Ep 252: Government Officials Advancing the Gospel with Christopher Chen

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute

and part of the Christians for Liberty Network.

I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show.

Alright guys, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.

My guest today is Christopher Chen.

Christopher is currently pursuing his PhD in New Testament Studies at Columbia International

University and is taught as an adjunct professor in Chinese seminaries.

He is the author of the brand new book, Evil Empire, Government officials as proponents

of the gospel and Luke acts in beyond, out now and with and stock, where he argues that

there is a place for believers to hold positions of power even in hostile governments.

We will be discussing this book on the show today.

Christopher, welcome to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.

Thank you Alex.

I'm really excited to be here.

I'm excited to talk to you about the book, man.

It is incredible, but this is your first time on the show, so before we get started, tell

us about yourself, your background and your work.

Yeah, so as you said, I'm currently working on my PhD in New Testament.

I completed my first seminary degree at Western Seminary here in San Jose, California, at

their extension campus.

I also did my THM at Southern Seminary, where Jonathan Pennington was my thesis advisor,

and the thesis that I wrote for that program was something that I had a lot more ideas

that I wouldn't fit into the original thesis, and so I later expanded it into the book

that we're talking about today.

So in the middle of pursuing your PhD, which is a pretty large undertaking, what motivated

you to write Evil Empire?

Yeah, so it goes back many years ago, actually, I'll highlight two formative experiences.

First, my older brother, Kevin Jen, who's an Old Testament professor down at Gateway Seminary

in Southern California, invited me to join him as a teaching assistant while he was teaching

biblical Hebrew to a group of Chinese believers.

I was there to help teach, of course, but along the way, I was also inspired by these

brothers and sisters that I got to chat with them during breaks and over meals, and just

hearing about their faith in hard situations.

I had studied Chinese church history, being a Chinese American myself, but some of these firsthand

experiences really got me even more fascinated by this idea of how Christianity could thrive

in places where the government wasn't exactly supportive of religion, and so I struggled to understand

the dynamic between believers and their government officials.

So these encounters were sort of lingering in the back of my mind when I had a second experience,

which was in my own local church.

I helped to lead a small group at my church, and we were doing a Bible study, and it was my turn

to lead on Luke 7, which is where Jesus heals the centurion servant.

And as I was preparing for that study, I just did a simple work search on centurion,

in Luke and Acts, and I was blown away by what I found. These were officials in the Roman Empire,

obviously, and I thought they were supposed to be the bad guys in the story, but that was not

what I was seeing in the text. And so I started to wonder what was going on in Luke and Acts,

and how could this inform the way we see the relationship between Christ and culture today,

and especially in places where it's hard to be a Christian? And so I felt compelled to write

this book for a few reasons. One was to help believers to navigate the complexities of being

in but not of this world, and also to help provide a biblical foundation for believers who live

under hostile governments. And then finally, to help those of us here in the West,

to try to be able to learn from believers in the majority world and throughout history,

as we navigate life under a government that can also seem to be increasingly at odds with our faith

at times. Yeah, and I think it is a really timely book. And as far as books on the relationship

between the Bible and politics goes, it's very nuanced and it's not atomistic. And so I really

appreciate the work that you put forward in this book. And you outline your thesis on page three.

And I wrote it down here so I could recite it word for word, but you claim that there is a place

for believers to hold positions of power even in hostile governments. And I want you to just talk

about that thesis statement and that dynamic as it works itself out in your book.

Yeah, so as I said, I started with centurions and Luke and Acts, but as I began to broaden my study

a little bit, I became struck by several other passages. And I'll mention one of them, which is

John the Baptist interactions with Roman soldiers in Luke chapter three. You may remember that

there are many people coming out to the wilderness to repent. And there's a group of soldiers and

John tells them specifically, do not extort money from anyone and to be content with your wages.

Now, what I noticed here was that if John's telling them to be content with their wages,

he's actually implying that these soldiers who are coming to repent should actually stay in the

Roman military. And so there's this interesting dynamic that there was a line that John was drawing

for them and saying, you know, don't extort people, but stay in the military. And so that's the

dynamic that I'm looking at in this book. And another side of this, I think, is that

God can also use sympathetic government officials to advocate for believers who are under their

jurisdiction. And so not every single official necessarily becomes a believer in the Bible.

But I was also curious, for example, going back to the centurions about how Jesus could say to

a Roman centurion that not in all of Israel have I found such faith. If a Roman centurion could be

a model believer, this would be kind of like if we think of the most anti-Christian government today

and say that it's an okay for a Christian to serve within that regime.

And Jesus is saying, not only is it okay for that person, but that person serving in that

regime can be an example of faith for other people. I do say in that same thesis statement area

in the book that I wouldn't necessarily insist that every believer must always choose to remain

embedded in a hostile regime. And that's something we can talk about a little bit later.

Yeah, and I want to go through the biblical evidence. Obviously, based on the subtitle of your book,

I'm sure many of my listeners caught this in the introduction. You focus on Luke Axe, but you have

a really helpful chapter that talks about the Old Testament background of this. And in fact,

there are a lot of instances in the Old Testament of government officials as proponents of God

or helping God's people in some way, and even those that follow God being in positions of very

high authority. And several prominent examples, I think, that many American Christians might not

even be fully aware of. So I want to start with the Old Testament. Talk to us about the biblical

data from the Old Testament and what that tells us about government officials being servants of God

or helping the church in some way in that capacity. Right. So as I started to think about my argument,

I felt like if it was correct, you should expect to see some supporting evidence in the rest of the

Bible. And so I tried to demonstrate continuity both backwards into the Old Testament and then

forward into early church history. And as I began to think about the Old Testament, there were

so many examples that would come to mind. I thought of how many times believers actually held

office in what seemed to be enemy nations in the Old Testament, people like Joseph serving in Egypt

or Esther as the queen of Persia or Nehemiah as the cup bearer to the king of Persia.

And then I thought also of times when there were non-believing officials who supported God's people

or God's purposes. Think of King Cyrus, for example, who Cyrus's decree sends the Israel

like back from exile to build the temple, the second temple. Darius is also involved in that

or even someone like the queen of Shiba who comes to visit Solomon at Jerusalem and she leaves

praising Israel's God. But in my book, I chose to focus in this chapter on two case studies. One was

Daniel and the second was Namin. With Daniel, I think we're all familiar with the story. You know,

with his three friends, they're living in Babylon. But what's not always emphasized is the role of

lower-level officials in the story. In Daniel I, King Nebuchadnezzar assigns a eunuch, the chief

eunuch, Ashpinaz, to be over this group of exiles. And Daniel famously resolves not to eat the

king's food, not to defile himself with the wine that the king drank. And then he asks the chief

eunuch for an exception. But the eunuch is afraid of the king. And so Daniel goes around the eunuch

and he approaches a lower-level official. It says he approaches the steward who the eunuch had

assigned over Daniel and his friends. And he says, steward, put us to the test, a 10-day test of

vegetables and water, and then you can see how we look after this and make a decision.

This steward ends up granting a temporary exception for Daniel, allowing them to change their

diet. After 10 days, they are looking great, and then steward changes it to a permanent exception.

And so the fascinating thing here is that the further we get down the chain of command,

the more flexibility can be given. And the less oversight there is. This is just how things work

in any government or any multi-layered organization. The steward, because of his relationship with Daniel,

is able to grant an exception, as long as the king doesn't notice. And so in all of this,

we find that God gave Daniel wisdom, and these young men were found to be, it says,

ten times more wise than all the magicians of Babylon. And my second example was

name-in from Second Kings 5. This seems like an odd or obscure choice, but name-in actually

is mentioned by Jesus in his first sermon in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 4, at the Nazareth

synagogue. Jesus says that there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha,

and none of them was cleansed, but name-in the Syrian. Luke's the only gospel writer to mention

name-in. And I think it's because Luke wants us to read the story with name-in in the back of our

minds, because name-in has some similarities to the officials in Luke and Acts. He is the commander

of the Syrian army, Israel's enemy, but he's also a leper. His wife has a Israelite servant girl,

who suggests name-in can be cured if he goes to see Elisha through this process. He eventually

gets cured of his leprosy, even though he's initially hesitant. And then he makes this declaration.

He says, I know that there is no other God in all the earth, but in Israel. He becomes a believer.

And he's so serious about his faith that he wants to pull a pile of Israelite dirt so he can go

home and make sacrifices to the Lord. But then as the scene is kind of coming to an end,

name-in raises a problem to Elisha. He says, you know, I'm the king's right hand man,

and as part of my job, I have to go with the king into an idolatrous temple while the king

is doing his worship ceremonies. And so as a new believer, name-in realizes that he's going back

to a job that is sometimes going to impinge on his conscience. And he asks Elisha. He says,

you know, when I go there and I'm in the temple, well, the Lord forgive me. Well, he pardoned me for

this. And Elisha blesses him. He says, go in peace. Notice Elisha doesn't tell a name, and he has

to quit his job. He has to stop serving the king. He can't go to the temple. Instead, he blesses

name-in to go back and to work out his faith even in a difficult environment. And so I think

that's a lot of the type of dynamic we are seeing in the type of situations we'll talk about

in Luke and Acts as well. Yeah. And those are such great examples from the Old Testament. And

when you get to the New Testament, the majority, not all of it, but the majority of your argument

does come from Luke Acts. Why are the works of Luke and Acts so significant when analyzing believers

in positions of authority, or how people in positions of authority relate to God's people?

Yeah. So Luke and Acts are by the same author, Luke, and Luke actually is the only gospel

writer to mention a Caesar by name. He is of the four gospel, he's the four gospel writers. He's

the one who most frequently mentions the Roman Empire. You may remember back in Luke chapter 2,

the story of Jesus' birth. It's said in the historical context of Caesar Augustus.

And similar to the other gospels, Luke's account climaxes with Jesus standing on trial before

the Jews and then the Romans. And then that same pattern happens in Acts where the story climaxes

with Paul standing trial before the Jews and then the Romans. And so I think the shape of Luke and

Acts is drawing the reader's attention to the relationship between believers and the authorities.

Yeah. And I think that there are so many powerful examples within Luke Acts of this. And,

of course, you've already talked about Jesus' mention of name and and Luke four. And I'm sure we'll

come back to that in a minute. But on a more fundamental level, you talk about how even the primary

recipient of Luke and Acts, Luke's intended audience, which is theophilist, demonstrates your thesis.

Now, this is something that I had never really considered before. I know that I can build a

scholarship when it's something that I've addressed on the show. You know, the reason why we know that

acts as a sequel to Luke or one of the many reasons why we know that is that it's addressed to

the same person, theophilist. And that's about as far as a lot of Christians get with that.

But you argue that theophilist is much more significant and actually bears upon your thesis

in some pretty surprising ways. So talk to us about theophilist. Who is this figure? And how does

it relate to the thesis in your book? Yeah. So theophilist is it's a prequired that comes from

the us and fil us and it means friend of God. And so there's been a lot of theories that people

have had over the years, but they kind of boil down to two broad categories. The first category is

that people think theophilists could represent sort of a prototypical reader of the gospel of Luke.

Because, hey, anybody who is a friend of God could be a theophilist. So all of us Christians

are like theophilists. In particular, maybe some people spin it to say he represents Gentile believers.

There's a second sort of broad category which would say that theophilist was a historical person.

It was a name that was common in that time, especially among Jews. And so some people think that

theophilist was a literary patron for Luke or some sort of Jewish reader or perhaps a Roman official.

And so I took that Roman official view and I tried to develop and support that a bit more.

So the reason for thinking he could be a Roman official has to do with the words that Luke uses

to address him in Luke one three. He calls him most excellent theophilist.

This word most excellent appears only a few times in the entire New Testament, entirely in Luke

and Acts. It's once here in the preface of Luke and then three more times during Paul's trial

narrative, referring to governors Felix and Festus. So the way you Luke uses the term most excellent

is to refer to Roman governors. So that's sort of the point where people start when they talk

about theophilist as a Roman official. But what hasn't actually been pointed out as far as I

can tell is that there are a lot more threads that support the idea that theophilist was a Roman

official besides that one word most excellent. Luke says that he has followed all these things

closely for some time and he writes an orderly account so that theophilist can have certainty

concerning the things he has been taught. When you look at these words for closely and

certainty that appear in Luke's preface, it turns out those two words are also heavily

concentrated in Paul's trial narrative. So Luke's preface and Paul's trial narrative are

repeating these words most excellent closely and certainty as these different

officials are trying to find out the facts about Paul's situation. So I think that these repetitions

of words are not accidental. Luke the author claims to be writing a careful account and I believe

he actually is. And I think what he's trying to show is that Paul's trial narrative is a fulfillment

in the narrative of Luke's purpose for writing. Paul is reasoning with officials in acts.

Just in the same way as Luke is writing to help theophilist a Roman official to know the truth

with accuracy and certainty. Yeah and I thought just occurred to me and I don't know if you

bring this up in the book but I'd love to know when you think that Luke wrote acts because I tend

to think that acts may have been written before the fall of the temple and possibly even while

while Paul was alive because it doesn't narrate his death and it seems like that would be kind of

a fitting way to conclude acts if Paul had already passed. And do you think that there might be

something to that that maybe this theophilist is someone who has influence over the fate of Paul

or am I just like making stuff up? It could be, you know I think some of these things it's hard

to say with absolute certainty but I think it could be possible. I mean to add to that I think

one of the objections that people have about theophilist being a Roman official is they they think

that you know if there was an official who believed in Jesus or was at least interested in the

gospel we would have heard about him somewhere else. And I think that's a fair critique

but I think it's also possible that theophilist it could have been used as a pseudonym by the author

to sort of provide cover for an official in in a high standing. For example you think pack of

name in right he he needs to go back into this pressure situation as a new believer. You could

imagine if if Luke is writing to a believer in that sort of standing it would make sense to to use

a pseudonym to help mask that person's identity. Yeah so theophilist is probably a government

official and centurions also play a very significant role throughout Luke acts. So I want to step

back I think that probably most people that are listening to the show understand that centurion

is a Roman soldier but I think we maybe need a little more context for that and you give that in

your book. So talk to us about who these centurions were historically and what kind of relevant

background information you think we need to understand them and then what are some instances in which

centurions play a very prominent role in Luke and Acts. Yeah so historically centurions were

officers in the Roman military. We think of them as in charge of 100 people because you know with

the centurion historically the number often was closer to 80 so you could think 80 to 100 men

or under their charge. They were typically promoted into that rank for having you know good character

good performance and they had to be usually good at multiple languages they needed to be able to

speak the language of their subordinates so often you could think local languages of the region

whatever region that might be in the empire. They needed to speak Greek and Latin so they

could communicate with their superiors as well and so these centurions were people of influence

they weren't you know the highest up in the hierarchy within the empire but they had a significant

amount of influence. In Luke's gospel centurions show up a total of five in five different

parts of the narrative and some parts of the narrative there's more than one so it kind of depends

on how you count it but I kind of broke it up into five parts I mean you've got two in the gospel

of Luke and then three parts in the book of Acts. In Luke's gospel a Roman centurion is the first

Gentile to believe in Jesus in Luke seven the passage that I mentioned earlier and this man

was said by the Jews to to love our nation and he they said he built us our synagogue at Kapernaum

so he was a good man. In the book of Acts a Roman centurion again is the first Gentile to convert

Acts 10 Cornelius and he's also a man of good reputation says he gave alms to the people

and the well-respected man and so when I saw these two things that a Roman centurion is the first

Gentile convert in Luke and a the Roman centurion is the first Gentile convert in Acts and I'm

thinking Luke is writing a careful and orderly account he must be on to something why is he doing

this and so it kind of set me off to look at the rest of the centurions you've got one in

Luke 23 the centurion at the cross who also appears in Matthew and Mark but this centurion he

declares at Jesus' death he says surely this man was righteous and that declaration of Jesus

as righteous is significant because if you trace throughout the rest of Acts Jesus gets

proclaimed as the righteous one by by the Christians who are preaching the gospel

that the centurion it turns out is the first one to declare Jesus as the righteous one in the narrative

of Luke and Acts jumping back over to Acts centurions appear during Paul's trial narrative

first when Paul is being taken by a Jewish mob in Jerusalem there's centurions that come to rescue

him ironically by putting him into custody and then they end up advocating for him as he is

interacting with the commander Claudius Wissius who eventually sends Paul over to Caesarea

under the guard of centurions who give him some liberties along the way to have guests and

they treat him well although he is in custody and then the last centurion is in Acts 27 a man named

Julius he's the second named centurion in the entire collection we had Cornelius and then Julius

Acts 27 the shipwreck is an interesting seeing because Julius is in charge of a ship of

he's in charge of the the prisoners on on board this ship and then there's also the ship owner

there's Paul and the Christian travelers and then there's a group of other travelers it's a mixed

and eclectic group of people on the ship and at first the centurion and Paul the centurion doesn't

really listen to Paul but over time he is relationship with Paul changes and he comes to a point where

he trusts Paul and because he is willing to listen to Paul it ends up working out for the good of

everyone on the ship not a life was lost because they followed Paul's instructions largely because

of the the role of the centurion yeah and again a lot of very very powerful examples from Luke

Acts of these centurions helping the the early church in propagating the gospel I also want to

circle back to something you said about the office Luke labels him most excellent and you

said that this is a title that has applied to government officials in the trial narratives of Paul

so I want to talk about that for a little bit what do we what do we get out of those trial

narratives in these most excellent officials what does that tell us about the way in which government

officials can be prepared so the gospel isn't the gospel and how does that advance your thesis

yeah so if I go back to the Julius example Julius's role in the narrative is even though

we don't know whether he became a believer or not from the narrative from the text it doesn't seem

like he did but he he works with Paul and he is ultimately ensuring that Paul is going to get

to Rome alive which is advancing God's purpose of you know the gospel moving to the ends of the

earth and getting to to the heart of the empire but at the same time Julius is playing a role that

is is helping the common good of everyone on the ship this mixed group of believers and unbelievers

and so I see a very strategic and nuanced position that these officials can have as

excellent proponents of the gospel and also as people who are doing the common good for for

everyone beyond the centurions there's there's also other really interesting examples in

Luke and Acts of other government officials I'll mention two of them quickly one of them is

the Ethiopian eunuch he is the treasurer for Candice Queen of Ethiopia he appears in Acts 8

Ethiopia at the time was one of the most powerful kingdoms in that region this man was probably not

ethnically Jewish but he's not quite a Gentile because he's deeply influenced by Judaism he's on his

way home from Jerusalem after all he is the first foreigner to convert in Acts so if Cornelius is

the first sort of pure Gentile to convert the eunuch is the first foreigner and he's also probably

the highest ranking official to convert in Acts his conversion is the beginning of again the gospel

reaching beyond Jerusalem and getting out to a broader reach it's at this point in the narrative that

the gospel starts to get to Samaria and so it's another key point in the narrative where

you see a government official converting as the first one the next one I'll mention is

Sergius Paulus in Acts 13 this is the Paul's first missionary journey in Acts and who is the

first person to convert during Paul's first missionary journey it's another government official

a Roman pro consul a pro consul was a magistrate of senatorial rank so he's of higher rank compared to

the centurions that we talked about it says that he is a man of intelligence and so Sergius Paulus'

conversion I think lends a lot of credibility to the idea of a Roman magistrate becoming a believer

that you can be an influential a high ranking an intelligent man and still believe in the gospel

while serving in the Roman Empire I feel like that would be pretty powerful for a reader like

theophilus who I take to be a Roman official as well yeah I completely agree with that and you

you have a section of your book where you talk about data in the New Testament outside of Luke

so where else in the New Testament can we find examples of this phenomenon yeah that's a great

question of course there's the parallel accounts in the gospels which refer to the centurions

at capernam and at the cross beyond this there are a couple fascinating little pieces of evidence

I would say in Paul's letters I'll highlight a couple verses from Philippians and from first Timothy

so with Philippians Paul is writing and to the church in Philippi and in the first and last

chapters of Philippians so Philippians 1 and Philippians 4 he makes these references to the gospel

spreading among the the imperial guard and to Caesar's household so in Philippians 1 12 it says that

it's become known throughout the whole imperial guard that my imprisonment is for Christ

and then at the end Philippians 4 22 he says all the saints greet you especially those of Caesar's

household so these statements are suggesting that the gospel had spread through the imperial guard

and even up into the inner circle of Caesar himself and so that is pretty fascinating to me and I

think it's consistent with what we're seeing in Luke and Acts secondly first Timothy 2 Paul

urges believers to pray for kings and for all those who are in high positions that we may lead a

peaceful and quiet life although this doesn't mention whether you know these believers these rulers

became believers or not I think it at least suggests that you know we should be often praying for

officials to rule in a way that enables the church to flourish and I think that's also consistent

with with the message of what we see in Acts yeah well I want to kind of talk about the

the reception of this idea in the earliest church and there were debates about the extent to which

believers should serve in government roles in the early church and you know even going back to

what we were talking about earlier you have a great example of this in Daniel all throughout the

Bible you see examples of believers being in positions of power within hostile governments

but there are limits to what they can and can't do you know Daniel refusing to bow down and worship

the statues a great or Daniel's friends it's a great example of that phenomenon there so talk

to us about this this conversation in the early church about whether or not and to what extent

Christians can serve in in government roles right and so with the early church I think that

actually the first thing I'll say is that there's this really cool exhibit right now going on at

the Bible Museum in Washington DC until the end of this year which is the Megiddo inscriptions

and among those inscriptions there's one called the Guyannas inscription this is from the early

third century and what's cool is that there's it's from a mosaic floor of one of the earliest known

Christian meeting places and it says that this man named Guyannas the centurion

commission the the building of the flooring of this church and so I think it kind of shows you that

these things that we're talking about in Luke and Acts they they continue to happen even into

the early church that this this man Guyannas if he wasn't a believer he was at least a friend of

the believers but as we get into you know the early centuries of church history

um there's also another interesting story um with Marcus Aurelius the emperor and he he tells

about this this time when he had a group of Christian soldiers who they prayed to God and as a

result he was able to get victory in in a really challenging battle and he he refers to them

they get referred to as the thundering legion because they prayed and then God sent rain which

actually helped hydrate them and help them win the battle so there were some positive interactions

between believers and government officials but things weren't always so rosy as you suggested

Roman military culture included a pretty strong dose of Roman religion that was mixed in

so there's the imperial cult and so many Christians they would find ways to sort of navigate

the system but it didn't work for everyone there's a story of a Christian soldier who was

up for promotion to become a centurion but at the last second he gets denied the promotion

because someone accused him as a Christian of not sacrificing to the emperors and so

um there's another example um even worse during the the great desion persecution um there was a

soldier who was ordered to persecute a group of Christians and he wouldn't do it and he ended

up being executed um another time similarly a whole group of soldiers who were probably believers

as well um they refused to persecute a group of their fellow Christian brothers and sisters

um there's an interesting account told by Tertullian in his work called on the crown

and in this work Tertullian defends a Christian soldier who was participating in a

processional with the rest of his um soldier colleagues and they were all supposed to put on a

loyal crown at one point um I think they were being honored in some way but this Christian soldier

refused to put on the crown instead he walked with it held by his side um and Tertullian

defends the soldier and he says that that um you know in the bible crowns are reserved for

Christ and um that we're supposed to be laying down our crowns at his feet not not wearing a crown

that's given to us from from the Roman military um and so for that soldier um putting on the crown

was was a line that he he wouldn't cross yeah and again it just goes to show you how complicated

this has been throughout church history and you have what to me was maybe the most interesting chapter

in the book where you talk about this dynamic um and within the history of China so you you review

the history of China um from the time that the first Christians arrived and you look at how there

have been people within the government that have that have advanced the gospel um and I don't know

we talked about this in email before the show but my day job I I teach seven great social studies

and we do a unit on medieval Chinese history and so it was so fascinating getting that from an

angle that I had never really never really considered before and so I really love this chapter

so just give us some of the highlights of that throughout Chinese history how have government

officials been proponents of the gospel or helped advance the gospel or supported the church

even during times of hostility towards Christianity yeah thanks for that I I loved writing this

chapter I think it was my favorite wonder research in right um of course it was a personal interest

to me as a Chinese American um but I also wanted to present like a contrast with the Roman Empire

chapter which was mostly military focused because in this other you know Chinese context there's

different questions and challenges and there's different solutions that get brought up um

so I also wanted to you know trace this whole theme through like a different time period

a different cultural context China you know being a world superpower um is you know it's a place

where Christianity has grown rapidly despite never having a sort of Christendom model the Asia never

produced a constant theme um and so in China's story I think we find a real contrast with Rome

um one of the lessons I think that comes out of this is that the church was never meant to

depend upon the government for its livelihood and support um in fact the story of Christianity

in China shows us that the gospel can thrive even amidst opposition and so I broke up this chapter

into five distinct um historical time periods um and I won't talk about all of them but um I talked

about the the Tang dynasty um in the six and seven hundreds um and then the the Mongol dynasty

the Ming dynasty the nationalist era and then all the way up into the modern era um but as you

mentioned um China had reached China had been exposed to the gospel as early as the year 635 AD

there is a stone inscription in fian China um that commemorates the time when Christians from

Syria and Persia came along the Silk Road and brought um Christianity along with them to China

this um stone is from um the eighth century um and it talks about how the emperor at that time

even though he wasn't a believer he was very open to outside ideas and outside religions

this emperor um he had the bible translated into Chinese

back in the seventh century and he he had the bible added to his imperial library um he commissioned

the building of the first known Chinese Christian church and it was funded by the imperial treasury

it was built in shian which was the largest city in the world at the time the emperor um he

endorsed the spread of the gospel throughout his kingdom and I think of him sort of like a Chinese

version of king Cyrus of Persia he's not a believer himself but he's supporting God's people

and God's purposes um after a change of power Christianity was no longer um tolerated in

this way and so you know things changed um over time um but fast forward a bit and I'll

mention um one other time period during the mongol dynasty so the mongols um invaded China

and ruled um from 1271 to 1368 and the mongol dynasty is often portrayed as a destructive empire

like an evil empire especially if you're looking at it from a Chinese perspective

Genghis Khan came in and then he um after his demise he divided the kingdom amongst his descendants

a man named Kublai Khan a descendant of Genghis was the one who ended up with the most um power over

the the largest region and his mother was actually a christian who um influenced her son to be

tolerant towards religions um his mother was uh became a christian sort of along the the line of

Syrian Christianity the the Syrian Christianity that had arrived in the seventh century so she

was sort of a fruit of that um and her son Kublai the emperor he he didn't become a Christian

but he was known as a friend of believers there's this account where Marco Polo the merchant from

Venice um he came um along the Silk Road and he reports that he found Christians serving in

high positions in Kublai's imperial court um and interestingly there is a point where Kublai

Khan sends a message um to the pope through Marco Polo this is around the year 1265 or 66

and Kublai Khan is saying to the pope send me a hundred men to teach us your religion

and then I'm going to be baptized along with all my officials and there's going to be more

Christians here than where you live now Kublai's words um you know you could question whether he's

more interested in establishing foreign relations or learning from Western knowledge but

nevertheless his request was met with a pretty disappointing response the pope sent only um two

people instead of a hundred um and these two people they encountered some hardships on the journey

and they turned back before they even reached China um and so here you have uh you know a government

official who is welcoming Christianity into China um but unfortunately I guess you got to wonder

what what would have happened if that actually played out if those hundred people went um there's

many more stories in the book um you know covering the time of Jesuit missions 1500s Matteo retreat

lots of fascinating encounters um all the way up through the republican era and to the modern era

but I won't spoil the book I'll let the listeners read that on their own

well and in the last 15 minutes or so I want to talk about the practical impact of your work for

Christians today and I'll open this up with just kind of a general question what do you want Christians

to learn from this book yeah so I realized that we live in a very politically polarized time

yeah for sure I'm not a political expert myself um but what I know is that you know here in America

Christians on both sides of the the political divide can can often see the US as becoming

increasingly hostile towards our faith depending on which political party is currently in power

there are different segments of believers that can feel like we're living under an evil empire yeah

so I would say that instead of always trying to dominate the political narrative I think we

can learn a lot by remembering how Jesus and Paul and believers throughout history have worked

within hostile regimes we should realize that God can use individuals even within what seems to

be an evil empire you know there are places in the world where governments severely restrict

religious activity but interestingly that doesn't mean that all of the officials in those regimes

are hostile towards the faith or towards believers many of these officials are just trying to

do their job but they're just trying to earn a living like you and me um they're trying to follow

the chain of command and sometimes they don't agree with what they're being asked to do by their

superiors um but as we saw in the case of Daniel chapter one enforcing the rules at the ground level

it actually actually often depends a lot on the lower level officials and on their relationships

with people um more so than what the official state regulations are um and so sometimes you know

there may be lower level officials who choose to treat believers favorably um and you know some

of these officials they may have non-believing uh they may be non-believers themselves but they

could have Christian friends or Christian family members um and so they've some of these officials

have been known to negotiate favorable um outcomes for for believers um other times you know they

might just choose to look the other way rather than um enforce the official sanctions so i think

there's a lot of relevance for our world today yeah and i want to talk to about the limits of

Christian involvement in an evil regime obviously for Daniel and his friends there were there

were limits there were times that they had to say no um even though they generally were very

faithful and did their their job diligently so what are some examples um they that come to your

mind of government roles or positions or commands that might cause a Christian to have to walk away

and like what are the limits of modern Christian serving in evil regimes yeah that

that is a great question um and it's hard to answer in a general sense i think without knowing

the specifics of each individual case um but i would say that i do believe that god has given

each believer a conscience for a reason and i think of a passage like Romans 14 where

Paul talks about this strong in the week and how they have differing levels of you could say

sensitivities of their consciences um so one believer might be okay with doing such and such thing

while another believer might not be okay with that same thing um and so Paul's principle here is

don't cause another believer to stumble um and so the person who has to the person with a more

sensitive conscience um i would not want to force them to violate their conscience to try to

tell them you know you feel like you can't do like such and such thing is not okay but just do it

anyway right um but for a believer whose conscience maybe allows them to do that that same thing

and they're they're not disturbed in their conscience they don't feel that that that is sin

i would encourage such a person to remain in their government role if possible um because

you know i i think that there's um there's places in the world that are really hard to access

you either have to have the credentials or the relationships or the experience to get in there

and and some of these government positions there might not be a lot of believers in those circles

um and so if the believers who are qualified and and willing to to serve in those roles

if they all back out then um i feel like we as a as a church are are losing um an opportunity to

to witness in certain spheres that god might want for us to work in yeah and again it's just

it's just kind of like aster you know for such a time as this she was put in the right position

at the right time and if she just said well you know on principle i can't be the queen um then

then they would have wiped out all of the Jews so yeah i totally agree with that um what advice

would you give to Christians who are working in government about how to balance their faith with

their official responsibilities yeah well first i would say that i i deeply respect the work that you're

doing um i'm not sure i could do it myself um but like you said i i actually thought it also

of aster what have god has put you where you are for such a time as this um if you're like me

it can feel a lot safer um to to you know just stay in our Christian bubble where it's more

comfortable and less risky um but god put aster in a vulnerable position as the queen of Persia

and he had a reason for that and i trust that god has a purpose for putting you

where you are now um it may be stressful and lonely you may feel deep internal conflicts at times

um but my advice would be to look for a small group of believers you know just like

aster who she asked for a group of trusted people to fast and pray for her as she sought the

Lord's guidance um during that crucial moment when she was getting ready to appear before the king

you know it may be only one or two other people um where maybe your small group at church

but if you can share and pray with them um i i trust that that can go a long way um in supporting

you in in your role and one final question i want to ask you um is how the church can support

believers who find themselves in these official positions because as you were saying before

there is a lot of political polarization and i think unfortunately as i i know you've seen this

before and recognize it too there are many american Christians who place their political commitments

before their christian faith like uh in in a lot of ways it's almost as if the political process is

more important than discipleship and so there's a tendency to either worship certain government

officials or to be hostile like without cause towards government officials uh in ways that are not

reflective of our faith and i think the church really needs to again this is why i think your book

is so important and why people should read it we need to step back and have a more nuanced

perspective on what government officials especially christian government officials can and can

accomplish how can the church come alongside the levers that find themselves in official roles

and encourage them to remain faithful and also do their jobs in a way that is consistent with their

faith yeah i i i think it's yeah i encourage them um listen to them i would say scribe to understand

the unique tensions that they face between their christian convictions and the work that they're

being asked to do so this could be you know in an official government role or it could be a public

schoolteacher um you know they face different conflicts as well at times um in some sense you know

the struggle is the same as what all of us face when we think about living as sojourners and

strangers in this world um it's also similar to how you know many of us struggle to live out our

faith in the workplace for those of us who have a job outside of the church or you know we balance

we struggle to balance work and life um even in a christian vocation there's there's struggles

in internal conflicts um but of course in another sense the struggle for a christian serving in

a government position can be different because of the way their jobs can impinge on their conscience

um so i would say pray for them um i'm also concerned that we're often prone to just you know more

alarmist types of reactions where we find it difficult to see how someone can remain faithful while

serving a cause that that i disagree with um and so i would say you know just step back and let's

remember that you know John the Baptist he didn't call the soldiers to ditch the Roman military

Jesus didn't command the centurions to leave their positions Daniel and his friends they spent

three years mastering the literature and the language of the caldians and they were so good at it

that they were better than all the rest in their class um they were deeply um embedded in that

culture um that guided place them in name in as we said before he he gets sent back by ilijah

to continue serving as the right hand man of the king of Syria so none of these biblical characters

were given a free pass to escape their government offices so i think we should also pause a little

before you know just jumping to an oversimplified or knee jerk reaction um saying you know telling

our friends they got to get out of serving the government at their first opportunity um not that

you know every individual needs to stay forever as i said earlier um but just instead of promoting

just one-sided arguments i think we should strive to grasp the nuance in the biblical teaching um

and i would say finally let's you know try to follow the bible's teaching by creating

space for believers to serve in difficult positions within the government supporting them along

the way yeah i love it well christopher chin i really enjoyed this conversation uh the book is evil

empire government officials as proponents of the gospel and luke acts and beyond i would highly

encourage everyone listening to the show to pick up a copy of it it is very readable it's not very

long thankfully which i i love books that are like that so it's digestible and i think that um for

those of you that are listening it will give you a lot to think about and it was just such a great

and well-written book um before i let you go christopher where can people find this book and then

do you have any other work that you want to promote or uh do you have any social media what working

people find you yeah so you can find the book on amazon um it's also on logos um so there's there's

the you know the paperback hardcover there's the ebook versions um as a first time author you know

i deeply appreciate um anyone who's willing to to read it and leave a kind review so that the work

can reach more people um i um i would say in terms of social media you can search for me on facebook

just search my name chris chin um evil empire book you should be able to find me and you can

follow me from there perfect well christopher thank you so much for on the show today

thank you so much for having me Alex it was my pleasure thank you for listening to another

episode of the protestant libertarian podcast if you have any questions or comments please reach

out to me at v protestant libertarian at gmail.com you can also find me on twitter you can follow me

at the handle at pro liberty pod again that is at pro liberty pod and you can also visit me at

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the christians for liberty network and the libertarian christian institute thank you guys so

much for listening to this episode and we will see you next Tuesday