Taiwan Church News

3991 Edition

21 ~ 27 Sept., 2026

Weekly Topical

There Will Be Light – MJBI Cadets Reflect KMT’s Heinous Lin Family Murder at Gikong Church

Reported by Lin Yi-ying from Taipei

The documentary, There Will Be Light, was premiered at Huashan Spot Theatre in the evening on September 17. This footage is directed by Nelson Yeh Tien-lun, produced by the National Museum of Human Rights, funded by Ministry of Culture, and filmed under the agreement of Gikong Church and Chilin Foundation. On the day of the documentary premiere, a team of cadets from the Training Institute under Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice (MJIB) also visited Gikong Church to learn the Lin Family murder for a fair and careful law-enforcement.

At the press conference before the premiere of There Will Be Light, Ms Sue Wang, deputy minister of the Ministry of Culture, said “the case of Lin Family Murder have passed for more than 46 years, and it deserves to shoot a documentary for the historical event. But the story is too much painful to retrieve for common people, as it has already become an indelible scar that cannot afford to open without very strong emotions even from a democratic society in Taiwan.”

“The Ministry of Culture pays tribute to the release of There Will Be Light with gratitude and awe, and deeply thanks the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT) for turning the unbearable pains into an audacious love at the very beginning, so that the place of heart-breaking sorrow becomes the venue of light, and Taiwan can boost up and carry on to march on the road of democracy.”

Rev Peng Chi-hong, associate general secretary of PCT, said that the film recorded the histories, after the Lin Family Murder on February 28, 1980, how PCT managed to care and support the inflicted family, how the churches of Canada, Britain, Germany, Japan, the United States and other countries came to rescue with fund-raising to buy the house of Lin family and build Gikong Church at Easter on April 11, 1982. He pointed out “Gikong Church is not only a church, but also a scared response and brave witness to God’s faithfulness, compassion and justice.”

Rev Hsu Cheng-dao, a pastor who served in Gikong Church for 14 years from 1992 to 2005, said “Be it through words, videos, musics, sculptures or arts, our mission then is to make people think about the meaning of life. Further, Gikong Church has become a significant site calling for transitional justice, so young generations can think about the meaning of life through the historical events, experience them and figure out what an “revival” means for the broken world.”

At the press conference, director Yeh shared one of Mr Lin Yi-hsiung’s favored tale – a little parrot saves the burning forrest. And that tale is about a little parrot’s courage to save its kins in the endangered forest. The little parrot wets its feathers all over its body and flies back to the burning forest and wishes to quench the flames with the water on its body. The gods in the sky are all moved by the little parrot’s bravery and help extinguish the fires.

“Mr Lin Yi-hsiung once said, if there were hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of little parrots daring to quench the fire together, there might be no need for the help from the gods,” shared director Yeh, “this story gives me the courage to shoot the documentary – There Will Be Light, because the right to tell this story may be never come if we do not do it now.”

There Will Be Light tells the stories from the Chungli Incident in 1977 and the Formosa Magazine Incident in 1979, and records the arrest of Lin Yi-Hsiung and others, the martial law trial, and the Lin Family Murder on February 28, 1980. The footage also records the process of Lin Huan-jun’s survival after brutal stabbings, Lin Yi-hsiung’s search for the cemetery for his mother and twin daughters, and the story that they were obstructed by the KMT government and slandered for entertaining themselves after that chilling murder.

With the assistance of Mr Chen Ding-nan, then Magistrate of Yilan County, three murdered family of Lin Yi-Hsiung were finally buried in current Lin Family cemetery in 1985. The documentary presents some of the historical facts before and after the Lin Family Murder through the interviews about 30 people, including Mrs Tien Meng-shu, Mrs Linda Arrigo, Mrs Hsu Rong-shu, Mr Yao Chia-wen, Mrs Tien Chiu-jin and Mr Chiu Yi-ren.

After the premiere, Mrs Tien Chiu-jin, who was the witness of the murder, said at first she could not accept director Yeh’s invitation for interview in the documentary, when director Yeh told her to be interviewed in the basement of Gikon Church. It is because, up to now, she still feels the murdered twin girls are still waiting for her to save them. She believed this might be the reasons why the couple, Mr Lin Yi-hsiung and Mrs Fang Su-ming, and many others were absent in the documentary.

Former political prisoners, including Mr Chen Chin-sheng, Ms Cheng Chu-mei, chairwonman of Nylong Cheng Liberty Foundation, hoped “the documentary, There Will Be Light, will not only be released at movie theaters in Taipei and Kaohsiung, but also can be published as CD-ROM to promote in the campus or open to the public for more exposures.”

On the same day, when There Will Be Light is premiered, cadets of the 63rd class of MJIB Training Institute went to Gikong Church and visited the crime scenes of the Lin Family Murder. Mr Chen Bor-shu, grand captain of MJIB Training Institute, stressed in his speech that MJIB is not the same as before in former KMT governments. He hopes that through visits to historical scenes, MJIB cadets who are set to serve the public with judicial prosecution can learn what a fair law enforcement means in Taiwan.

He pointed out that most MJIB cadets under the age of 30, after passing an special national examination, had received one-year professional training as an investigative officer. He also instructed the cadets to play different roles through imagining different actions in the criminal scene, either as a killer, a spy listening to the phone, or a secret police standing on the street corner to monitor the house. Through such historical readings into details, he hoped all MJIB cadets could realize the situations then and think about what law enforcement officers should or should not act on their jobs.

Rev Wang Beng-tek, pastor of Gikong Church, said that because the massacre of Lin Family Murder was related to KMT government’s use of secret police to oppress the political dissidents during its authoritarian rulings, and most members of Gikong Church were victims and families of those political dissidents. So church members of Gikong Church are still very sensitive and alert to the unusual visit of MJIB cadets.

As MJIB Training Institute frankly proposed to visit Gikong Church, prompting the church responded to welcome these young cadets warmly without wariness, Rev Wang believes such rare visit is very meaningful on the path to a democratic Taiwan under the rule of law. Some MJIB cadets conceded, after this precious visit and exchange, the juridicial power granted by the state shall be proceeded with more prudence and care in the future.

Translated by Peter Wolfe