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The pain of the production of “The Apostate”

Shi Wei – Set in the local church founded by the Chinese himself in Shanghai in the twenties, the novel writes about a group of Christians who experienced various movements such as resistance war, liberation, and three against five rebellions and had different lives due to different choices.

This group of believers, who do not care about politics and are far from the world, in the midst of great social turmoil, lead people from worship to shock and anger, leading to the collapse of faith and the reversal of life. However, true hope is wonderfully restored after being demolished.

One waits

Winter is the rainy season in Los Angeles. But this year, the rain has not been able to fall. Plants and people, both wait; Air and ground, also wait

This is the first sentence in the preface to the novel “The Apostate”. When Enfu magazine asked me to talk about the birth of this book, I looked at the opening sentence and shed tears again…

Wait. Since I came to God, I always seem to be “waiting.” The biggest difference between writing “The Apostate” and my previous writing is also “waiting”.

At Easter 1999, I was baptized into Christ. At that time, my church had a “small group” background, but I didn’t know about it when I first believed it. To be honest, I shed many tears in that church; But after leaving, I found that those days laid a solid foundation for my new life, and the blessings brought me by experiencing “brokenness” far outweighed the losses.

At the end of 1999, at the New Year’s Eve prayer meeting in Dallas, the older generation of pastors such as Zhao Tianen and Teng Jinhui cared for me and laid hands on my prayers. At the end of the day, Pastor Zhao suddenly mentioned my name at the meeting and said: You are a poet who wants to write epic poems for the Chinese church. He said a lot that I can’t remember, but it pierced my heart. I thought at the time, he was just a moment of excitement, the real modern so-called “epic” is not as simple as a long poem.

This calling, which I consciously forgot, always tings me, especially when I read the testimony of old Christians or face the struggles and tears of that era in interviews. I often ask myself late at night: Is it possible to let these living beings be silent in the dust like this? Isn’t what God is doing in these lives to speak to generations to come?

In 2004, Pastor Zhao Tianen returned to Heaven. I consoled myself that he had probably forgotten this call to a little sister; But whenever He was mentioned, I felt uneasy, as if the eyes of the Father and Jesus on the cross were always looking at me; And the eyes of many old brothers and sisters I interviewed, prayed for me, and cut their lives before me—they are returning home one after another.

But I still have to wait

 Because I don’t know where to start writing? How to write? Even afraid to enter into such a vast, chaotic, and indistinguishable historical source—can my theological and spiritual experience understand and dissect all of this?

 II Preparation

 In the spring of 2013, I completed my doctorate in pastoral studies in the study of the contextualization of Chinese in Old Testament literature. In the last paragraph of the dissertation, I wrote: “With the help of the study of the stylistic and artistic characteristics of the Bible, we can provide a new narrative perspective and expression for the creation of Chinese Christian literature, so that the Bible can truly become a model for the creation of Christian literature, not only in theological thought but also in the literary form… The content and form of Chinese Christian literature should be rooted in the Bible, so as to gain new vitality. ”

In fact, this paragraph expresses the main purpose of my doctoral studies. Attending the graduation ceremony in the summer, and the paper was officially published by the Hong Kong Baptist Church, I knew that this was only the end of the preparatory period, the beginning of the real journey.

At this time, I had basically made it clear that I would use the local church in Shanghai as material to describe how Chinese Christians founded independent churches, explored contextualized theological teachings, and developed church construction. By showing the mental journeys and life stories of some of them, readers can join me in “taking people as mirrors” and “learning from history”, reflecting on the problems existing in individuals and churches, and deeply understanding the sinfulness of people and the salvation of God.

I chose to write in fiction form in order to let more people outside the church understand Christians and confront their humanity, faith, and life. There is not yet a single work in modern and contemporary Chinese literature that provides a positive and direct description of this group of people, and this lack should be filled by Christian writers. Since I want to show it to outsiders, I deliberately use literary writing to describe the basic rites of Christianity, such as “baptism” and “bread breaking”.

By 2014, I had basically collected all the materials and seemed to be ready, but I still had to “wait”. Because these characters are still on paper, separated from me by a veil, I can’t enter their hearts. Moreover, because of “self-love” and “self-pity”, I am also afraid to enter their hearts.

Three-fold

In the summer of 2014, at a conference in New Mexico, I met a young preacher who had come out of the Shanghai local church to attend seminary. During the meeting, I interviewed him for four consecutive nights; After that, he came to Los Angeles to continue his interview with me. Through his reflection on his presence, these historical figures finally appeared alive in front of me. But at the same time, their pain, beliefs, contradictions, and entanglements in their lives are also bloodily presented.

I think this may be my life’s calling and mission, so let it go and write it when I’m old! At that time, perhaps the social, political, and ecclesiastical environment was better, and I was more mature. So I started writing another novel. But God stopped me.

That fall, we held a retreat in China for the core of Christian literature and art on the theme of “Fear.” I identified this theme from prayer, but at the time I didn’t feel that it had anything to do with myself.

During the meeting, one by one, fellow travelers took turns to share and pray earnestly with each other.

When it was my turn, I knelt down and suddenly faced the great fear within myself. This fear is like a huge black hole that wants to swallow me in. I was the editor-in-chief of Overseas Campus and a preacher of the church, could I devote myself to literary creation in such a capacity? The creation of a novel is like living for the characters in the book. If I were to write the novel “The Apostate”, I wonder if I would doubt God and faith in the process. Can I enter and walk out of the valley of the shadow of death with my characters? In the process of writing, my emotions will fluctuate a lot, can I control myself and continue to teach and shepherd in the church? If it gets out of control, what do the brothers and sisters think? If I dissect the truth of human nature layer by layer, will I “trip people”? Will the church expel me?

In fact, the fear at that moment was much greater than these conceivable reasons, and I felt as if I was going to be crushed.

Thank God I’m not alone. Several fellow literary Christians in the retreat and the pastors who accompanied us laid on my hands and prayed for me. They unceremoniously pointed out my “self-love” and encouraged me to be willing to be completely broken by the Lord. Then they hugged me one by one and said, “No matter what problems I have in the writing process, how the Chinese church will view this book and the author in the future, they will all recognize me as a member.”

Then, at a general meeting in Hong Kong, I shared this vision with several old council members of the Chinese Shepherd team. Several pastors also felt that the task of writing was very difficult, and they laid on my hands and prayed together for me as I knelt on the ground. Their prayer is also the prayer in my heart, asking God that the Father is in complete control, taking away all my autonomy, and letting the Father’s will flow freely in my heart and pen. I think that after such a trust, even if the result is not good, the Lord will commemorate it, and I can be regarded as suffering for the Lord. If it is out of myself, not only can I write badly, but I can’t bear it.

Four prayers are written

After returning to Los Angeles, I started writing. From December 2014 to August 24, 2015, the first draft of 270,000 words was completed. Another three months were spent on-site inspections of the novel’s origins, re-reading the relevant works, discussing with witnesses, scholars, and pastors, and receiving the best help from local church pastors throughout China and the United States. From January to April 2016, it was supplemented and revised to complete the full draft of “The Apostate” of 320,000 words.
The whole writing process is truly miraculous every day!

First, God made a mother and daughter from the local church in Shanghai my neighbors, and they wrote and prayed for me every day. Every time I wanted to write, I would WeChat about them and they would start praying. Sometimes they still can’t write, so they drop everything they have in hand and kneel down to pray. Sometimes they don’t concentrate on prayer, and I don’t write well. When I finished writing for the day and told them on WeChat, we relaxed together. It really made me completely dependent on prayer to write. It is no exaggeration to say that during the writing of “The Apostate”, there was less time for writing than time for prayer.

Second, many scenes, especially the events in prison, and many vivid and touching details that I could not imagine. The Holy Spirit led me many times in my dreams into the scenes I was going to write that day, as if I were in a movie.

Third, in the process of writing and revising the process, the Father constantly brought to me relevant historical researchers, witnesses, supplementary materials, etc.

Thank the Lord that despite the physical and spiritual ordeal I experienced in the process of writing, my faith became more and more true and firm in my heart. On the one hand, I deeply sighed: “If you throw me into that meat grinder-like era, the best I can do is become an apostate.” “On the other hand, I am more grateful than ever!” Because I know who I believe in, and I am confident that He can preserve what I have entrusted to Him (or do: what He has entrusted to me) until that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)

At the end of June, Southern Press signed a contract and launched it in July. For more than a month, the book has received attention and praise from Christian and non-Christian readers, literary critics, pastors, historians, and sociologists.

I felt that I stood with the group of people in the book and became a drama for the world and the angels to see. Although the pottery was broken, the treasure inside emitted light.

 01. The main purpose, original intention, and purpose of creation

The thrust of The Apostate is to show that man is ungraspable in all ways—ungraspable of circumstances, ungraspable of oneself, and difficult to hold on to even what we believe, but God is eternal and his love is eternal.

In this book, I just want to write about a group of people of faith, in this changing history, experiencing all kinds of suffering, all kinds of ungraspable, what is the difference between them and those who do not have faith? Because in Chinese history, especially in modern and contemporary history, a series of political events have taken place. In fact, all turmoil presents the truth, hidden evil, and weakness in the human heart.

At this point, we seem to see God as if he is doing nothing, just silently watching us suffer. When I use this book to comb through the characters and stories of that era, the twists and turns of their fortunes in history, and their final results, we see God’s hand, but also his protection and love.

In Chinese history, especially the thirties and forties to the seventies, which this book mainly describes, in the process, whether through literature or historical records, we see the fate of various groups of people in modern and contemporary history. But what is the state of life of Christians, a group of people of faith, at this stage of history? What they went through and suffered, no one knows.

In other words, there is such a large group of people living among us, but they are covered up by history, and there is no such group of people in history recorded by future generations! So much so that we think that there seems to be no faith community in China’s modern history.

But in fact, such a group of people, they have also experienced the entire ups and downs of modern and contemporary history. I want to bring their lives back to life.

So, for non-Christians, they also need to know what life is like for a Christian in this society. In other words, when the Chinese nation endured all kinds of suffering, this group of people endured all kinds of sufferings like everyone else; And, while suffering is accompanied by greater tears and pressure. However, their attitude toward suffering and the process by which the faith within them is re-established and even crushed is very meaningful.

Another thing about my motivation for writing this book is that I came to Christ in 1999, was baptized at Easter, and went to a New Year’s Eve prayer meeting in Dallas in late 1999. During the prayer in the audience, Pastor Zhao Tianen suddenly called my name and said, “Shi Wei, you come to pray for China!” “It was the first time I had prayed in public, at such a big gathering. God showed me the faces of the people walking on the street and the people on the bus… The true state of those faces and souls is deeply imprinted in my heart.

At the end of that meeting, it was 2,000 years old, and Pastor Zhao Tianen suddenly said on the stage: “Shi Wei, you have come to write an epic poem for the Chinese church.” “My understanding at the time was that epic is writing a poem. Later, I did write a set of songs, but God gradually made it clear that he wanted me to write about these things that happened in the history of the Chinese church, about these believers who used their lives and blood to become seeds, and about these martyrs who sowed their lives on that land – although I used the name “apostate”, but everyone who is crushed because of faith, every person who sacrifices himself because of faith, whether actively or passively, is actually a martyr.

In addition, the reason why the title does not use “martyr” is that I think no one is really martyred himself, our nature is “apostasy”, but God chose us to make us martyrs. Who can take the initiative to martyrdom? When we think we are active, we are still passive, and we are just vessels in God’s hands.

After Pastor Zhao Tianen returned to heaven, the eyes that called me on the stage seemed to always look at me from heaven. Actually, I didn’t have much personal contact with Pastor Zhao, but his call never left me. I always felt sorry, because later on, although I wrote a lot of things and did a lot of things, I always felt that I had failed his call when I first came to Christ.

Therefore, I am determined to write “The Apostate”, which I am currently writing about the Song Shang Festival, and I intend to continue to write about it, in semi-fiction and non-fiction form, to present the major events and figures in history of the Chinese church, especially the life of Christ. That’s what I’m writing for. My purpose is not to do anything else, not even to discern the truth of some of the details of history, but to make our lives true in the life of Christ, which is why I wrote this book.

02. Use history as a mirror and know yourself

But any person will have a “religious complex” in his heart. Because all people were created by God. Man is not an animal, not a plant; We are human because we all have a conscience, and that conscience comes from the soul and life. This level is actually what literature wants to express.

Today we see a lot of literature that seems to be just telling stories, in fact, if literature only expresses some anecdotes of our daily life, even if it is a beautiful story, I am afraid that such literature will gradually be replaced by news, or replaced by fairy tales. True literature is to show people the tearing and struggle, sublimation, and recreation of the soul of a group of people.

Therefore, reading this book is not so much to look at a piece of history as to look at ourselves, the so-called “history as a mirror”, this history is not far away, and what these people have experienced may be what our parents experienced.

So, what’s the point of looking at their lives? I think today we often say “Live in the moment”, but when we live in the present, we only live in what we see with our eyes. We think that living in the present moment is very real, but in fact, we don’t even understand the present moment; It can even be said that without the mirror of history, we do not know what our real life and true soul are.

For example, today, whether Christians or non-Christians, we often feel as if everything is fine, and this history presents to us the true sinfulness of the human heart and the uncontrollable nature of the human heart.

For example, there is a bottle of water, there is a lot of dregs in the water, if the water and the bottle are in a static state, the surface of the water looks quite clear; But once the bottle was shaken, I saw a lot of dregs floating up. In the same way, when we do not experience great suffering in our lives when we do not experience shaking, we may live in a false understanding, and once we are shaken, we see scum.

Therefore, by looking at the history of our predecessors and the lives of others in suffering, we do not wait until our own lives are shaken, and we first come to know ourselves. Only by knowing the sinful nature in ourselves will we better understand the preciousness of salvation and realize that we ourselves are limited and cannot save ourselves.

03. God’s Conservative Faith

Christians in fiction reject faith and become “apostates” for various reasons. For example, there is a brother in this novel, who saw some problems of leaders exposed from the outside and also saw some problems that were exposed to each other within the church, as if this church is not so beautiful, this faith is not so perfect… He still didn’t want to reject this god at this time, and when he was sick, he had a prayer with God: “Tonight, you let this indicator of mine come down, then, no matter what changes outside, I will believe you.” ”

I think I understand this prayer very well – let my indicators come down, even if they go up later, I want you to show me! But the next day, his indicators did not fall but rose, so he completely collapsed. He doesn’t love the Lord, he doesn’t mean he must be healed by the Lord, he wants God—you show me once the way I do!

Such faith may seem normal today, but if we go back to the Bible, the Lord’s guidance to us and the Lord’s promises to our prayers are not what we intended. So, the next day he found that the indicator had not fallen but risen, and he decided that there was no God.

After that, his wife and daughter still believed in Christ and prayed for him, and he hated them very much. He often scolded them and beat his wife. He also began to pursue “progress”  However, he was still a Christian after all, so he had no future in politics, and he beat himself up: playing cards, smoking, drinking… At some point, he even loathed himself very much.

On the one hand, every time he saw his wife and daughter praying, he felt a sense of self-blame and associated despair. By the time he survived until 1970, it had been about twenty years, and at that time, he wanted to end his life and felt that living was meaningless. He turned out to be an executive of a bank in Qingdao, who once gave up all his belongings and donated all his property and house to the church. He thought he gave so much that God should be kind to him.

This kind of faith mentality actually reflects our current understanding and practice of faith. We forget that we are only servants and handmaids of God.

In this case, he wanted to end his life by the time he was seven years old. At that time, he donated his house, he lived in his parents’ house in Shanghai, and he wanted to jump off the balcony. As he stepped over the balcony railing with one leg, he heard a knock on the door. He asked, “Who?” “There was no sound, so he came down and went to open the door, and there was no one outside the door. He was about to commit suicide again, and when he was about to jump off the balcony, he heard another knock on the door, and he went to open the door, but there was still no one.

So, when he heard a knock on the door for the third time, he said, “Whoever still knocks on the door, I’m going to die, don’t open the door!” Then he heard Jesus say, “It’s me.” ”

Just those two words. He said: “I knew whose voice it was! ”

This is a real testimony, they recall.

When I heard this testimony and wrote it down, I was very moved. A person who has not confessed and betrayed the Lord for twenty years can still recognize the voice of his Savior, and I think this salvation is a sure certainty! If we are God’s sheep, we can hear God’s voice. So, when he heard “It’s me,” he knew it was the Lord, and then he got down from the balcony railing, knelt in the living room, and said, “Lord, is it you?” Didn’t you leave long ago? The Lord said, “I have not left, I have always been here.” He cried.

He knelt down and prayed, “Lord, you haven’t left, you’ve been here!” In this way, he returned to God’s arms, and later he became a very powerful evangelist.

As I was thinking and writing the story of this little man, I thought, how many things in this world are we sure of? Whether we have faith or not, we are often in a state of uncertainty; But if you have true faith, you know that your faith and assurance are not in your hands, but in God’s protection, as the Bible says, “For knowing who I believe and confident that He can preserve what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” (See 2 Timothy 1:12)

Therefore, in this little person, I feel a little – such a faith that is personally guarded by God is the real hope of man, otherwise, the faith that we work hard to practice and maintain by ourselves is actually unsure, because we are all unreliable.

Christianity is not about passive patience but about patience and sophistication, and sophistication of hope. No matter how unreliable we may be, God’s reliability is in our lives. I believe that this transcendent grace and mercy that transcends one’s self-grasp and self-control is what the church, Christians and all people today need to know most. Only this transcendence can free us from what we see, from our despair and confusion about ourselves, and turn our eyes to Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross.

What Jesus accomplished on the cross was complete salvation, that is, all our sins were borne by Him. As long as you have faith in this, you are connected to His life, and you will have it. This transcendent faith is a hope in this age that transcends religion and culture and can free us from the limitations and bondage of the flesh and the environment.

04The story behind “The Apostate”

Before The Apostate, I had written about three novels, and before that, I wrote more poetry, prose, and other genres. The book “The Apostate” began a whole new writing for me. Because the novels I wrote before were basically related to my own life; And about “The Apostate”, at first it was not thought to write this book.

After I came to Christ in 1999, I was deeply influenced by two people, Brother Soong Shangjie and Brother Watchman Nee. Brother Ni’s many spiritual books have helped me to analyze many subtleties in my spirit and help me learn to purify myself. When I experienced a lot of difficulties, Brother Ni’s poems, such as “Refine Me and Refine Me” and “Let Me Love”, had a great influence on me, so I read his books more. The church I work in also has a small group background, so I will be more interested in local churches and small group churches, and I will collect more information.

That year, a gospel organization asked me to interview Xu Meili, the prototype of Xu Wenying in “The Apostate,” and she told me a lot. Later, she also wrote the book “Hard Years”. She is a more realistic record of these indelible years she has experienced. In addition, I have received many testimonies from Brother Zhang Xikang, who wrote the book “Sixty Years of the Local Church”.

These books gave me a lot of historical information that I didn’t intend to write, but they haunted me. In fact, what everyone is most entangled with this experience and this group of people is whether the prototype of the protagonist in the book committed this crime. But I don’t think that’s the most important thing! Whether he sinned or not is a relationship between God and Him. But this group of people, whose lives show me, is a group of sinful people who have the same temperament as us, so my purpose in the form of fiction is to write about a group of people who are just like us, or even myself, who may definitely be “apostasy” and must sin, how they stand because of Jesus and how they are redeemed.

Later, God kept bringing people to me, including the prototypes of these people in my book, the young preacher who gave them the end of their life when they were old, and I got a lot of information. In the end, I don’t think I care about the issue that everyone is arguing about. Some people also asked me: “Why do you write a novel, not a biography or historical testimony with your real name?” I said, “My purpose is not to get entangled with someone, someone, or something.” My purpose is to ask my heart. ”

If what we’re looking for in this book is whether someone else has sinned, then I don’t need to write this book! What does it matter to me whether he sins or not? I also want my readers to seek themselves in this book: What Lies in my faith? What are the things in my life that are not pleasing to God and need to be broken, removed, carved, and made again by God?

In this case, the call from God in my heart is clear—to write this book! Even the title “The Apostate” was given clearly by God during prayer. I didn’t want to use the title at first, I felt a little excited, it didn’t suit my heart, and of course, it offended people. But again and again, I wanted to change the title of the book, and again and again, God did not allow it.

Later, I took a retreat from a Christian artist and writer. That time God gave us a theme, which was “removing fear.” What are your worst fears? They pray, and I pray for them. I felt as if I didn’t have anything to fear during this process. Everyone prayed before God, and I was a fearless person, but when it was my turn, I got down on my knees, and all of a sudden, I knew what I was afraid of—I was afraid to write this book!

At that time, I had been a shepherd for some time. I have cultivated myself into a perfect preacher in front of people, and I have not written a novel for more than ten years, because once you write a long novel, you will follow the ups and downs of the characters and be emotionally sensitive, and it is difficult to ensure that you can still be polite to brothers and sisters and fellow workers in the process of writing.

So I felt that writing this book would both offend the church and society, and it might bring me back to being a writer. It is difficult for a real writer to hide because he must be sensitive and truthful inside, without pretense.

Much of the literature of Christianity today, and even our testimony, is actually very disguised… So, when I was going to actually write this book, I remember that night everyone was praying for me, and I felt like a deep pool in front of me, and once I jumped, I didn’t know what it would be! At that time, a sister pointed out: “Aren’t you afraid that your perfect appearance will be broken?” It seems to be quite a spiritual preacher’s appearance. Aren’t you afraid of breaking yourself? ”

This sentence shocked me a lot, these people I want to write about, in fact, are not willing to break themselves, but in the end, they are beaten even more by God. I don’t dare to write about this group of people, also because I don’t dare to be broken. But if I dare not be broken, how will God’s light shine? So I later said to these companions, what if I write and the church excommunicates me? They said it’s okay, the church excommunicates you, and we recognize you as a brother and sister. Several of them are pastors I respect very much. I think it’s enough to have their approval! Then I started writing with that in mind.