John and Betty Stam
The year 1934. Americans John and Betty Stam were serving as missionaries in China. One morning Betty was bathing her three-month-old daughter Helen Priscilla Stam when Tsingteh's city magistrate appeared. Communist forces were near, he warned, and urged the Stams to flee.
So John Stam went out to investigate the situation for himself. He received conflicting reports. Taking no chances, he arranged for Betty and the baby to be escorted away to safety if need be. But before the Stams could make their break, the Communists were inside the city. By little-known paths, they had streamed over the mountains behind government troops. Now gun shots sounded in the streets as looting began. The enemy beat on the Stams' own gate.
A faithful cook and maid at the mission station had stayed behind. The Stams knelt with them in prayer. But the invaders were pounding at the door. John opened it and spoke courteously to the four leaders who entered, asking them if they were hungry. Betty brought them tea and cakes. The courtesy meant nothing. They demanded all the money the Stams had, and John handed it over. As the men bound him, he pleaded for the safety of his wife and child. The Communists left Betty and Helen behind as they led John off to their headquarters.
Before long, they reappeared, demanding mother and child. The maid and cook pleaded to be allowed to accompany Betty.
"No," barked the captors, and threatened to shoot.
"It is better for you to stay here," Betty whispered. "If anything happens to us, look after the baby."
[When we consecrate ourselves to God, we think we are making a great sacrifice, and doing lots for Him, when really we are only letting go some little, bitsie trinkets we have been grabbing, and when our hands are empty, He fills them full of His treasures. --Betty Stam]
Betty was led to her husband's side. Little Helen needed some things and John was allowed to return home under guard to fetch them. But everything had been stolen. That night John was allowed to write a letter to mission authorities. "My wife, baby and myself are today in the hands of the Communists in the city of Tsingteh. Their demand is twenty thousand dollars for our release. . . . We were too late. The Lord bless and guide you. As for us, may God be glorified, whether by life or by death."
Prisoners in the local jail were released to make room for the Stams. Frightened by rifle fire, the baby cried out. One of the Reds said, "Let's kill the baby. It is in our way." A bystander asked, "Why kill her? What harm has she done?"
"Are you a Christian?" shouted one of the guards.
The man said he was not; he was one of the prisoners just released.
"Will you die for this foreign baby?" they asked. As Betty hugged Helen to her chest, the man was hacked to pieces before her eyes.
Terror in the Streets
The next morning their captors led the Stams toward Miaosheo, twelve miles distant. John carried little Helen, but Betty, who was not physically strong, owing to a youthful bout with inflammatory rheumatitis was allowed to ride a horse part of the way. Terror reigned in the streets of Miaosheo. Under guard, the foreign family was hustled into the postmaster's shop.
"Where are you going?" asked the postmaster, who recognized them from their previous visits to his town. "We do not know where they are going, but we are going to heaven," answered John. He left a letter with the postmaster. "I tried to persuade them to let my wife and baby go back from Tsingteh with a letter to you, but they would not let her. . . ."
That night the three were held in the house of a wealthy man who had fled. They were guarded by soldiers. John was tied to a post all that cold night, but Betty was allowed enough freedom to tend the baby. As it turned out, she did more than that.
Execution
The next morning the young couple were led through town without the baby. Their hands were tightly bound, and they were stripped of their outer garments as if they were common criminals. John walked barefoot. He had given his socks to Betty. The soldiers jeered and called the townâs folk to come see the execution. The terrified people obeyed.
On the way to the execution, a medicine-seller, considered a lukewarm Christian at best, stepped from the crowd and pleaded for the lives of the two foreigners. The Reds angrily ordered him back. The man would not be stilled. His house was searched, a Bible and hymnbook found, and he, too was dragged away to die as a hated Christian.
John pleaded for the manâs life. The Red leader sharply ordered him to kneel. As John was speaking softly, the Red leader swung his sword through the missionaryâs throat so that his head was severed from his body. Betty did not scream. She quivered and fell bound beside her husbandâs body. As she knelt there, the same sword ended her life with a single blow.
Betty
Betty Scott was born in the United States but reared in China as the daughter of missionaries. She came to the United States and attended Wilson College in Pennsylvania. Betty prepared to follow in her parentsâ footsteps and work in China or wherever else the Lord directed her.
But China it proved to be. At a prayer meeting for China, she met John Stam and a friendship developed that ripened into love. Painfully they recognized that marriage was not yet possible. âThe China Inland Mission has appealed for men, single men, to work in sections where it would be impossible to take a woman until more settled work has commenced,â wrote John. He committed the matter to the Lord, whose work, he felt, must come before any human affection. At any rate, Betty would be leaving for China before him, to work in an entirely different region, and so they must be separated anyhow. As a matter of fact, John had not yet even been accepted by the China Inland Mission whereas Betty had. They parted after a long tender day, sharing their faith, picnicking, talking, and praying.
Betty sailed while John continued his studies. On July 1, 1932, John, too, was accepted for service in China. Now at least he could head toward the same continent as Betty. He sailed for Shanghai.
Meanwhile, Betty found her plans thwarted. A senior missionary had been captured by the Communists in the region where she was to have worked. The mission directors decided to keep her in a temporary station, and later ill-health brought her to Shanghai. Thus without any choice on her part, she was in Shanghai when John landed in China. Immediately they became engaged and a year later were married, long before they expected it. In October, 1934 Helen Priscilla was born to them. What would become of her now that her parents John and Betty were dead?
In the Hills
For two days, local Christians huddled in hiding in the hills around Miaosheo. Among them was a Chinese evangelist named Mr. Lo. Through informants, he learned that the Communists had captured two foreigners. At first he did not realize that these were John and Betty Stam, with whom he had worked, but as he received more details, he put two and two together. As soon as government troops entered the valley and it was safe to venture forth, Mr. Lo hurried to town. His questions met with silence. Everyone was fearful that spies might report anyone who said too much.
An old woman whispered to Pastor Lo that there was a baby left behind. She nodded in the direction of the house where John and Betty had been chained their last night on earth. Pastor Lo hurried to the site and found room after room trashed by the bandits. Then he heard a muffled cry. Tucked by her mother in a little sleeping bag, Helen was warm and alive, although hungry after her two day fast.
The kindly pastor took the child in his arms and carried her to his wife. With the help of a local Christian family, he wrapped the bodies that still lay upon the hillside and placed them into coffins. To the crowd that gathered he explained that the missionaries had only come to tell them how they might find forgiveness of sin in Christ. Leaving others to bury the dead, he hurried home. Somehow Helen had to be gotten to safety.
Pastor Lo's own son, a boy of four, was desperately ill -- semi-conscious after days of exposure. Pastor Lo had to find a way to carry the children a hundred miles through mountains infested by bandits and Communists. Brave men were found willing to help bear the children to safety, but there was no money to pay them for their efforts. Lo had been robbed of everything he had.
From Beyond the Grave
But from beyond the grave, Betty provided. Tucked in Helen's sleeping bag were a change of clothes and some diapers. Pinned between these articles of clothing were two five dollar bills. It made the difference.
Placing the children in rice baskets slung from the two ends of a bamboo pole, the group departed quietly, taking turns carrying the precious cargo over their shoulders. Mrs. Lo was able to find Chinese mothers along the way to nurse Helen. On foot, they came safely through their perils. Lo's own boy recovered consciousness suddenly and sat up, singing a hymn.
Eight days after the Stams fell into Communist hands, another missionary in a nearby city heard a rap at his door. He opened it and a Chinese woman, stained with travel, entered the house, bearing a bundle in her arms. "This is all we have left," she said brokenly.
The missionary took the bundle and turned back the blanket to uncover the sleeping face of Helen Priscilla Stam. Many kind hands had labored to preserve the infant girl, but none kinder than Betty who had spared no effort for her baby even as she herself faced degradation and death.
Kathleen White has written an excellent and very readable biography John and Betty Stam, available from Bethany House Publishers (1988). She reports that Betty's alma mater, Wilson College in Pennsylvania, took over baby Helen's support and covered the costs of her college education. She added: "Helen is living in this country (USA) with her husband and family but does not wish her identity and whereabouts to be made known."
Resources:
Huizenga, Lee S. John and Betty Stam; Martyrs. Zondervan, 1935.
Pollock, John. Victims of the Long March and Other Stories. Waco, Texas.: Word Publishing, 1970.
Taylor, Mrs. Howard. The Triumph of John and Betty Stam. China Inland Mission, 1935.
Banished from Humanity
The safest road to hell is the gradual one â the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. âC.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis said many profound and fascinating things about hell. Some are biblically precise, while others are more abstract and subject to misunderstanding. In some cases, his views are not solidly biblical. But many of his insights on hell are true to Scripture, and some of his speculations are compelling food for thought. Hell: Grave Injustice or Ultimate Justice? Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, âThere are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, âThy will be done,â and those to whom God says, in the end, âThy will be done.ââ Of course, God does not fully let people have their way, since it is clear, for instance, that the rich man in Luke 16 wants out of hell but cannot escape it. Lewisâs point is, when someone says, âI do not want to have a relationship with God,â in that limited sense they ultimately get their way. The unbelieverâs âwishâ to be away from God turns out to be his worst nightmare. Nonetheless, those who do not want God do want goodness and happiness. But what makes anything good is God. Second Thessalonians 1:9 describes hell like this: âThey will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord.â Where God withdraws, there can be no good. So, in Lewisâs terms, the unbeliever gets what he wants â Godâs absence â yet with it gets what he doesnât want â the loss of all good. C.S. Lewis said of hell, âThere is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lordâs own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reasonâ (The Problem of Pain). Most of what Lewis says here is solidly biblical. Where there may be a chink in his logic is exactly where it is for many of us. We wish there were no hell â and imagine this comes from our sense of goodness and kindness. But God could remove hell yet chooses not to. Do we have more confidence in our goodness than his? What are we to do with Revelation 18:20, where God brings down his wrath on Babylonâs people, then says, âRejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!â? Doesnât this suggest that in heaven we will see sinâs horrors clearly and have far stronger convictions about hellâs justice? Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But neither is it evil; rather, it is a place where evil is judged. Indeed, if being sentenced to hell is just punishment, then the absence of hell would itself be evil. Hell Itself Is Morally Good, Because a Good God Must Punish Evil Most of us imagine that we hate the idea of hell because we love people too much to want them to suffer. But that implies God loves them less. Our revulsion is understandable, but what about hell makes us cringe? Is it the wickedness thatâs being punished? Is it the suffering of those who might have turned to Christ? Or do we cringe because we imagine hellâs punishments are wicked or disproportionate? These very different responses expose different views of God. Perhaps we hate hell too much because we donât hate evil enough. This is something that could have been developed more in Lewisâs thinking. The same could be said of many of us. If we regard hell as a divine overreaction to sin, we deny that God has the moral right to inflict ongoing punishment on any humans. By denying hell, we deny the extent of Godâs holiness. When we minimize sinâs seriousness, we minimize Godâs grace in Christâs blood, shed for us. For if the evils he died for arenât significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, perhaps the grace displayed on the cross isnât significant enough to warrant eternal praise. How Jesus Viewed Hell In the Bible, Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else did. He referred to hell as a real place (Matthew 10:28; 13:40â42; Mark 9:43â48). He described it in graphic terms: a fire that burns but doesnât consume, an undying worm that eats away at the damned, and a lonely, foreboding darkness. âPerhaps we hate hell too much because we donât hate evil enough.â Some believe in annihilationism, the idea that hellâs inhabitants do not suffer forever, but are consumed in judgment â so their eternal death means cessation of existence. Edward Fudge, in his book and DVD The Fire That Consumes, defends this position. Itâs an argument I have considered seriously, one that holds up to much of the Old Testament revelation, but which I find very difficult to reconcile with Jesusâs words: âAnd these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal lifeâ (Matthew 25:46). Or with the words of Revelation 20:10, which speak of not only Satan but two human beings, the Antichrist and the false prophet, being cast into the lake of fire and âtormented day and night forever and ever.â Revelation 14:11 appears to apply to a large number of people: âAnd the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.â Christ says the unsaved âwill be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teethâ (Matthew 8:12). He taught that an unbridgeable chasm separates the wicked in hell from the righteous in Paradise. The wicked suffer terribly, remain conscious, retain their memories, long for relief, cannot find comfort, cannot leave their torment, and have no hope (Luke 16:19â31). In short, our Savior could not have painted a bleaker picture of hell. It is one that C.S. Lewis, with reluctance, believed and affirmed, bowing his knee in submission to a higher authority. If the evils Jesus died for arenât significant enough to warrant eternal punishment, then the grace displayed on the cross isnât significant enough to warrant eternal praise. Lewis said, âI have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heavenâ (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer). The biblical teaching on both destinations stands or falls together. When heaven and hell are spoken of in Scripture, each place is portrayed as being just as real and, in some passages anyway, as permanent as the other. Lewisâs friend, Dorothy Sayers, said it well: There seems to be a kind of conspiracy to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not âmediaeval priestcraftâ for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christâs deliberate judgment on sin. . . . We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ. (Dorothy Sayers, Introductory Papers on Dante [Methuen, 1954], 44) The Problem of Emeth in âThe Last Battleâ Occasionally, Lewis seems to depart from the biblical doctrine of hell by supposing things that arenât stated in Scripture and appearing to contradict things that are. In The Last Battle, the soldier Emeth, who served the demon Tash, is welcomed into heaven though he did not serve Aslan, the Christ figure, by name. Because the young man thought he was worshiping and pursuing the true God (emeth is a Hebrew word for faithfulness or truth), Aslan told Emeth, âChild, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.â Some have used this passage to charge Lewis with being a universalist, though Lewisâs other writings clearly show he was not. But this passage does imply Lewis believed in a kind of inclusivism, where in some cases, mentally responsible people who have not embraced Christ in this life may ultimately be saved. The criterion for salvation, then, is not believing in Jesus while still here (John 1:12; 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 10:9â10). Rather, in some cases, God may consider it sufficient that someone has followed a false god with true motives. In the story, Emeth asks Aslan a significant question: âLord, is it then true . . . that thou and Tash are one?â Aslanâs response leaves no room for confusion: The Lion growled so that the earth shook and said, âIt is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oathâs sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. . . . Beloved . . . unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.â (The Last Battle) Aslan categorically affirms he and Tash are in no sense alike. Indeed, Aslan despises the demon! There is nothing in Lewis indicating a belief that âall roads lead to heaven.â On the contrary, all who are in Aslanâs Country are there by only one way â the way of Aslan. Emeth is saved by Aslan â no one and nothing else. Emeth is the one exceptional case in an account involving thousands of Tashâs servants, all of whom appear to have perished. Emeth seems to be Lewisâs one hopeful exception, certainly not the rule. Emethâs Better Parallel: Cornelius The Bible clearly states that âit is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgmentâ (Hebrews 9:27). There are accounts in Scripture of people continuing to exist after they die (Luke 16:19â31) but no account of someone making a decision to turn to Christ after death. âI have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a live-giving belief in Heaven.â C.S. Lewis Bible believers are naturally perplexed by Emethâs story and how to reconcile it with Lewisâs orthodox statements about salvation, heaven, and hell. But we should certainly welcome the biblical kind of inclusivism that offers the gospel to everyone, and rejoices that people of every tribe, nation, and language will worship God together forever (Revelation 5:9â10; 7:9). We should celebrate stories like that of Cornelius, whose service God accepted even before drawing him to a full understanding of the gospel (Acts 10:2, 22, 31). Emethâs story would have paralleled Corneliusâs if Aslan had come to the young man before his death. That would have been my preference, certainly. But even with occasional imperfections, of which Emeth may be most prominent, the great truths of The Chronicles of Narnia remain clear, strong, and biblically resonant. So do the remarkable insights about heaven and the new earth (Randy Alcorn) in Lewisâs writings. People sometimes ask me why I tolerate Lewisâs more troubling doctrine. My answer is that his trajectory is toward the gospel, not away from it, and that God has used him to speak into my life Christ-centered and paradigm-shifting biblical truths. I do not have to embrace 100 percent of what Lewis said to benefit from that 85 percent that is so incredibly rich. Because Our Choices in This Life Shape Us Forever, God-Rejecters Might Be as Miserable in Heaven as in Hell In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis spoke to those who argue against the doctrine of hell: In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: âWhat are you asking God to do?â To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does. He adds this oft-quoted statement: âThe damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; the doors of hell are locked on the inside. . . . They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.â If Lewis means that those in hell refuse to give up their trust in themselves to turn to God, I think heâs right. While they long to escape from hell, that is not the same as longing to be with God and repenting. Lewis speaks in The Great Divorce of âthe demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that hell should be able to veto heaven.â Heaven and hell are places defined, respectively, by Godâs presence or absence, by Godâs grace or wrath. Whose we are, not where we are, determines our misery or our joy. To transport a man from hell to heaven would bring him no joy unless he had a transformed relationship with God, a regenerating work that can be done only by the Holy Spirit (John 1:12â13; 3:3â8; Romans 6:14; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 14). To the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful. If we reject the best gift that a holy and gracious God can offer us, purchased with his blood, what remains, in the end, will be nothing but hell. Lewis also said in The Great Divorce, âAll that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.â This too is insightful but can be taken too far. One can desire joy outside of God and not find it, of course, but I take it that Lewis speaks of one who earnestly seeks the true God, the source of all joy. This is suggested in Jeremiah 29:13: âYou will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.â And Matthew 7:7: âAsk, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.â âTo the person sealed forever in righteousness, God will remain wondrous; to the one sealed forever in sin, God will remain dreadful.â I think Lewis, who loved great stories, would agree that hell is a place with no story, no plot â ongoing suffering coupled with eternal boredom. Ironically, Satan labors to portray heaven, from which he was cast out, as boring and undesirable. The Bible, on the other hand, portrays the new heavens and the new earth as the setting for joy without end. If we think correctly about heaven, we will realize that because God is infinitely great and gracious, heaven is the ultimate adventure while hell is the ultimate sinkhole. Perhaps the best last word to give Lewis is this: âTo enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanityâ (The Problem of Pain). Article by Randy Alcorn
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