A Colossal Hope
“We live in a word based universe. That’s the key of the logos for me. This universe is not simply a product of natural unguided forces. It is a product of a rational Creator,” says mathematician and theologian Professor John Lennox. “As you get nearer the end hope should get brighter.”
Religion is the hurrah of the unoppressed creatures, the heart of a loved world, and the soul of soul felt conditions. It is the opium of the people. And why not? Subversive solace of the higher kind along this fleeting avenue. St Joseph’s Church (also known as the Wangfujing Church) has had an eventful past. In the 12th year of his reign, 1655, the Sun Zhui Emperor of the Qing Dynasty granted two Jesuits missionaries a courtyard. The Italian Father Louis Buglio and the Portuguese Father Gabriel de Magalhauens built a church on the site.
In the 59th year of the reign of the Kang Xi Emperor, 1720, the church and its outbuildings collapsed during an earthquake but they were rebuilt the following year. In the 12th year of the Jia Qing Emperor, 1807, the church library and most of the outbuildings were destroyed in a fire. The Emperor then ordered the church to be demolished and just one outbuilding remained as a prayer house. Bishop Louis Gabriel Delaplace raised overseas funding to erect a new church in 1884. During the Boxer Rebellion, on 13 June 1900 history repeated itself and the church was demolished. So far so not so good.
The Jesuits rebuilt St Joseph’s in 1904 in an uplifting Romanesque Russo French style. It’s constructed of stone as grey as the brick of the adjacent Ganyu Hutong. Why have one belltower when you can have three? A fearfully and wonderfully made domed acoustic trinity. The first half and more of the 20th century continued to be pretty rocky. The church was closed in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution but then in a change of fortune the Beijing Municipal Government under Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping funded its restoration a decade later. St Joseph’s has been an active church and tourist attraction ever since reopening on Christmas Eve 1980. At Sunday morning Mass, a full congregation heartily sings in Mandarin, facing a white baldacchino (replicated outside) below crystal chandeliers. Words matter. Zànměi zhǔ!
“The anchor point in the end is that the logos became human and we beheld His glory: a human being in which God encoded himself in Christ,” says Professor John Lennox. “The hope for the future depends on the events of the past. There’s a new world coming. And it’s going to happen.”
