; he promises to work that purity in us. “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:7–8). With the command — abstain from sexual immorality — he also gives himself. I will work in you that which is pleasing in my sight, God says, as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:13–14). The soul successfully pursuing sexual purity in Christ is a soul coursing with the power of God — with the presence and help of the Holy Spirit. 3. Do you want to avoid the wrath to come? First Thessalonians 4:1–8 is a weighty passage. It’s not “Come as you are, and stay as you are.” It’s filled with warning. The Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God. (1 Thessalonians 4:6–8) Faithful teaching on sexual purity will sound severe warnings. Those warnings, however, will harmonize with the melody of God’s grace to sinners — and they will focus most not on temporary, earthly consequences, but on spiritual, eternal ones. To be sure, there’s a place to warn about sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy, unwanted singleness, and marital dysfunction, but the weight of the church’s warnings about sex should land on God. And God makes himself clear: Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–10) 4. Do you want to guard the ones you love? Satan wants us to think that sexual sin is secret and private. That no one has to know. That we’re the only ones who suffer for our lack of self-control. The testimony of Scripture, however, is that our sexual sin always harms more than ourselves. That means sexual purity is an act of love. “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality . . . that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–6). “The consequences of sexual sin always injure others, and especially those we love.” There may have been particular ways the Thessalonians were using sex against one another, but the principle applies much more broadly: the consequences of sexual sin always injure others, and especially those we love. Sexual sin treats people as objects, and fuels sex slavery around the world. Sexual sin corrupts leadership, in the home and in the church, and it ruins ministries. Sexual sin destroys marriages and wounds children. Because God has given sex such unusual power for good in marriage, it has unusual power for destruction everywhere else. So, abstain from sexual immorality as an act of earnest love. 5. Do you want to feel the smile of God? Finally, a great reason to practice sexual purity in our pornographic age is that our purity pleases God. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, we now have the profound ability to make the King of heaven smile. Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. (1 Thessalonians 4:1) This does not mean God only loves those who kept their virginity before marriage. It does mean that when his chosen, forgiven, imperfect children choose purity, it pleases him. It makes him happy. Paul prays elsewhere, “that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9–10). Our God is the happiest being in the universe (1 Timothy 1:11), and one of his great pleasures is seeing his people overcome sin and temptation by his grace. Do you want a reason to resist sexual sin? Your purity pleases the Father. And your purity allows you to see and enjoy more of God (Matthew 5:8). Those who live to please him experience deeper, more enduring pleasure than this world can offer. Purity Is Greater Than Sex We likely won’t get to read many articles about the men and women who signed cards and wore rings out of a real, burning love for Jesus. The New York Times likely won’t cover the countless stories of those who credit the movement for helping them make Christian resolves against peer pressure and fight the good fight for purity in days when many weren’t. Where purity culture erred or was unclear, it wasn’t because Christian leaders called for sexual purity, but because sex and marriage threatened to become bigger than God. Wherever the messaging downplayed grace, or relied disproportionately on fear, or reduced purity to sexual ethics, it plundered the riveting and appealing beauty of purity in Christ — and, ironically, robbed purity of its power to overcome temptation. As purity becomes smaller and more human, it also becomes more burdensome — and less Christian. Christian purity is rooted in the bigness and goodness of God — his grace, his power, his love, his worth. The pursuit of purity (then and now) is not mainly about rejecting sexual temptation, but about receiving and embracing the heart of God. Yes, God calls us to walk in purity, but the only path to true purity is covered in blood and leads us to him.