Pictorial Book of Chinese Evangelist John Sung

By Herb Ireland

Do you know who led more Chinese people to faith in Christ than any other person in history? Are you aware that he was trained in American universities to be a scientist? Did you know that before he returned to China he spent time in an insane asylum? This pictorial book will introduce you to John Sung, the "flame of God," who preached across China and in Chinese settlements throughout Southeast Asia. The man preached with passion, led massive revivals, spurred social reforms, and was an organizational genius. He draws comparisons with John Wesley. The pictures and text start with his birthplace, reveal where he was educated in America, cover his time spent in a mental institution in New York City, reveal his return to China and his super-charged twelve years of ministry. It includes his ministry outside of China and his organization of women to spread the good news of Jesus Christ, and it ends with his death and burial in 1944. The book is the culmination of research performed on three continents as I traveled in the footsteps of this famous evangelist. Following Sung gave me the opportunity to capture his life in photographs, read deeper in archives about his ministry, and interview people who attended his evangelistic campaigns. Purchase this pictorial book and expand your knowledge about what the Living Lord was up to before the Communist Revolution led by Mao Zedong. New revelations will come to your attention that will excite and encourage you on your own spiritual journey.

 

"With an ingenious mixture of historical images and contemporary photographs, this book brings to life one of the most important Christian evangelists of the last century. John Sung deserves to be much better known and this book can make that happen."

Mark Noll, author of Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia and former Francis McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: H. E. Coale Press
• Release date: Mar 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393838777

Herb Ireland

Along with reading all kinds of literature one of my favorite hobbies is to travel and discover new places. Augustine expressed it best when he declared, "The world is a book. Those who do not travel read only a page." 

Book preview

Preface

While the name 宋尚節 – Song Shangjie (Traditional) or 宋尚节 － Song Shangjie (Simplified) has been known in China and throughout Southeast Asia for decades because of his unusual exploits for Christ, John Sung is not that well known in the West. It is because of this deficiency in knowledge of this powerful and colorful personality that this project is presented to the general public.

In the summer of 2012, I had the privilege of accompanying my son on a six-week journey in China and some of the countries in Southeast Asia where John Sung had been invited by the Christian leaders of Chinese settlements to preach the transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ. What a joyful time we had following in the footsteps of the flame of God who was used by the Living Lord to revive His Church.

In twelve short years of itinerant ministry Song Shangiie not only led tens of thousands of people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, but he was an organizational genius in setting us preaching bands of from three to five people who attended the meetings. These bands who were identified by a triangular flag with a red cross inside would then witness in their cities and villages for Jesus Christ.

Photo courtesy of John Sung Memorial Hall in Hong Chek, China.

While on our journey through China, I began to think of designing a pictorial history of John Sung’s life. It soon became apparent that the book would be limited in scope and not reveal all the places and people who were so important to John Sung. However, I was aware of the adage A picture is worth a thousand words and decided to try to give a visual tour of this powerful preacher of righteousness.

It was Fred R. Barnard, who was an advertising genius, that started placing visual images on the sides of streetcars in the United States. On March 10, 1927, while John Sung was in the Bloomingdale Mental Hospital, Barnard placed an advertisement in the trade journal Printers’ Ink with the phrase One Picture Worth Ten Thousand Words and labeled it a Chinese proverb (⼀圖勝萬言). The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases quotes Barnard as saying he called it a Chinese proverb, so that people would take it seriously. Soon after, the proverb would become popularly attributed to Confucius.

As you take a pictorial journey through the life of Song Shangjie or John Sung you will discover why so many people have come to take his short forty-three years on this earth so seriously. May his life inspire you to follow the Living Lord in a growing, expansive relationship because by faith John Sung still speaks even though dead. (Hebrews 11:4)

Photo courtesy of John Sung Memorial Hall in Hong Check, China.

Chapter 1: John Sung's Birth Home & Childhood Years

This is the courtyard where John Sung’s birth home is located on the right side. John Sung was born on September 27, 1901. It was in this courtyard that some of the six sons and four daughters of Pastor and Mrs. Sung Xue Lian played together.

This picture from 2012 reveals that the homes in this courtyard were abandoned but are still standing.

Inside the birth home of John Sung in 2012

Writing in his journal John Sung recollected about his childhood home: On the wall of the room where I was born hung two paintings: one depicting ‘The Prodigal Son’ and the other ‘The Parable of the Sower.’ (The Journal Once Lost, p. 73)

Photograph courtesy of Standard Publishing: http://christparables.do.am/photo/parables_of_jesus/parable_of_the_sower/11

Photograph courtesy of http://indagatioveri.blogspot.com/2012/01/prodigal-son-prince-or-slave.html

Sung was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church who had an explosive temper and his son, John, revealed that he had inherited a similar temperament. According to Leslie T. Lyall, a biographer of John Sung, Once in a fit of rage, the lad butted his head against one of the earthenware water jars standing in the courtyard, and it fell into pieces! (John Sung Flame for God in the Far East, p.6)

The picture above was taken in front of John Sung’s boyhood home.