NICOLAI BERDYAEV, the Russian Orthodox philosopher, observed: “Communism is a reminder of the fact that the Christian ideal has not been achieved.” Had that ideal (Acts 4. 32-37) been achieved, Christians and Communists would not be such poles apart. “Red Bishop” would not have become a pejorative label.
On sabbatical in 1986, the day before I left Hong Kong to visit churches in mainland China, I lost the polarising filter for my camera, the filter that screens out the light that we do not want to see. Polarised views fuel the stand-off between the “Christian” and “Marxist” worlds.
In his self-published book Red Bishop, Robin T. W. Yuan relates the faith journey of his grandfather Robin Chen, the last Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, and the repercussions for him and his family caught up in the cruel vicissitudes of 20th-century conflict on Chinese soil.
Chen was labelled the Red Bishop, because, to ensure freedom of worship for mainland non-Catholic churches, he endorsed the “Christian Manifesto” negotiated with Premier Chou En-Lai. This was bitterly opposed by those Christians who refused to do the bidding of an atheist regime. They thus formed “underground churches” — as did Roman Catholics in England after the Reformation.
History today is also repeating: the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui acquiesces with the Beijing regime so as to maintain its work, while many Hongkonger families scatter to keep their freedom.
Sixteen years after the Red Bishop died, I met a student whose whole schooling had been to teach her that God did not exist. I asked her how she was then at Nanjing Seminary. Disarmingly, she replied: “I just know they are wrong.”
Robin Yuan’s mother was the Bishop’s elder daughter, Grace, who studied and then settled in the States. In his afterword, the author admits that, although the context is historical, his narrative is enhanced with material formatted to fit the storyline. (Mantel and MacCulloch tell their stories of Thomas Cromwell differently.) The result is short of being a novel, but the reader is left uncertain how much actually happened. Few dates are included, and there is no time-line.
In the 1960s, Han Su-Yin told the stories of her family; in 1991, Jung Chan told hers in Wild Swans. Robin Yuan, in Beverly Hills, now movingly tells his.
Canon Christopher Hall is the honorary secretary of the Li Tim-Oi Foundation. He was baptised by Bishop S. T. Mok in St John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong, in February 1936.
Red Bishop
Robin T. W. Yuan
Red Robin Publishing £23.99
(978-1-737-78940-6)
Church Times Bookshop £21.59