This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the oral history interview of David Howard Adeney (CN 393, T3) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. Nothing recorded has been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Chinese placenames are spelled in the transcript in the old or new transliteration form according to how the speaker pronounced them. Thus, "Peking" is used instead of "Beijing," of that is how the interviewee pronounced it. Chinese terms and phrases which could be understood were spelled as they were pronounced with some attempt made to identify the accepted transliteration form to which it corresponds. In a very few cases, words were too unclear to be distinguished, so the word "[unclear]" was inserted. This is a transcription of spoken English, which of course follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
() Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
Text Underlined text throughout the transcript identifies changes made in the transcript by Adeney. Underlined text in brackets [text] denotes a written addition made by Adeney to add clarity. When following unbracketed underlined text (text [text]), the text in brackets is intended to replace that which it follows. No subtractions have been made from the spoken record. See NOTE below.
This transcription, made by Paul Ericksen, was completed in November 1993.
NOTE: Researchers wishing to quote from this transcript may do so. In the event that the selected text includes an underlined portion reflecting a revision or addition by the interviewee, Dr. Adeney has requested that the researcher should use the revised text.
Collection 393, T3. Interview with David H. Adeney by Paul A. Ericksen on November 14, 1988.
ERICKSEN: This is an oral history interview of David Adeney by Paul Ericksen for the Missionary Sources Collection of the Archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. This interview took place at 10:15 a.m. on November 14, 1988, at the office of the Center Archives in Wheaton, Illinois.
[tape recorder stopped and restarted]
ERICKSEN: Well, Dr. Adeney, I'd like to pick up from where we left off in our last interview. I'd like to go back and talk just a little bit about your...your first term, the rural work. Based on that, on your first term, what were your impressions of communism at that point?
ADENEY: Oh. I think when I went to China and we arrived just after the beginning of the Long March, I really knew very little about communism, and.... I think one thing that has to be realized is that in those days when communications were not what they are today, those of us who were in rural area work got very little news of what was happening in the rest of the country. And when we went to China, we were studying Chinese history and we also had to read the Chinese classics and we read a book like Village Life in China, which described the traditions and the life of the people. But at that time nobody was really thinking a great deal about communism, and one problem perhaps was that the CIM, China Inland Mission was largely involved in work in the interior, and they had left the work in the cities to others. And possibly a weakness was that this meant that the large majority of the missionaries were not closely in touch with the intellectuals in China, so that we didn't hear a great deal about the intellectual foment that was...that was going on and we tended to be somewhat isolated. We would get bits of news coming in, but not a great deal of detailed news. When the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, was captured in the Xian coup [December 12-15, 1936], of course, that news reached us, and [and it] was a very startling bit of news that came through, that the young marshall had captured him when he went in order to spearhead the attack against the communists in Yenan [Shaanxi]. And so we heard about this. We knew that the communists were opposed to...to Christianity. We knew that in some areas where the communist armies had gained control, that the church had been persecuted. We knew that some missionaries been captured. And there was the story, for instance, of [Rudolf Alfred] Bosshardt, and his captivity, and he was...he was in the hands of the communist armies on the Long March for very considerable period of time. Incidently, I...I saw him earlier this year in...in England and the general who captured him has been corresponding with him and in a very interesting way has come to respect him and has sent him a special book, a pictorial record of the liberation army, and [and he] sent it via the ambassador [Chinese ambassador] in England to Mr. Bosshardt, inscribed to him "As a friend of China". When he was captured, of course, he was regarded as a... imperialist and he suffered a great deal at the hands of the army. But now the old general has...has become his friend. And this [His] interview with the ambassador, Chinese ambassador, was published in the papers and since then Mr. Bosshardt has done a...a program on BBC, British television. And it's received a good deal of...of publicity. But he's been able to write very freely to the general, and...sharing his faith and his...his...his.... He said that he asked the general about whether there's been any change in his...his...his thinking. "We both had our vision at the time," and Bosshardt remarked that his vision hadn't changed [pauses] at all. [What about the general's vision?] But that was....we heard these stories, we heard about communism in that way but actually had very little knowledge of the communist movement at that time. We were more concerned about the Japanese invasion.
ERICKSEN: Yeah.
ADENEY: That affected us more directly.
ERICKSEN: What did you like most and least about working in the rural area?
ADENEY: I think that I liked the straightforwardness of the people and.... We were living with them and staying in... (often I would stay in...in little country towns and stay in the homes of the people in...in the churches), and.... There was a very natural relationship and the Henan people are...are regarded as rather (they say in Chinese) laoshe [phonetic approximation, sp.?]. They are...they're direct and fairly...simple and...not so complicated as [in]...some other areas of China. They are people who have suffered a lot. They are people with a very low level of living standards and I...I think that the [pauses] friendliness of the people and the ability to...just to... [opportunity] to see God working and building his church. I think that this was a tremendous [pauses] value and I felt that we were getting to know the...the grass roots. I had wanted to do student work but I think that the mission decision to do the country work was...was the right one. As I say, I...apart from doing camps with young people and seeing high school students, that we were rather cut off from the university life and the...the thinking of the...of the intellectuals. And looking back, in retrospect, I think perhaps it was a mistake that the China Inland Mission did not have a student work because the student work was almost entirely Student Christian Movement under more liberal leadership. And not until the...[end of the] Japanese war...(the end of the war), did we see the development of a evangelical student work. But as far as the things one didn't like, I...I suppose naturally we found the rather primitive conditions not so easy to take, especially at the beginning before we got used to them. The lack of sanitation and the...these...the facilities that...especially in the country side which are extremely primitive. I think I always found that difficult...rather difficult to cope with. But [pauses] those are rather superficial things.
ERICKSEN: You just mentioned the you think it was a good decision that you worked in the...in the interior your first term. How did your work that term prepare you for your work among students?
ADENEY: I think that the...the advantages were that...in...in going into country work and church work you saw the type of homes from which the students came. And...there is a sense in which student work may be somewhat superficial [pauses] in that you...you...you meet students who have received a western type education. And if you go to the big cities you can...you can see a great deal of similarity between students in any part of the world. And you...you can go from student work in America or England and go into student work in China or Japan or whatever country and there's a great deal in common among...among university...university students. And you don't always get beneath the surface and see where they're coming from and what is the cultural background of the...of the students. And going into the...into...into the country you're...you're seeing the life of the people and the thinking which naturally also has molded the students. And in Henan (where the foreigners were not very well....) there were not many foreigners. And...the people treated you almost...there...in a...in a sense you were a bit of a [as a] peculiar...peculiar specimen coming from the west. But some of the people were very simple and.... Like the old country lady when I was trying to learn the language and I was asking, "What is this?" and "What is that?" and...and she spontaneously burst out, "Look at this man, he's grown as big as all this and he still doesn't know what this is!" [laughs] And...there...there's a...there's a directness and gradually you become part of the...part of...part of the community. And in that...that way you...you get to understand the basic lifestyle of the people and a little bit about their thinking.
ERICKSEN: Can you.... Thinking about the church as it was in the rural area, what was a typical church service like?
ADENEY: The.... [pauses] In the rural areas your....people [pauses] tend...many of the people are...are illiterate and [pauses] so a great deal is memorized. They would have a...quite a lot of singing and they would be taught choruses and hymns and a good deal of scripture. And the...the songs, hymns, often would be written up on...on sheets of paper and...and they'd...they'd sing them again and again and...and learn them by...by heart. Whilst in the...in the cities amongst the much more educated people, you will find that there is some very fine music. In the country areas, the people have very little idea of keeping to a tune and everybody sings in their own tune [laughs]. And so that...the singing would be quite enthusiastic but...not exactly musical, though the best hymns were those which had Chinese tunes and there were some...some hymns that were quite beautiful using the...the...the old Chinese folk...folk song type of tune. But there'd be a lot of singing. And then prayer and very...very often everybody would pray together, at the...at the same time. This is very common amongst Chinese people. And there'd be a...
ERICKSEN: Even today?
ADENEY: Even today, yes. And...probably not in the...in the...in the...in the Three Self more formal services, but in the house church meetings you will...you'll get [you will have] times when there's open prayer and everybody prays. It's...it can be very reverent with a...a great...kind of hum of...of prayer...everybody praying. Sometimes, of course you get people who will...kind of shout and...and you get [then]...it can be a little bit disconcerting if you get certain people who are very, very loud. But on the whole I'd say it's a very reverent type of worship. And then of course you would have some people who would lead in prayer too, (you'd have both kinds of prayer in the service). And you'd have the...the message, which could be a very long one [laughs], and...and it varied very much as to who was speaking. Sometimes there's good biblical exposition, sometimes there's...a lot of stories and sometimes there's a bit of rather fanciful exposition. But [pauses] that's...that's roughly the type service that....
ERICKSEN: Was it a Chinese pastor who was usually leading the service or were missionaries involved in....?
ADENEY: Well very often the Chinese pastor would lead the service and I had a...my fellow worker, who was also my teacher, (and this was a very good arrangement because he served as the pastor of the church and also he was my teacher and we worked together). Often, of course, missionaries did preach [unclear] and...when I would...I...I would often go out to a country church and [where] I would be the one who would speak when I came to the country church. There was a lack of trained teachers.
ERICKSEN: So that would be one of the weaknesses of the church at that point?
ADENEY: Yes, yes. There was a....the church was...was striving to...to prepare people and...we were at a...a stage when there was a good deal of emphasis upon indigenization and earlier on the mission had been responsible for the support of...of the...the evangelists. In Hudson Taylor's day most of the evangelists were employed by the mission and in the late 20's and early 30's we were going through the process of cutting out mission support for pastors and this was quite painful, in a...in a way, but it was felt that the...the churches needed to support their own workers. Now the mission was still paying the salaries of school teachers. (There were quite a number of schools. And...well [When] there was a mission school and most of the teachers would be...would be paid by the mission.) But the churches were being encouraged to support their own pastors and their own evangelists and there...there was a gradual decrease in the amount received from...from the mission. And this was sometimes a bit of a struggle and [which] sometimes led to misunderstandings.
ERICKSEN: Can you think of examples of that in the churches you were in contact with?
ADENEY: Not [unclear]. I have vague recollections, but I don't have too clear...clear memory of that. I know there were some discussions and...and sometimes churches felt that they were badly treated because the mission wasn't continuing to give them money for their...for the pastor. I know that had happened.
ERICKSEN: What were...what were the strengths of the Chinese church at that point?
ADENEY: I think the... [pauses] church was...was quite strong on evangelism and...they were...it was a...it was a lay type of evangelism in the sense that it spread from family to family. And...quite a lot of the little country churches where they didn't have trained leadership and yet they would have an elder or a deacon or somebody who would lead the services and...there was a lot of praying for...for one another, prayer for the sick, prayer against the...times when there were people possessed with evil spirits, and.... These answers to prayer often resulted in families turning to Christ. It was a.... I think the church was growing...we had evangelistic bands that went out with different...different ones involved in it. So...it was a...it...it was quite a...a church with a good deal of vitality at the time. It was a church also that was suffering in the sense that Henan was plagued with bad floods and there was a good deal of brigandage so that the countryside was...was quite unsettled. And...and then there was the threat of the Japanese invasion. It was a...a time when we had some special evangelistic crusades and I took part in the crusades under the leadership of John Sung, Sung Siong-ceh [1901-1944], who was a very famous Chinese evangelist. (There's a book written by...by...about him by Leslie Lyall.) And he was the one who came to America, one of the earlier [earliest] PhD's...Chinese PhDs, you see. He got his PhD over here in America, and...and then became a Christian. They thought he'd gone crazy and they shut him up for a time, and he read the whole Bible through and then went back to China and tossed his...his PhD degree in...into the Pacific Ocean and gave himself to preaching the Gospel and dedicated the rest of his life (he wasn't too strong physically) to preaching Christ and he blazed the trail right throughout China and Southeast Asia and today many of the church leaders are people converted under him. But he was a very extraordinary man and I lived with him in a Lutheran mission home during the mission that he was leading and...he was a extremely colorful preacher and he used all kinds of vivid illustrations, and....always saw large numbers of people converted and...always formed evangelistic bands so that after the mission was over, the people would go out in teams witnessing (often wearing shirts with scripture texts emblazoned on them). But he was a...in some ways a strange person. He...he....if you thanked him for a message, he...he'd get very offended and wouldn't speak to you for hours afterwards. And...his....so he was a very strong character, but greatly loved, respected, and undoubtedly God used him in a remarkable way and.... He had one...one purpose, that was to preach Christ. Nothing else mattered. So I was with him on one of his missions.
ERICKSEN: When...when we think of evangelistic meetings in this country, sometimes there's discussion about converts not getting into churches. How....was there some sort of way that...new converts...in China were channeled into local congregations or....?
ADENEY: Well, evangelistic meetings in China were almost always church centered, you see. They were....especially with [at] the Chinese New Year almost every church would have...hold special evangelistic meetings. (That was the only time of the year when people have a holiday. They work every day, right the way through, excepting for a few days during the Chinese New Year.) And so pretty well all the churches hold special evangelistic meetings over the New Year holiday. And...people...people naturally come into the...into the church...into the evangelistic meetings. Then...then the evangelistic teams that [would] go out.... We...I went with a team to a place called Bu Kou and we went out preaching every day. We'd go to a different village every day...in about a ten mile radius...and preach in the...in the village and then come home to the little market town where there wasn't a church and...had to [then] preach on the street. We rented a house there and we lived together as a team in the house...preached on the street each evening and in the villages...a different village every ...every day. And at the end of the time there was a small nucleus of people in the town. They started meeting in a home and ...then a nearby church would send somebody over on Sundays to help them. And in that way a new church was...was started.
ERICKSEN: You mentioned that Chinese work the whole year through. Does that mean seven days a week?
ADENEY: Yes.
ERICKSEN: How did the church deal with the issue of the Sabbath?
ADENEY: Well, the churches did always urge their members to close on Sunday, and...and this was...this was always emphasized as a...as a...as an important thing. It wasn't always easy for the people. Not everybody did. But that was the policy in the church, that...that you should close your...your business on Sunday.
ERICKSEN: How did the rural people feel about the missionaries?
ADENEY: Well, [for] the non-Christians, of course.... The...the missionaries were...were [laughs] an unusual spectacle. They were.... You still...in those days...you still [today] would hear the term "foreign devil". And Wai guo ren is the...is "foreigner," was the polite term, was the usual term, that's used of the outsider, the outside person, because....) And even today Chinese tend to call everybody who's not Chinese a...a Wai guo ren, an outside country person. I'd always used to be amused when I went to Thailand, and I'd find the Chinese living in Thailand. And they still talked about the local people as...as the...the foreigners [laughs]. China is the center. China is the...is the cultured nature...and ev...nation and everybody outside is a...is a...is a foreigner. And...and they....but the you sometimes would hear the children shout Yang guei zi, "foreign devil," which was the...the kind of impolite term for the...for the foreigner. And if you went to the more remote country districts, sometimes the children would run away. They'd would be afraid. And probably there's still stories going around about the foreigners taking out the eyes and using them for medicine and some extreme stories which had been used in the...in the past. But....and the, there's no doubt about it that the...the foreign invasion and the imperialism had affected the...the attitude to foreigners. But, in Henan the...I was not too conscious of much antagonism. There's....you had to sometimes overcome barriers of...of people who didn't know who you were and were curious, that kind of thing. But the Christians were always extremely friendly. And...and...in...in a way people, I think, regarded the foreigner as a certain asset. They...they knew that sometimes [they brought] medical treatment, sometimes education, and so on.... So that on the whole the people were...were extremely, I found them very friendly. But....
ERICKSEN: What kind of attitude did you find towards foreigners and missionaries when you returned in '46 to do student work?
ADENEY: Well, at that...at that time, the...the Jap...the...the...America you see was an ally of China in the...in the battle against the...the Japanese, and...and therefore there was a good deal of friendliness. When I went to Chungking, that was China's wartime capital and I went on the Burma Road [Allied supply route during World War II between India and China through Burma] and travelled down there, well the...the Americans were allies. And so British and American missionaries who had also taken part in a good deal of relief work and so on were treated with...with...with great friendliness. Just as when the Japanese came into Henan, because of the lack of medical work, I had to go out and look after the wounded and...and...(often of course there was no doctor available)...and then even keeping the church premises from being occupied by the Japanese soldiers sort of became a sudden haven of...of hope for the people who...who were there who were treated very, very badly by the...by the Japanese. It was a...it was a center of refuge for many but.... So I think that the...the attitude of...of the people was...was...was friendly. Now, in the twenties [1920s] there was a lot of anti-foreign feeling. I would say that in the...in the 30's there was probably less, the...with the common foe being the...being the Japanese. Now still you have your intellectuals who tended to reject....or especially the religious influence in the schools...the fact that so many of the schools and universities were mission...mission schools, and...you...you did get some antagonism amongst the intellectuals against the...religious kind of control of...of the education. In many places there was much opposition to that. But I did...personally didn't come in touch with that. But, when I worked with the university students, (the second time) there was quite a different situation in that the...there was a conflict within the universities. And...in the universities communism was already taking root and there was...there was usually an underground communist movement and...and there was already great tensions between your Kuo min tang (Nationalist) student group and the authorities which were nationalist, and...an underground communist...communist movement. So, that...that conflict was...was going on and obviously there were a lot of students who were very critical of the Christians, because they took the...took the line that Christianity was the opium of the people and.... We had them...those who criticized the Christian fellowship...which was perhaps one of the strongest [student] movements on campus... (student...student movements), because the revival came in the...in the 40's...the late 40's among the students, and...this...the student...the Christian fellowship was the only vital student organization which maintained a certain ...independence. But it had to be very careful, because...if it...if it tended to be critical of the government then it could be closed down by the government. At the same time the...the communists were very opposed to it, and.... We once had a...a meeting and...and outside the meeting...the communist students put up a...a kind of a...a cartoon-type thing, showing a...a horse or a...cart drawn by a mule, and...and...a group of Christians in the cart singing hymns and the mule was just about to collapse...and a caption said, "while society disintegrates, the Christians sing hymns." And there was that kind of opposition on the part of the...of the Marxist students.
ERICKSEN: When you returned to China, what was the feeling among CIM missionaries and other missionaries about the future of missionary work in China...the future of the church?
ADENEY: I returned to China immediately after the war, and...came into the...China's capital of Chungking. When....there was a...a...a degree of optimism because the war was over and the... government was about to return to the east, the colleges, universities were all going back to their original campuses in the eastern part of China...and there was a...a hope that now that victory had been won, that...that China would...would...would become more prosperous. But very soon, the economic chaos...(China had suffered so much during the war and the economy was in a shambles and [with] terrible inflation, so that it seemed to go from bad to worse...and obviously the communists were gaining...gaining power.) I don't think that...at the beginning in 1946 a....I don't think that...that the church was anticipating a...a communist victory. I think it...as time went on it became rather obvious that there was a very great danger of it. But the main thing...main thought was that this is a day of very great opportunity; this is a day when people are extremely open to the Gospel and so the...the tendency was...take advantage of the open door that God has...God has given. True, we don't know how long it will be for, but now great numbers are turning to Christ. Do your utmost to...to preach the Gospel and see the church grow...during...during this...this period, and.... It...it seems that missionaries were not really facing up to the [pauses] likelihood of a communist victory, and what it would mean to...to live as Christians under...in a communist society.
ERICKSEN: Did they ever?
ADENEY: Well...towards the...I mean...towards the time of the revolution and in the early days of the...of the revolution they would...there was a tremendous amount of talk about it and...when I was in Shanghai, I organized a conference for missionaries, together with Arthur Glasser [fellow CIM missionary] on Marxism and what it means to...to be in a communist society. I've forgotten now whether that was just after the communists took over or just before, but... It must...I think it must have been just before because I don't think we could have done it afterwards.
ERICKSEN: You talked last time about how you were loaned to the China University by CIM. What was...I 'm just curious about the administrative way that that was done and who you reported to and...how that working.
ADENEY: Well,...I...I received a...a cable from Bishop Houghton who was the general director of the...of the China Inland Mission and he was in Chunking, which was the headquarters for the mission, and Calvin Chao, a Chinese evangelist who was being much used among the students and was seeing the revival among the students and was holding evangelistic missions for the students, approached Bishop Houghton and asked him if the China Inland Mission could second one of their missionaries to help in the student work, and...I think that he had already heard that I had been active in...in the Inter-Varsity in...in America. And...he...he wanted the China Inter-Varsity to be apart of the IFES, and...
ERICKSEN: Calvin Chao did?
ADENEY: Calvin Chao, yes. And in fact Calvin Chao was at the meeting when the IFES was formed...that was...that was held in...in...in...in Boston, in Harvard. And...so he asked Bishop Houghton to invite me to come and join in the work and.... And so I got the cable asking if I would go ahead of my family, because there was no shipping at the time...and...and so there was this great opportunity and...so I flew out. (I think I was the first missionary in the CIM to fly to China by the old Sunderland Flying Boats, three days to Calcutta and then over the hump (the Himalayas) into...into...into Chungking.) And immediately I reported to Calvin Chao...because I was...I was then loaned to him and became a staff worker of the China Inter-Varsity Fellowship...
ERICKSEN: Under him?
ADENEY: Under him, yes, under...under...under his leadership and ...I.... At the same time, of course, I was a member of the China Inland Mission and I made my reports to the CIM. But it was Calvin Chao who decided where I should work and what my itinerary should be, what I should be doing. So I was under...under his...under his leadership.
ERICKSEN: Was there any time frame put on this agreement?
ADENEY: No, I don't think there was...no. No...[pauses]...but.... So I...I traveled with Calvin the first...in the first few months and.... Oh and...and...and I traveled with some of the staff workers. He asked me to go down to...the west of China to...to Yunnan and Guizhou to visit the students in the universities there, together with one of the other staff workers. I went...went on that...that journey. And then afterwards he...he asked that I should go to visit Beijing and Peking. I went up there. And then the decision was made to...that the headquarters of the Inter-Varsity should be in Nanking, and...and so I moved to...to Nanking, and lived with the other staff workers in the...in one, house which we rented in Nanking until my family came out and then they came and...and joined us.
ERICKSEN: What were the student groups like?
ADENEY: [pauses] Why...how you describe [laughs].... In a...in a sense they...they have a good deal of similarity to...to the student groups we have...have today. They were [pauses].... A lot of them were very new Christians. It depended quite a bit on the leadership. Sometimes they had quite good strong leadership, sometimes they were not so...not so good, but.... They had their...very often they had their daily prayer meetings, and...and then they...they had their evangelistic meetings. There was [were] Bible studies. In some cases there was a real spirit of revival. I...I've told a story in China Christian Students Face the Revolution [1973], but... [coughs] I would go...sometimes go to a campus and...and they would...they'd be extremely warm and welcome me there, and we'd have special meetings. I'd join them in their prayer meetings and...consult with the...with their leaders. Sometimes Calvin Chao would come for a mission and... [pauses] We tried to get them...to get...to have...have...I meant the Bible study materials that they needed, and bring literature to them. In the case of when there was an evangelistic mission....they would.... In one case I remember they...the students formed groups...small groups and...they...they...they said that we've got to follow up now with...with...with small...small groups so that those new Christians are...are brought into the...into the...into a mature relationship with...with Christ.
ERICKSEN: How...what was the...you referred at several other times to the...the revival going on among student groups. What was the duration of that...of the revival?
ADENEY: Well, we were...we were most conscious of it in...in some of the conferences. Now, I went straight from the...almost straight from the plane to a conference when I arrived in Chung...Chungking, which was in progress when I arrived, and I was sleeping in the gymnasium on the floor with the...with the students. And...everyday there were students coming to know Christ, and...there were large numbers of non-Christians being invited to the...to the meetings and...between the meetings there'd be prayer meetings going on and...they would be welcoming new Christians into the fellowship...and it was a great...just great sense of the working in the Spirit of God in the...in the midst of the students. And...then when I went to one university I heard even before I got there...that...that great things were happening on the campus. And when we crossed the river in the ferry to the town where the university was situated, the...we heard that even the...the ferrymen...(the...the...the people who ran the ferries) knew something was happening because some of the students who had got...made false tickets and got across free, they came and paid money back to the ferry people there because they'd...they'd been converted, and.... And when I got to the university I heard there was a great stir because one student who had entered the university with a false graduation certificate from high school had gone to the authorities and confessed that...that he'd got in that way, because he was now a Christian and putting it right. And so there was a spirit of confession, and.... [pauses] Later on I met a...a professor from that university who became the president of another university where I worked...visited, seeking to get a Christian union...Christian fellowship established, and...and when I asked him if...for permission [for] the students to meet he said...he said, "If they're anything like the students there in Sichuan, the time of the revival," he said, "I welcome them on my campus," and.... So there was a...the...the Word of God was spreading among the students in quite a wonderful way.
ERICKSEN: How quickly after the student...Christian student movement became...I guess became a visible force did opposition start to come in from communist groups or whoever else?
ADENEY: [pauses]
ERICKSEN: Did they have breathing time?
ADENEY: [pauses] I don't, in the...in 1946, '47, I don't remember many instances of...of actual opposition. Sometimes [Usually] the authorities wouldn't always be friendly. It's not always easy to get permission...
ERICKSEN: School authorities...?
ADENEY: School authorities, yes. And [pauses] there was always a fear of student movements as to whether they would be political in nature. In China religion is always considered political, and...and so there was a...the question, "What were these students after? What was their position regarding the political situation?" But the...the [there was the] underground communist movement...it...we weren't so conscious of it until closer to the time of the revolution. By then we knew that...that communist students were infiltrating the...the Christian groups, because the...the Christian groups were free to have their meetings and were quite...quite active, and...and we were...they...the communist groups were working very...very strongly underneath and it was quite obvious that they wanted to make use of the...of the Christian groups and find out all about them. And it was that [this] that caused one group to say, "When we have our elections, we'll have...have a two hour prayer meeting first [laughs] and the...the communists [laughs] won't want to sit through all that [laughs] and only after that will we have our elections [laughs]." But, in actual practice when we found...when the revolution came, most of the groups had...somebody [somehow] had [been] infiltrated.
ERICKSEN: It was only then that you discovered?
ADENEY: Yes. It was suspected before but...
ERICKSEN: How...how were you working with campus groups to prepare them to wrestle with Marxist ideas?
ADENEY: I think that...during that time we were so busy in evangelism that there wasn't a great deal being...being done, and...in...in a way people were still not facing up to the fact that..that communism was going to...was going to take over. And the main effort...emphasis was on...on being faithful, faithful to Christ in whatever happened. And very little was done in terms of an apologetic. Now, later on, at the beginning of the revolution, we...what we had a...we had an editorial secretary, was responsible for literature in our..in the China Inter-Varsity, and...Wu Yung Chuen wrote a booklet which was called Questions Concerning the Faith, and was designed to help Christians to stand firm and maintain their faith in a communist society. And...that booklet (I gave it the title actually, during the writing of it, but he asked me for a suggestion of a title and I suggested this title)...but that booklet was the...probably the only apologetic that was published under communism and was tremendously popular. And...in the very early days of the communist regime, they had clamped down on publications, and this booklet was published and spread abroad and...tremendous numbers of it were...were...were [pauses] taken by the students and some other...other groups took it as well. I remember the Seventh Day Adventists printed their own edition of it and it...and it was a very popular little booklet. Now afterwards it was suppressed and the author of it got into trouble, but probably that was the only real thing that was...was done in terms of apologetic. Now...after the communists came in, the fellowship meetings we had every mon...every week [coughs] were very popular indeed and these...these meetings were used to strengthen the faith of the students and they used to discuss their problems, and listen to testimonies of those who come through, and pray for those who were suffering. I think I am going to need a bit of water [laugh].
END OF TAPE