Brother Yun

Brother Yun (Chinese: 云弟兄; pinyin: Yún Dìxiōng), a.k.a. Liu Zhenying (Chinese: 刘振营; pinyin: Liú Zhènyíng), born 1958, is an exiled Chinese Christian house church leader, evangelist, and proponent of the Back To Jerusalem movement. Brother Yun was instrumental in the development of the Christian house church networks in China during the 1980s and 90s. Accounts about his life and ministry are to be found in his autobiography, The Heavenly Man.^[2]

Life in China

Yun's book tells of both extreme persecutions and miracles of deliverance similar to ones found in the Bible. Despite a life of poverty in China, he since has spoken to thousands internationally with the gospel message. Seen as a rebel among some Chinese for not joining the government-controlled Christian organization, he was imprisoned and tortured by the government authorities. His book reports that he became a highly wanted man across several provinces.^[2] He was finally arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. However, Yun continued his ministry while in prison, with more miraculous results. As a result, many prisoners and even some prison officials became born-again Christians.^[3] While he gained increasing favor from some officials, he also became a target of increased persecutions by others. He was repeatedly beaten and became severely malnourished.^[2] While in prison, Yun writes about undertaking a total fast without food or water for 74 days.^[4]

After many years in prison, he escaped from Zhengzhou Maximum Security prison from which it is reported that nobody had previously escaped.^[5] He described how he heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, telling him to simply walk out the heavily guarded prison gate. Risking being shot to death on the spot, he wrote later that he obeyed the voice, and walked straight through several prison doors that were somehow left open in front of many prison guards, across the prison yard and finally out of the main gate. Yun stated that it was as if he had become invisible to the guards who stared straight through him.^[2] Although many expressed doubts that such a thing could happen, some prison guards have lost their jobs for this 'embarrassing mishap.'^[2] It is reported that the official investigation by the Chinese Government concluded that "Yun received no human help in his escape."^[2] These reports have been also confirmed by numerous prisoners who occupied the same prison cell as Yun. He remains the only person to have escaped from this notorious maximum security prison.^[6]

Life in exile

His ministry struggled briefly when Chinese Christians became increasingly fearful of housing him because of the potential repercussions from government authorities. After escaping from China, Yun took asylum in Germany. In 2001 he was imprisoned in Myanmar for seven months.^[7] As a leader of the "Back to Jerusalem Movement", Yun seeks to send thousands of missionaries out from China into the countries between China and Israel, which are among the least-Christianised of the world.^[2]

He is married to Deling, with whom he has two children.^[2]

The Heavenly Man

The Heavenly Man is an autobiography of Brother Yun detailing his life from the age of sixteen, through his three accounts of incarceration, and ending in his exile to Germany.

It was awarded the "Christian Book of the Year" in 2003. The title comes from the name by which Brother Yun was known amongst the house church networks. He gained that name from one night of interrogation when he would only answer "I am a Heavenly Man!", instead of revealing his true name, in order to protect other Christians from the police.

Released in February 2002, the book is co-written and translated by Paul Hattaway and published by Monarch Publications.

Living Water

The book Living Water was released in 2008 and, as with his previous book, The Heavenly Man, it is also co-written and translated by Paul Hattaway. It is published by Zondervan Publications.^[8]

It consists of his teachings while in North America and Europe.

Controversy

Samuel Lamb (Lin Xiangao) has stated that Yun falsely claimed to have fasted without food and water for nearly twice as long as Jesus, and falsely claiming to represent 58 million house-church Christians, and raising large sums of money in many countries. He also insists that Yun in no way represents the house-churches in China,^[9] although Lamb admits he has never met Yun nor read Yun's autobiography.^[4]

This controversy has not been without defense. Paul Hattaway, the co-author of the book has published an open response^[4] that claims the attacks on the credibility of Brother Yun are rumours originating with Titus Pan in Hamburg. Various Chinese House Church leaders have again expressed their love and respect for Brother Yun.^[4] Among them is Peter Xu, founder of the Back to Jerusalem Gospel Mission. He was in prison together with Brother Yun.

See also

• Religion in China
• Christianity in China
• Protestantism in China
• Persecution of Christians
• The list of Chinese protestant theological seminary

References

External links

• "Brother Yun no longer lives in China, but he continues to face opposition", Charisma Magazine (cover story), April 2007 .
• Review and literary breakdown, All Readers .
• John Mark Ministries, AU: Pastor net .
• Xu, Peter Yun (July 2004), China and Back to Jerusalem vision (interview), Evangelicals Now .
• Seibel, Alexander, Rezension der Himmelsbürger (in German) , and overview of the claims of the 'Heavenly Man'.

Bibliography

• Hattaway, Paul (2005-07-05), Open letter on Brother Yun, Asia harvest .
• Yun, "Tianshang ren" (天上人), The Heavenly Man (in Chinese), Q zone .