Twentieth Century Martyrs

Above the western entrance to Westminster Abbey there was once a set of spaces or portals. From the time the abbey was built in the Middle Ages, these spaces were empty. But at the end of the twentieth century, the dean of the cathedral decided it was time to put something there. So, the dean commissioned statues of ten twentieth-century martyrs from all around the world to be placed there to remind us that the twentieth century was in fact a century of persecution.

The first century was certainly marked by persecution. We see it in the pages of the New Testament. We know from church tradition that Peter and Paul themselves were martyred. We know the stories of martyrdoms under cruel emperors such as Nero. Christianity was born and incubated in this time of persecution. As we fast-forward through the centuries, we see that at times God's people suffered persecution for their faith. This was the case in the twentieth century as well. In fact, it is said that there were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all of the previous nineteen centuries combined.

One of the martyrs commemorated on the western entrance to Westminster Abbey is a pastor from Yunnan province in China named Wang Zhiming. Missionaries first went to Yunnan province in 1877 and established some schools there. In his early years, Wang was a student at one of these missionary schools, and he was led to Christ there. He would later go on to be a teacher at one of these missionary schools. In 1951, he was ordained, and he served as a pastor in Wuding county in Yunnan province.

From 1966 through 1976, the Cultural Revolution swept through China under Mao Zedong. It was a time of great political, economic, and social upheaval during which tens of millions of people were persecuted and died through starvation or execution. Three years into the Cultural Revolution, Wang and his entire family were arrested. He, his wife, and his three sons were thrown into prison and suffered a cruel imprisonment for the next four years. In 1973, Wang was led from his prison cell and taken into an arena before a crowd of more than ten thousand people. There, he was martyred for his faith.

At the time of Wang's martyrdom, it's estimated that there were about three thousand Christians in Wuding county. Today, it's estimated that there are about thirty thousand. It was said of the persecutions of the early church that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The persecutors intended to stamp out Christianity, to remove it from the culture and from society, but what we find is that persecution very often leads to the growth of the church. The blood of the martyrs in the first century was the seed of the church for the centuries to come. And the blood of twentieth-century martyrs such as Wang Zhiming is now the seed of the church in the twenty-first.