My Journey: From an Atheist to a Christian

Song Cheng (a.k.a. “jidian” or “Gideon” on the Chinese Internet)

(The Chinese version of my testimony on how I became a Christian was first published on the Chinese evangelist magazine Oversea Campus (Issue # 25, October, 1997) and can be found on the Internet on Oversea Campus’ website: http://www.oc.org/gb_txt/oc2532.htm. The following is a condensed English version of my story.)

I am from mainland China and am a professional in science and technology working in the United States. I believe it is a great miracle itself that I became a born-again Christian from a strong atheist background as one of the Chinese intellectuals of the younger generation.

I was born into a Chinese intellectual family. Both my parents graduated from Huaxi Medical University in Chengdu, Sichuan, which was a Christian medical school before the communist era (my parents entered the university after 1949 and were atheists). After their graduation, they were “assigned by the Party” to a very rural, remote and poor Tibetan area in Sichuan and worked there for more than 20 years. They spent the best years in their lives serving people there as medical doctors while living a very hard life. I was raised by my grandma in the city of Chengdu so I could get the educations. I learnt and knew at a very young age that I had to study hard, to get outstanding scores and to enter college if I wanted to escape from having to end up in the poor Tibetan area. This became the whole purpose of my life and I studied very hard. In 1982 I fulfilled my dream and entered Fudan University in Shanghai, which is one of the best universities in China. I was only 16 when I left my hometown to pursue higher education in the thousand-miles-away city of Shanghai.

All the education I could get in China was imbued with heavy atheist teachings. Fudan University was (and still is) known for its academic openness and “westernization”. While in Fudan, I started to become very interested in western thoughts and culture (probably more than in my chemistry major), and began to build up a self-centered worldview and life philosophy out of the influence by the non-Christian western thoughts. By then I already had doubted and rebelled against the “official” communist ideology, but I was not seeking my faith deeply. I thought my faith was “I do not believe in anything”.

After graduation, I went back to Chengdu and started to work as a scientific worker. I entered the real world without a fixed faith or a matured worldview. On one hand, I felt lost and aimless, and learnt to be “just like everyone else”, wasting time and damaging my own health on “entertainments” such as Ma-jiang (a gambling game) all night. On the other hand, deep in my heart, I was unwilling to sink like others because I thought I still had a little remainder of the traditional Chinese intellectual style ideals and ambitions. Those ideals and ambitions were not clear, yet I believed that at least I had the desire to be a good and useful man to the society and to make contributions to my country.

When the Tian-An-Men Event happened in 1989, I was on the street of Chengdu with many young students and intellectuals. I was much excited and actively involved in the movement. Tragically, the flame of our patriot enthusiasm was quickly put out by cruel reality (similar “suppressing” took place in Chengdu as in Beijing). With the feeling of miserable disillusion, my heart sank to deep darkness and hopelessness. Without a faith, I was not able to face the reality and I could not find an answer to my hearts’ questions, and life became meaningless and unbearably painful. I was totally lost and broken spiritually. I tried hard to escape this feeling of being lost by seeking money and pleasure, but I totally failed to get any real satisfaction from those. Moreover, the surroundings around me were showing me how treacherous and dark human hearts could be every day. I started to realize that “the heart of the problem is the problem of heart”, and how insignificant and pitiful I was myself. With all those incurable weaknesses of myself, I was unable to go beyond myself, let alone to practise the Confucian idealism of “cultivation of personality, regulation of family, order of the nation, and peace and harmony of the world”. In the spiritual pain and thirst, I began to realize the desperate needs for a transcendent faith. I started to seek philosophical and religious knowledge. I read a lot about things of “spiritual” nature, which ranged from western philosophy to traditional Chinese believes, and even included things like Qi-gong and fortune telling. Occasionally I would find a little sparkle of human wisdom in those writings, but they did not give me any significant answers. Some of my readings were related to Christianity, but most of them in a negative way, criticizing and even attacking Christianity as a superstitious religion or imperialist tool. Only a few books were introducing Christian thoughts as one kind of western philosophical or cultural resource. One of books was authored by Dr. Liu, Xiaofeng who was later deemed a leading “cultural Christian”. The book was titled “Salvation and Carefree-ness”, and in it Christian worldview was clearly – and “neutrally” - compared with other western and oriental thoughts and cultures. In a strange way, this book created some affinity and good impression for Christianity on me.

At the same time, God also gave me a few opportunities to know some Christian friends, although there were so few of them in China. In 1990, with my English speaking ability, I got a license to lead tourist groups as an interpreter guide, and was hired to be the interpreter for a British “expedition” team. The British team would use hovercraft to go upstream the Yangtze to the source of the river, and to access the Tibetan areas along the banks of the river’s upstream. Besides scientific investigations, they would send medicines and technologies to those remote areas for humanitarian aids by the unique way of transportation. I soon learnt that this was a team consisted mostly of Christians. Their experience in China was a very difficult one. Not only did they have to face the extremely harsh geographical environment in the areas near the source of Yangtze, but also they had to deal with the most frustrating bureaucracy and materialist greed of the Chinese side. It even made me to lose heart and patience and get angry. However, I saw with my own eyes how these Christians prayed and trusted their God to face the difficulties, and how they showed their Christian love, not only to the people they helped (mostly the Tibetans), but also to those who made it difficult for them, with forgiveness and understanding. Their positive attitude to life and their unwavering faith in God gave me such a wonderful and powerful testimony during the more than one month’s time I lived and worked together with them, even though they did not get much time to tell me about God and the Bible. (Their expedition was later broadcasted in Britain and China, including scenes of their Sunday worship on the highland by the River.) Their witness canceled out a lot of my preconceived misunderstandings and aversion towards Christianity. After the “expedition”, a young friend of mine told me that he had become a Christian, and invited me to one of their house church Bible study gatherings. I was amazed to see a group of young intellectuals with similar background as mine pray, sing hymns, study the Bible and share together. However, at that time, I knew almost nothing about God and the Bible, and my “good impression” of Christianity was only on the cultural and intellectual level. I did not even think about personal relationship with God and what it means for my life.

In August 1992, I came to the United States to pursue graduate study (in chemistry) at the University of Alabama and to seek my “America Dream”. Being able to “make it” abroad was not easy at all for a young Chinese intellectual. Besides the academic challenges (only the very top ones could get the admission and financial aid), it was extremely difficult to get the passport from the Chinese authority and the visa from the American Consulate. I spent four days and four nights in front of the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, and nearly missed my I-20 form for the visa (it was lost and the replica did not get in my hand until the last day before my interview with the Consulate). Thinking back today, it is clear that I was able to come to this country only because God’s loving hand was working behind everything.

The first period of time after I arrived in Alabama was a very tough one, since I had to endure loneness apart from my family and my newly wedded wife, and to cope with new life in a strange land. During that time, I got much help from some fellow Chinese graduate students and their families, whom I soon found out to be some Christians young in their Christian lives. They picked me up from the airport on day one, gave me rides to shop, invited me to their homes for Chinese meals, and offered many other helps. They took me to their Bible studies and I got to know many other Christian friends, Chinese and American. Their loving deeds and kind help brought a lot of warmth to me, and I was much touched by the love they lived out which I knew had to come from their Christian faith. The peace and joy from their lives were so real and it again caused me to desire to have such a life.

The Bible studies in the Chinese Christian Fellowship in the small southern college town gave me much-needed opportunities to learn about the basic but accurate doctrines of Christianity. In the beginning I had tons of questions to ask, and was quite a difficult and tough seeker. Fortunately the Bible studies were very open, and the Christian friends responded to my harsh, opinionated and provoking questions with much patience and wisdom. My knowledge and understanding increased quickly with all the debates and discussions. I started to realize a lot of my misunderstanding and prejudice to Christianity, and to overcome many obstacles out of my atheist and rationalist thinking paradigm. The much profound thinking and discussion on issues such as the true-ness of the bible, creation vs. evolution, faith and reason, and Christianity vs. other religions and cultures, etc., convinced me that the Christian belief is truth and broke my intellectual stronghold bit by bit. The Bible and Jesus’ teachings had even greater impact on my seeking heart.

On one Sunday in October 1992, I was attending worship with friends in a local church (Tuscaloosa First Baptist Church). I do not remember much about what the pastor preached that day, but my heart was so touched by God that tears filled my eyes. I realized what a sinner I was, and was strongly moved to turn to God. When the pastor asked those who decided to accept Christ as their Savior and Lord to come in the front, I stood up as if I lost control of myself, and I walked to the front and hold the pastor’s hands. Although I still had many questions and struggles, I confessed before the congregation that I accepted Jesus Christ to enter into my heart and to control my life, and lead me for my whole life. I was baptized in the same church soon after my decision.

My life was greatly changed after I became a Christian, even though I was not always aware of it. Just like “once I was blind but now I can see”, my worldview and value were totally transformed by the Word of God. The self-center-ness, self-righteousness and denial of God’s existence were replaced by the repentance of my sins, obedience to God and a thanksgiving heart. I had sought the meaning of life with such pain, and now I am able to know the true and only God Himself, the Creator of the universe and Keeper of our lives, through Jesus Christ and God’s Love. I am able to have a close relationship with God through prayers and studying His Word, and experienced His guidance in my daily life. My marriage, my family, my career and my service inside and outside the church have all been so blessed by God throughout the years, although it has not been without difficulties and storms in my life. I have experienced the peace and joy that transcend the surroundings and the more abundant life that Christ gives us. My wandering heart has found the ultimate anchor, and my lost soul has found the eternal home.

Looking back on my spiritual journey, I am with great awe and thanksgiving for God’s Grace on me. I believe that it is not by any “coincident”, but by the leading of God’s own loving hands, that I have become what I am today. My story is just another testimony of God’s amazing Grace, infinite Love and great Power. I pray that I will be endowed the faith and strength to serve God and follow my Lord Jesus Christ all my life.

P. S. Serving in Grace

After I became a Christian in 1992, I have been worshiping and serving in a few Chinese churches in Alabama, Arizona, New Jersey and Maryland. I am a co-worker for the Christian organizations of Chinese Christian Internet Mission (CCIM, www.ccim.org) and Overseas Campus (www.oc.org). I have had my own evangelical website, “Jidian’s Links” (English introduction http://www.godoor.net/jidianlinks/eng.html), in Chinese and hosted in China, since 1998.