The Heavenly Man
by Brother Yun
with Paul Hattaway. Monarch Books,
London.
2002
Paperback, 351 pp
The lady
who first brought this book to my attention called it “life changing”. At first
the title sounds presumptuous—but far from it. Brother Yun is a Chinese
Christian, born into very impoverished circumstances in southern Henan Province
in 1958. His mother was illiterate but had heard and responded to the gospel in
the late 1940’s. With the Communist revolution in 1949, Christianity seemed to
be almost wiped out. But when her husband fell sick with lung and stomach
cancer, in her desperation she heard a voice say, “Jesus loves you.” She
“repented of her sins and re-dedicated herself to the Lord Jesus Christ.” She
then called her whole family together and they all committed to Christ, and
even saw their father healed of his cancer.
The next piece of the story is his
search for a single Bible. He had never seen one, but eventually a frightened
pastor from pre-revolution days showed him his.
At only 16 years of age, Yun was on
fire for the Lord. After a few years of preaching the gospel at house churches he
seems to have come to the attention of the authorities and from then on, he
suffered at least four lengthy imprisonments up to 2001. The mid chapters
of the book, detail the horrors of
these imprisonments—the beatings, the humiliation, the pain, the loneliness,
and yet he reports an unspeakable nearness to the Lord. Some of these horrors
we haven’t even imaged, including transportation of human waste, electric
batons discharged in his mouth, and beatings till his lower legs were almost
pulp. At one point, he decided to fast—and that fast lasted 74 days, till he
was so shrivelled up he was hardly recognizable as a man.
After
unimaginable hardship, disease and torture, he was finally given refugee status
by Germany, and several years later his wife, son and daughter also escaped.
There
are details throughout the book that we Western Christians may have difficulty
with—visions from the Lord, long fastings, dreams, and healings feature very
frequently. Someone has even put up a website in Germany, just to debunk
everything about Yun. In response Brother Xu (“Shoe”), who has known Yun for
decades, has written a Preface that claims, “I testify that every story in this
book is true.” And Paul Hattaway, the New Zealander who helped write the book,
and is “an expert on the Chinese church”, has put out an 11-page “Open Letter
Regarding ‘The Heavenly Man’”, in which he brings out a great deal of testimony
to the sincerity and integrity of Brother Yun. I myself watched a video of
Brother Yun preaching in a Kansas church, through his Finnish interpreter, and
was moved with compassion.
There is
a very great deal more that could be said but in the final analysis, we can
only say what the Lord said to the disciples of John the Baptist: “Go back and
report…what you hear and see…Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account
of me.” Matthew 11:4-6.
And why
was he called “The Heavenly Man”? Because, as he left a secret house church in
China, he fell into the clutches of the Public Security Bureau who demanded his
address. In order to warn and save the others still in the church, he shouted
at the top of his lungs, “I am a heavenly man! I live in Gospel village.”
(p.83)
