6th August, 2013
One of the most well-known Christian leaders in China, Pastor Samuel Lamb, died on Saturday in Guangzhou, aged 88.
He had been arrested during one of the first big waves of persecution in Mao”s China and was first imprisoned from 1955 to 1957, when estimates put the number of Christians in the country at a few million.
Lamb, also translated from the original Chinese as “Lam”, was targeted by the government because of his refusal to merge his illegal house church into the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the state-regulated Protestant Church.
The Chinese authorities sentenced him a second time in 1958, when he spent 20 years in labour camps.
He saw his wife for the last time during the five months that he was on remand; she died in 1977, a year before Lamb”s sentence ended.
After his release, he again took up his work as a pastor, during which he was able to witness the exponential growth of the Chinese Church.
In 1979 he started his house church in 35 Da Ma Zhan in Guangzhou. Attendance grew quickly and he had to move his congregation to a bigger building in the same city. Today his urban house church is still unregistered, but tolerated by the authorities.
Simultaneously, he became an example for millions of believers in China, where today estimates say there are now about 80 million Christians ” some estimates claim one tenth of the population is Christian.
His story of steadfast resolution and determination has also inspired and encouraged millions of Christians outside China; a book about him has been published in America.
