Tuesday, July 22, 2025

It is the 22nd of July 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The stories of martyrs have long been a source of sustenance for the persecuted church. Our collective story is one of THE great martyr, and it would make sense, in imitating him, that others would face a similar fate.

Often times these stories, when collected, are done so by fellow Christians who are recording the stories- not necessarily as dispassionate historians but as fellow believers- and so we might get what is called “hagiography” or “writing about saints”- it’s not necessarily unreliable- but they tend to be told by a source and then copied and recopied. Such is the story- still quite remarkable- of the legendary “Blind Chang,” a radical Chinese convert who was killed for his faith on this, the 22nd of July in 1900, during the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” and anti-Western, anti-Christian uprising.

We don’t know a lot about Blind Chang’s early years- born Chang Shen, around 1850 his back story is one of a local moster- part of the “vegetarian gang” (I’ve only found stories related to this gang in stories about Chang) the locals feared him, and his story is standard boilerplate “pre-conversion” stuff with the most extreme story told and retold using the same polite language for impolite work- he “turned her out of doors” for “a life of shame”- let the reader understand.

His story begins in earnest in 1886 when the now blind Chang arrives at the door of a missionary hospital- he has been beaten and robbed, is in the “last stages” of dysentery, and the hospital is full. A Christian evangelist vacated his bed for the Chang, who was there cared for and taken to the Christian chapel. There he heard the gospel and according to one of the missionaries, “Never had we a patient who received the Gospel with such joy, and the rapidity with which he grasped the leading truths of Christianity was remarkable”.

He asked to be baptized but was rebuffed- they wanted more evidence of faith. He said the people back home could not wait for him to bring the gospel and so he left. When the missionaries from the hospital went to check up on their former patient in his village he had amassed some 200 fellow believers. He was invited to go back to the missionaries where they would baptize him and teaching him him braille.

With the use of a staff, he travelled from village to village preaching in the open air to anyone who would listen- while this made him a popular evangelist amongst the Christians, it made him a target of the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, aka the Boxers.

The story goes that the Boxers had rounded up some 50 Christians to kill, but were told, “You’re fools to kill all these, for everyone you kill, ten will spring up while that man Chang Shen lives. Kill him and you will crush the foreign religion.”

The story goes: “The blind evangelist listened silently through it all, while a look of strange eagerness came over his face, and as the man finished, without a sign of doubt as to what he should do, Blind Chang reached out his hand, saying: ‘I will gladly die for them. Take me to them for it is better that it be so.’”

He was taken to meet the Boxers, who told him to renounce Jesus and burn incense to the Buddha. He refused and was taken to the executioner. As the blade was drawn Blind Chang reportedly said “Lord Jesus, Receive My Spirit” and, the story goes, that when his severed head hit the ground the Boxers were overcome- confessed that they had killed an innocent man and fled (this may have happened, it’s worth noting that story being somewhat common at the end of hagiographies in the East). Regardless of the genre of story, the tale of Blind Chang serves the purpose of conveying the radical nature of the gospel, repentance, and ultimately martyrdom. Chang Shen, born around 1850, died for his faith- willingly, it seems, on the 22nd of July in 1900/

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and from the book of 1st John, the first chapter:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 22nd of July 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose fists are both righteous and harmonious- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who thinks Braille seems like the hardest thing ever… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.