Address to the 57^thGeneral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan,

Thursday, April 12, 2012 11:00 a.m.

Moderator, General Secretary, delegates, staff, honored guests:Words cannot express the honor, or the sense of unworthiness I feel at being invited to address you in this 57^th Annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. This is the first Presbyterian General Assembly I have ever attended anywhere. Maybe that is as it should be, because to be in the midst of old friends in is this annual meeting on the beautiful island of Taiwan is a moment I will always cherish.

I know you did not invite me here to preach, but inviting a preacher to “speak” is to run the risk of a little preaching. If I were to be preaching a sermon, I would take my text from Luke 10:25-31 that includes Jesus’ story of “the good Samaritan,” a story many of us have known from childhood. Jesus tells how a certain person was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. Two religious leaders see him lying beside the road, but pass by on the other side. A hated Samaritan comes along and helps him, then sees that he is cared for by a local innkeeper, promising to pay any additional expenses the man’s care might entail.

Jesus begins the story with an image that would have made his audience shudder. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…” The road down from Jerusalem to Jericho on the Jordan River, less than a day’s walk, was known to be robber-infested and dangerous. It was a road you didn’t travel if you didn’t have to. Sure enough, this man “fell into robbers and beaten.”

There are many places in the world like the “Jericho Road” of Jesus’ time. They are those places and conditions in life that are dangerous and to be avoided if possible. For me, Taiwan was itself a “Jericho Road.” I accepted an appointment by the Methodist Board of Missions to come to Taiwan in 1965 with great reservations. I wondered if I was betraying my calling by walking away from the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.

But it was not only about what I was leaving behind; it was where I was going. Taiwan seemed like a “Jericho Road,” fraught with danger. In 1964 when I began to learn about the brutality and corruption of the Chiang Kai-shek government, I told my mission board that Taiwan should be eliminated from the list of possible appointments. But guess where my former wife Judith and I were sent? I was loaned to the Presbyterians to teach Church History at Taiwan Theological College in Taipei and at Tainan Theological College. And I did that for four years.

People of Conscience and Courage on the Road

I would like to tell you about some people of conscience and courage I met on this “Jericho Road.” Through meeting Dr. Peng Ming-min I learned what a dangerous road it was and decided to do some other things that were not in the usual job description of a missionary. When Don Wilson, the Associate General Secretary of the Church, feared that he would not be allowed back after furlough in the summer of 1966, he introduced Judith and me to Dr. Peng. A close friendship soon developed. Once a week late at night for four years he slipped away from his “keepers” and we spent time together. I began to learn from him, and others to whom he introduced me that the Nationalist Government was as corrupt and brutal as it had been on the Mainland twenty years earlier.

Our first project with Dr. Peng was to provide credible information to foreign visitors who wanted to know more about the situation in Taiwan. The “credible information” consisted of articles from scholarly journals and original articles written by friends in Taiwan, and sometimes through secret meetings with Dr. Peng. Judith and I didn’t believe it appropriate for us to try to influence the Taiwanese people about realities in their country, but we believed it our civic duty to inform other U.S. citizens. With a small network of other trusted foreigners, we provided this information to visitors for four years. Possessing and distributing such articles under martial law was a capital offense.

Why Didn’t We Leave?

I have a friend, Ora Custer, ninety-five years of age and still counting. She’s almost blind; at her request I read Fireproof Moth: A Missionary in Taiwan's White Terrorto her. Her question, asked several times, was this: “When you knew what kind of a situation you were in there and the danger to you and your family, why didn’t you leave?” In some ways, the book is my answer to that question. My short answer is this: “For me, when you have made close friends and you learn that their lives are in imminent danger, it is easier to do whatever you can to help them than it is to walk away.”

Three Samaritans on the Road

Along with Dr. Peng, there were two other close friends and colleagues: Wei T’ing-chao and Hsieh Tsung-min. We didn’t meet them right away because they were both still in prison when we met Dr. Peng in 1966. These two former graduate students of Dr. Peng at the National University had been arrested with him in 1964 in an attempt to distribute their “Manifesto for Formosan Self-Salvation” calling into question the legitimacy of the Chiang government. Looking back, many say that this was the real beginning point of Taiwan’s struggle for democratization.

Although we couldn’t meet Hsieh and Wei in person for two years, they were a part of our lives and what we had begun to do with Dr. Peng. Thanks to their courage and creativity, they were able to send out from prison lists on very thin fragments of paper names of political prisoners, descriptions of their situations and sometimes information about their families. We were able to provide the lists to Amnesty International, assuming that even a little public visibility was some protection. Their notes from prison also let us know the desperate plight of the families of political prisoners, and got our aid to families project started.

Wei was released from prison first on September 20, 1968. He hadn’t been out a week when Dr. Peng brought him to our house at Taiwan Seminary. The stories about his refusal to be intimidated by the court or his guards were well-known. During his trial, he stood up and dared the judge to sentence him to death. I wasn’t sure what to expect when he came in the door. Was he hardened and cynical from his experience?

Wei greeted Judith and me. Then, he saw our two and a half year old Elizabeth hiding behind a chair. Before we knew it, Wei was sitting on the floor talking with a delighted Elizabeth in both Mandarin and Taiwanese (and as far as I knew maybe a bit of his native Hakka too). Within weeks, Wei was tutoring me in preparing my history lectures at the seminary. Although not a Christian, I think Wei would have been proud of the respect shown to his culture with the new Hakka translation of the Bible celebrated today. Dr. Peng, Mr. Wei, and we continued plans for aiding families of political prisoners.

Hsieh Tsung-min was released from prison exactly a year later in 1969. Like Wei, he came to the house within a week of his release. Wei had already talked with him about the plan to aid families. He said he was ready to begin distribution of the funds immediately. I couldn’t believe it! Here he was, just out of prison and yet ready