As the Coronavirus leaps around the globe we are probably watching the veritable tip of the iceberg. As of February 26, the disease had infected 81,600 people, at least 2,767 had died, and thirty-nine nations had reported confirmed cases of COVID-19, the official name for the Coronavirus (which first appeared in late 2019).

We’ve also been told not to trust the data released by the government of China, a reasonable suggestion given the track record and the value placed on truth by atheist Communist authorities.

Go here to watch a comprehensive interview with Dr. Lin Xiaoxu by Zooming In. Dr. Xiaoxu is a microbiologist and former lab director of the Viral Disease Branch, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Several years ago we published What Does Christianity Have to Do with China Rising? reporting the surprising “connection between Christian missionary work and Chinese economic growth.” Now we find that the same could be said of the link between Christian missionary work and Chinese health care.

The Coronavirus phenomenon has surfaced a little-known but highly relevant fact, pertinent not only to the current health crisis in the world’s most populous nation, but to the history of China’s health care in general: hundreds of China’s hospitals were built by Christian missionaries.

At the risk using a tautology, Hospitals are always vital. But now, given the Coronavirus, China’s hospitals are essential at a whole new level. Where did these hospitals come from? Not from atheism, certainly, which views a human as another mouth to feed. Recall, for example, the 18 to 45 million slaughtered by Mao in the “Great Leap Forward.” Consider that the Chinese government boasts that “the one-child policy, officially in place since 1979, has prevented 400 million births.” The actual number is probably not as high, but the point here is atheism’s view of human life.

It’s not atheism, but Judeo-Christian Theism that fosters the compassion and mercy to create and operate hospitals. People went to China with the Bible in one hand and a trowel in the other, and built hospitals in the compassion of Christ.

Missionaries built leading hospitals

Four hospitals in particular—China’s top facility, Beijing Union in the North; Qilu in the East; Huaxi in the West; and Xiangya in the South—were all built by missionaries before China became the PRC, and are very prominent today. Some of these were supported by western churches.

Each of these also has its own medical school. Degrees from Qilu University are recognized in the U.S. and Canada.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC), fruit of the Chinese Communist Revolution, was birthed in 1949 under Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. Communism, which is atheism with a veneer of political ideology, has ruled the nation ever since. Christian missionaries were evicted shortly after the PRC began. Except for the government-sanctioned Three Self Church, Christian congregations have been underground ever since. In recent months the government has clamped down even more severely.

Now all of these hospitals are operated by the government. Party bosses are scrambling to deal with the Coronavirus. Millions of people are quarantined, tens of thousands infected, hundreds dead. The health care system is overwhelmed. Having said that, much of the care that is available was made possible by people driven by an ideology or worldview which values human life, recognize that all people are made in the image of God and precious beyond measure.

In the midst of the suffering and chaos brought on by the virus and exacerbated by atheistic lies, may China learn its long-lost Christian history, from the Tower of Babel dispersion to the present reality of Christian service and influence. May China’s people come to realize that Yahweh is more than merely a “western God.” May China’s church rise up in courage to serve their neighbors in the name of Jesus Christ in this hour of need.

• Gary Brumbelow

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