20 Facts About Wang Ming-Dao

Wang Ming-Dao was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980.

Wang Ming-Dao later said his poverty had been something of a spiritual advantage because there were many sins that took money to commit.

At first Wang Ming-Dao hoped to become a great political leader, and he put a picture of Abraham Lincoln on his wall to remind himself of his goal.

In 1919 Wang Ming-Dao became a teacher at a Presbyterian mission school in Baoding, a hundred miles south of the capital, but was dismissed in 1920 when he insisted on being baptized by immersion.

In 1923, after a good deal of personal Bible study but no formal theological training, Wang Ming-Dao moved towards a more mature understanding of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith.

Wang Ming-Dao had an itinerant ministry throughout China, visiting twenty-four of the twenty-eight provinces and taking the pulpit in churches of thirty different denominations.

Wang Ming-Dao was often absent from his own church for six months of the year.

In 1926, Wang Ming-Dao began publishing a religious newspaper, Spiritual Food Quarterly.

Wang Ming-Dao was pressured but refused on the grounds that his church had never had any connection with missionaries.

The sheer volume of visitors made Chinese security officers nervous, especially since Wang Ming-Dao made frank statements about his past treatment by the government.

Wang Ming-Dao remained unapologetic, and when a member of the Three-Self Church sent him a donation, Wang Ming-Dao sent it back.

In July 1991, Wang Ming-Dao was diagnosed with blood clots on his brain, and he died on July 28, followed by his wife's death in 1992.

In 1928, Wang Ming-Dao married Liu Jingwen, the much younger daughter of a Protestant pastor in Hangzhou.

Jingwen was exceptionally patient and considerate of others, but she stunned Wang Ming-Dao by correcting him in public, taking the view that since he had spoken unwisely in front of others, she had the duty to correct him before others as well.

Wang Ming-Dao has been described as purveying a "fundamentalist faith" with "simplicity and certainty".

Wang Ming-Dao believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, the depravity of man, and justification by faith.

Wang Ming-Dao criticized shortcomings of both Chinese and missionary churches, emphasizing that Christians should live holy lives.

Wang Ming-Dao likened himself to the prophet Jeremiah who had attacked social corruption and false prophets, and Wang Ming-Dao especially opposed purveyors of liberal theology such as Western missionaries and the YMCA, which he said had destroyed the faith of young people.

Wang Ming-Dao believed that neither the Trinity nor the divinity of Christ were taught in the Bible.

Wang Ming-Dao never took the title "pastor," he permitted no choir, and his church had no liturgy.