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A Baptist Church Bell In China

by Rik Charbonneaux  
6/12/2024 / Christian Living

"For bells are the voice of the church; They have tones that touch as search the the hearts of young and old." .. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We have all heard of memorable or historic artifacts and implements that have had survived extraordinary circumstance. This is the story of one of them: The Upton Bell.*

The journey of the Upton Bell (cast in 1884) to China started in 1907, when the Baptists of coffeeville, KS replaced it with a new one. no longer wanted the old bell (cast in 1884) for their newly built church in 1907.

The "Upton" bell (named of the 1884 church donor) was then sent on its way to the American Baptist Foreign Mission at the Sichuan Province, where it was placed i thee belfry of the Lu Jiao Yuan Christian Church.

The daily tolling of the Upton Bell did not last long when the Chinese Revolution of 1911 silencing all Christian church bells and closing all the churches.

Then oddly enough, the Three Self Patriotic Committee Movement, who had authority over all houses of worship in China, did something very rare: it permitted the ringing of the Upton bell to mark start of every work day in the city.

Later, during Word War Two, the Japanese would allow the Upton bell to ring at noon to mark the noon hour during the Japanese occupation of China.
The Upton bell would continue to mark the start of the noon hour even after the People's Republic of China and Mao Zedong began to severely dealt with Christians.

Then, during the decade of the 1960s, during the 1960s, it fell silent when the Lu Jiao Yuan Christian Church was closed by the Peoples Army and it's bell tower was ordered to be destroyed.

Being carried off to a foundry for scraping by the Army, this was the last known status of the old bell, but following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, things became a little more relaxed for churches in the miid-1980s.

This era is when the severely damaged Lu Jiao Yuan Christian Church was actually allowed to reopen again, but "no bell and no belfry" was among the conditions of the Peoples Party.

When the people of this church HAD eventually heard that the Government had found a bell with the name "Upton" inscribed on it, some of the old congregates remembered this name, and they knew it was their old bell.

They wanted it back and the Peoples Republic of China was more than willing to see that happen for them, for a very high fee. iI took the church members almost 30 years to raise the money to do it.

By 1993, the money required to pay the "fee" had been paid and the old bell was finally back in the new belfry of the rebuilt Lu Jiao Yuan Christian Church.

I would like to think that the Upton bell still rings on, but with the current attitude of China's President of Xi Jinping toward Christianity, it is very unlikely. Still an almost 90 history of service, when so many remained silent, is most notable!

* "The Bells Are Not Silent: Stories of Church Bells in China" by Joann Pittman

Rik Charbonneaux is a retired NE Iowan who loves all of God's Word and all of His creatures.

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