The way that the US undermined Chiang during the Chinese Civil War 1946-1949, and the way it cast aside Taiwan at the United Nations in 1971, is reason enough for Taiwan to be extremely cautious in dealing with the US at present. Beyond rhetoric, and sending defensive arms, the US will likely not fight very hard in Taiwan’s defense going forward no matter what happens regarding Speaker Pelosi’s visit.
Taiwan should not be naïve about the purpose of House Speaker Pelosi’s visit. Not just because China has called the action a red line, and threatened retaliatory action, but because her visit will likely benefit China more than it benefits Taiwan. There is a historical precedent for believing this is true.
The first precedent has to do with the actions of the United States during the Chinese Civil War. Right at the time when it looked as if the US backed troops led by Chiang Kai-shek would defeat the communist leader Mao Zedong, President Harry Truman sent George C. Marshall to China to negotiate a cease fire, and form a coalition government. In short, Marshall’s plan failed miserably. Marshall gave up and went home, and US support began to dwindle little by little.
The 13 month cease fire engineered by Marshall gave Mao time to regroup, reengage Chiang’s Nationalist Army, and gain the upper hand in the conflict. Chiang was forced to retreat toward the East China Sea, and ultimately Chiang, his troops, and his government fled to an island known then as Formosa. Today, we know it as Taiwan.
Chiang subsequently built the tiny island nation into an economic powerhouse that was based on the virtues of Confucianism and the principles of biblical Christianity. It’s worth noting in passing, that Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-Ling, were both confessing Christians, and beloved by missionaries, Christians, and statesmen from all around the world. Yet, in the end Chiang was undermined by US foreign policy.
This brings us to the second historical precedent which should make Taiwan suspicious of Speaker Pelosi’s visit. From the late 1960’s to 1971 the US developed a policy of Rapprochement with Communist China at the direction of President Richard Nixon. Nixon was to visit China in 1972. However, in 1971 he dispatched Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to China to discuss normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries.
At the same time, the US proposed to the United Nations that they seat delegations from both Communist China and Taiwan. Conversely, the UN responded with resolution 2758 which stated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was the only legitimate government of China. The resolution also stipulated that Taiwan be replaced by the PRC as a permanent member of the Security Council. Taiwan, and the government of Chiang Kai-shek, were summarily expelled from the United Nations and all other organizations related to it.
Keep in mind, while the US proposed keeping both delegations at the UN, and voted “No” on Resolution 2758, it failed to put up much of a fight when the UN expelled Taiwan. Hence, the US has officially supported the  “One China” policy ever since even while offering rhetoric to the contrary.
These two lessons from history should give the government in Taiwan pause as it prepares to receive Speaker Pelosi. The way that the US undermined Chiang during the Chinese Civil War 1946-1949, and the way it cast aside Taiwan at the United Nations in 1971, is reason enough for Taiwan to be extremely cautious in dealing with the US at present. Beyond rhetoric, and sending defensive arms, the US will likely not fight very hard in Taiwan’s defense going forward no matter what happens regarding Speaker Pelosi’s visit. Taiwan, like Ukraine, is caught in the middle of a struggle between two great power countries. It can only win by staying neutral.
There is another, howbeit, unrelated reason Taiwan should be distrustful of the Speaker Pelosi’s visit. In 2019 Taiwan earned the dubious distinction of being the first and only Asia-Pacific country to legalize same-sex marriage, and guarantee LGBTQ rights, including the right for individuals to decide their own gender. Taiwan boasts of the largest Pride parades in the region with over 200 thousand attending in 2021. The country has an extremely large LGBTQ lobby. It is certainly not beneath Speaker Pelosi to exploit this issue and encourage Taiwan to adopt even more of LGBTQ agenda. In Pelosi’s view, this is what it means to be a Western style democracy.
The Church at large should also question its support for these so-called democracies since the meaning of the word “democracy” has gradually been reduced to a single definition: the promotion of same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. From the point of view of the West, governments who openly advocate and legislate in favor of these special rights are seen as fully democratic while all others are not. This reductionistic change in meaning of the term has occurred with lightning speed in democracies all around the globe, but perhaps nowhere faster than it has in Taiwan. Keep in mind, Taiwan had its first democratic election in 1996.
To its credit, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan issued a pastoral letter renouncing the legalization of same-sex marriage and the LBGTQ agenda. Catholics did likewise and issued their own paper on the topic. Thankfully, the church in Taiwan thus far has shown remarkable solidarity on this subject. We should all pray that Taiwan will not be further swayed, either politically or morally, by Speaker Pelosi’s visit.
Jim Fitzgerald is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a missionary serving in North Africa.
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Can the church, therefore, (whom God has so graciously called out of that sinful world for the express purpose of succeeding where the world had initially failed) really also fail to esteem and exalt its precious Lord so miserably – and yet expect great blessing? It is necessary for the point to be made, making clear that revival – like individual salvation – is something that can never be earned. It is an act of the grace of God from beginning to end. But… we can forfeit God’s blessing, as David reminds us in Psalm 66:18, using the example there of heard prayer.

Firstly, some clarification:

There is still power in the gospel and its message in Wales in 2024. As recently as a couple of months ago I was one of many blessed attendees at the baptism of two teenage girls. There are many Christians around Wales today who are receiving much needed edification, comfort, conviction and more from sitting under the regular preaching of the gospel. There are still new converts being saved by the gospel’s preaching too. As Paul once wrote to the flailing church in Corinth:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18

This is one of the reasons why I become so exasperated by churches who downgrade a preaching service to something else because “preaching doesn’t seem to attract non-Christians”. We are told that yes, of course, non-Christians are going to find the preaching of Christ to be both foolishness and a stumbling block, but as Christians, we know it to be the power of God – in saving us, as all Christians once experienced, and in the building up of our faith. William Cowper was able to write during a time of great revival:
“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power”
Thank God that this is still true for us today!
The country of Wales has had a great history of Christianity and revivals. Some of the most famous include the 18th century Great Awakening revivals, with preachers such as Daniel Rowlands, Howell Harris, William Williams, and even the English George Whitefield being greatly used, the revival of 1859 of Humphrey Jones and David Morgan, and the widespread revivals of 1904-5.
Although, thankfully, there are a good number of churches around Wales that are bucking the current general trend of Christianity today, there are also many churches that are dwindling in number at a startling rate, many churches are closing or are recently closed, and many churches of all types and denominations are feeling a great sense of powerlessness in the taking of the gospel to the lost.
One of the most wonderful stories I have come across from reading of the Welsh revivals of the past – this account coming from the 1904-5 revival – concerns a man named Levi Jarvis:
Levi Jarvis was a man who loved to drink, who loved to fight, and who was feared throughout the whole community. This fearsome man, however, became very scared of the revival that was now spreading throughout his locality… so much so that his wife thought he was going mad! He would even leave his house for work an hour earlier than usual, so as to avoid the conversations concerning the revival from his fellow workers as they walked together to the coal mining pit.
Well, one day, when Levi Jarvis returned home from work, his wife said to him, “Levi, you’ll never believe it! R.B. Jones (the preacher of that revival) has called round, asking to speak to you!” Levi Jarvis responded by taking a big drink of water, picking up the loaf of bread from the table and running off into the mountain to hide himself away!
A mere hour or two later, Levi Jarvis was found stepping into the entrance of the packed-out church, and as the preacher stopped speaking to look at Levi Jarvis, and all the congregation turning to look upon him also, Levi Jarvis asked in a trembling voice, “Can the Lord Jesus save such a sinner as me?”
40 years or so later, this same Levi Jarvis was known to gather the young people of the church to himself, and say, “Come, and let’s talk about that time when the Lord saved me!”[1]
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Did the Civil Rights Movement fail the black community? Again, that’s a complicated question, but the truth is it was never designed to succeed in such a monumental task. By contrast, the gospel never fails, and should be central to our believing, our living.

Some have questioned if evangelicals—especially white evangelicals—did anything to aid the cause of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Most ardent in this question has been someone like Curtis J. Evans, who has charged, “Although they explicitly condemned racism in many of their public writings, [Evangelicals] did not support the tactics employed by civil rights leaders to end discrimination against black Americans. Evangelicals constantly criticized civil rights marches and legislation.”[1]
By Evans’s estimation, evangelicals did not do anything to help the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement, and as a result, there remains a rift in the American church. Truly, that discussion is worth having, but it stands on an underlying assumption—namely, that the Civil Rights Movement is what gave the Black Church, and by extension the Black community, all they were looking to gain. But is that so? It’s a question worth considering.
In what follows, I want to challenge this assumption and leave an open-ended question about the enduring impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
To Move Forward, We Must Look Back
The journey to equality for blacks in America has a long and treacherous history. Today, some argue that blacks are nowhere near the end of that journey and much more needs to be done. For them, a new wave of promise comes through “social justice,” a justice brought about by the allure of new governmental laws, economic justice, and racial equity. Still, others embrace the progress made, holding the belief that there’s nothing more to be done.
An honest look at the history of the Civil Rights Movement can be helpful in assessing where it has come from and what’s needed to move forward.
In North America, the disconnect between “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence sharply contrasted with the regular practice of slavery. This tension would ultimately culminate in the American Civil War: then the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment (which ended slavery), the 14th Amendment (which gave citizens rights), and the 15th Amendment (which gave all men the right to vote)—and this was just the beginning.
Still, there were several impediments to equal treatment. Long after the Constitutional Amendments, many southern states subjected their black citizens to segregation and racial discrimination. Southern states passed laws that marginalized black people. This treatment would come in many forms, such as peonage, black codes, and Jim Crow laws. As a result, a new front had to be set up on the road to equality.
The Civil Rights Movement
Along the journey, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, during an act of civil disobedience, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, for violating a draconian Jim Crow law. Ms. Parks sat on the front row of the “colored section” of the bus, which was established to separate black and white commuters. Ms. Park refused to give up her seat to a white passenger when ordered to do so, and the result was the flame that ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955.
This flame was the result of the coordinated effort of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The MIA consisted of black ministers and community leaders committed to bringing national attention to racial segregation in the South.
Seventy percent of the Montgomery Bus System’s patrons were black. During the boycott, blacks refused to get on a bus until the buses were desegregated. The city of Montgomery lost between 30 and 40 thousand bus fares each day during the boycott. Financial records suggest the city lost $3,000 daily (which equates to $31,326 per day in 2022).
Rather than paying fares to the city, consumers paid for a one-of-a-kind mode of transportation within their own community. Black commuters needing to get to work found a lift from someone else in the neighborhood and paid the fare to another black community member. The effect on the black economy was huge because the money spent on transportation was either saved or spent in the community.
The United States Supreme Court decision in Browder v. Gayle would end discrimination on public buses. After a 382-day boycott, black patrons received what they fought for: a desegregated bus. It was a victory in one sense, but ironically it led to the first of many miscarriages of justice caused by a movement committed to seeking justice. Although the movement gained an equal seat on the bus—this “victory” would witness black people abandoning the first-of-its-kind Uber car service and returning to the buses that despised their patronage.
The “success” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott would catapult Martin Luther King, Jr., onto the national stage while simultaneously cementing white superiority—through dependence on a white bus system—in the minds of blacks.
The message sent and received by the civil rights leaders was that equality meant sitting on the same bus, using the same bathroom, and eating at the same lunch counter as whites. More neglected was economic empowerment brought about by being self-sufficient. So, the message of self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship was lacking from the movement. The result of this failure would invite the need for greater political power. Yet again, the voices who spoke most loudly among black leaders also handed over the black community to any political party that would validate them through proximity to whites.
The Civil Rights Movement and its leaders successfully tied the advancement of the black community to the shifting political winds by largely abandoning economic self-sufficiency and embracing political power as the path forward. While this reality may not have been apparent to civil rights leaders initially, certain politicians saw it clearly and used political favors to obtain the power they needed from the black community.
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