GOD’S CHINESE SON:  THE TAIPING HEAVENLY KINGDOM OF HONG XIUQUAN

Why is it that human gullibility so often goes hand-in-hand with human barbarity?  And what is it about religion that makes barbarity a part of its agenda?  Is there, for example, a connection between unquestioning religious belief and a steadfast desire to torture, maim and kill those who refuse to accept those beliefs?  To be sure, history’s answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.  Since time immemorial, the devout have never hesitated to wipe out countless numbers of people whose religious opinions differed from their own.

Jonathan Spence, one of the leading scholars in Chinese history, has provided us with a grim example of religious barbarity in action.  God’s Chinese Son examines the Taiping Rebellion (1845-1864) which, although little known in the West, may constitute the single greatest historical example of a religious holocaust.  By the time it was over, over twenty million Chinese had lost their lives.  To put this in perspective, that is twice the amount of deaths that occurred during the First World War.  Hong Xiuquan, the alleged prophet of the rebellion, was raised in a China that knew little of Christianity.  Among the scant items available were a limited amount of Bibles, translated into Chinese by Protestant missionaries, and a few Christian tracts.  Interpreting this material literally, Hong soon became convinced of a number of ideas that are so patently ridiculous that, were it not for the suffering and devastation that occurred as the result of those convictions put into action, would be laughed at by all but the most seriously brain-damaged believers.

It all started when Hong dreamed that he had ascended into heaven and met God, Mary and Jesus.  In a rational world, he would immediately have been shipped off to an insane asylum where his delusions and hallucinations could be properly tended to.  Unfortunately, this did not transpire.  Hong’s mental illness enabled him to believe that he was on a special mission, approved by Jesus, to eradicate the Manchus who had ruled China for two hundred years.  Once Hong had accomplished this, earth would be magically transformed into a paradise.  Here, we see yet another example of a pie-in-the-sky visionary delusion that brought about vast devastation.

Once he began preaching his new take on Christianity, it didn’t take long for him to amass a large following, which ultimately formed the foundation of the “Taiping Heavenly Army” which then began its war against perceived enemies throughout the center and south of China.  They captured Nanking in 1853, and then announced the creation of the New Jerusalem.  This was to be the home base of their operations for the next eleven years, until Hong and most of his reduced army either died or were finally killed in 1864.

Hong’s reign was one of the  most brutally oppressive on record.  As with all fundamentalist beliefs put into action, it tolerated no dissent and never hesitated to impose death on those it deemed to be heretics.  For example, if a woman was found to be a prostitute, not only she but her whole family was killed.  Like most of its dogmas, this idea had biblical justification.  Many Buddhist and Taoist temples were burned to the ground and their priests killed.  Even fellow Christians were not exempt from this carnage.  In one instance, over thirty Catholics were burned to death or slaughtered in the streets for their recalcitrance.

One can only wonder if Hong really believed the nonsense he was espousing.  He said that, on one of his many return visits to earth, Jesus told him that Hong had a young son living in heaven with his grandparents, God and God’s wife.  He re-wrote the Bible to suit his own needs.  Finally, as the rebellion slowly turned against him, Hong and his followers became more and more unhinged.  Hong began to insist that he was Melchizedek, one of the high priests of ancient Israel.  And, in a scene reminiscent of Dr. Goebbels’ last day in his Berlin bunker in 1945, one of Hong’s followers had his five wives commit suicide and his infant children drowned.

Most conveniently for Hong, he claimed that Jesus told him that any plunder taken by officers and soldiers of his army must be turned over to the “Heavenly Court,” meaning, of course, to Hong’s own coffers.

Hong’s legacy was but one extreme example of the horrors that religious fundamentalism can bring to humanity: Countless homes were razed and their occupants killed.  Trash and filth lined the streets.  Dead bodies were either thrown into pools and cisterns or else left to rot in the open.  So many more were found in the waterways that it made transportation difficult as well as unhealthy.  Disease and pestilence were everywhere.  A huge swath of land was so utterly destroyed that it made Civil War General William T. Sherman’s march to the sea (which took place in the same year) look like a teenage joyriding escapade.

God’s Chinese Son is an important book.  The one major flaw is that Spence writes it in the present tense, making for unnecessarily cumbersome reading, a technique he does not imply in his other books.  This, however, does not obviate the fact that this volume is one of the best available books for those seeking historical examples of the destructive potential inherent in fundamentalist religion.