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A religious miracle is unfolding in China. Evangelicals and Catholcis and a few others have been going into China for a variety of reasons; proselyting as permitted, teaching English or for business, etc., and they have smuggled Bibles into China by the millions. They have quietly taught the gospel to their closest Chinese friends, at great risk. A few have been put in jail or kicked out of the country.

In the past religious progress in China was slow and mostly consisted of conversion to traditional churches with roots outside of China. In recentyears however, enormous numbers of Chinese have sort of self converted to their own form of generic Christianity. Some sources claim that as much as 10-15% of China is now Christian and this growth shows no signs of slowing down. That would be as many as 100 to 200 million new converts to Christianity in China. That would be almost like half of the US population converting to an entirely new religion in a few years span.

Most Chinese Christians are not really connected to any particluar sect or type of Christian orgainzation such as the Roman Catholics or a Baptist convention or Mormons. They often meet together quietly in homes and are beginning to build a few, officially illegal church buildings and testing the limits of what the government will allow. They are not centrally organized or governed, except by the Spirit. They read the Bible but are not obsessed with many of the doctrines and issues that historically divide the rest of Christianity. Their focus is on the most simple principles and practices.

I don’t think they can be classified easily as either Protestant or Catholic. In time they will develop their own unique mature response to the Christian message. Their numbers are so enormous that they rightfully represent another major new branch of Christianity. Evangelicals in America feel a close connection with them, but that feeling may not necessarily run both ways. With a largely apostate Europe and a religiously divided America, post-communist China could become the central axis of Christianity by the middle of this century.

This marvelous work and wonder perplexes me, as a Mormon. Why, I wonder are we not more of a part of it? I don’t think we have any official missionaries in China except in or near Hong Kong. I don’t think our full-time missionaries would be any more successful in the middle of China than they are in any number of places with difficult languages and cultures such as Japan (where I served) or Korea or the Philipines or Indonesia. We are not smuggling Books of Mormon into China by the millions and spontaneous Mormon wards do not spring up with dozens of millions of new members. We might have a few Mormons deep in China for a variety of reasons and I would be surprized if we don’t have a handful of conversions across the country. But this is so small in comparison to the colossal changes outside of our realm.

Yet this miracle in China warms my soul and demonstrates how the Lord can bless his children in marvelous and miraclous ways. I think this miracle in China is the most marvelous religious work of today. I just don’t understand why we are not in the middle of it.

In the early Utah period we were building a culture, not just growing in numbers. As the church has become more spread out, in some ways I think we have lost ground as far as having our own robust and distinctive culture. We have become less insular, though, and more accomplished, so in the long run it should help us to do our work as leaven more effectively. Also, for some people this will make a big difference in their sense that the church is someplace where they want to be involved. I know quite a few people who have drifted out of the church because their intellectual needs were not met. A lot of popular music today obviously has far from wholesome messages, but the LDS offerings there are a bit thin, etc. In the long run a richer culture will prepare us to offer inspired approaches to the problems of the world (economic, environmental, political challenges as well as intellectual, artistic, etc.).

Clearly there are many different aspects to preparing for the millennium including missionary work, Family History/Temple work, the strengthening of the stakes of Zion, etc. And while all of these aspects are important and none can be left out, I often wonder if there is one aspect among the many that my generation (I am in my earlier 20’s) should be most focused on? And if there is, what is that aspect?

I tend to place the work of “strengthening the good in the world” at the top of the list of things that need to be done to help more speedily usher in the millennium. I know it sounds a little vague, but it seems like a lot of work needs to be done in the world that is not directly related to missionary work or Temple work. The scriptures never say that the Lord will only come when there are enough members of His church to properly receive Him. In fact they state that the church will be few in number and that it isn’t until he comes that knees will bow and tongues confess that He is the Christ. But what we do know is that there needs to be a core of righteous people and that Good needs to be found on the earth just as Evil also will unfortunately be found.

We need more people than ever to fight for the good of society politically, socially, and morally, not for the sake of converting people to the LDS church but for the sake of supporting the good wherever it is found so that people of all walks of life and all religious beliefs can find places of refuge and receive the strength needed to counterbalance the problems in the world.

What does this mean for my generation? Well, it means that we need to learn to more precisely define our beliefs using terms that other Christians understand and relate to. We need to be more tolerant and learn to recognize truth wherever we find it. We also need to be more established in our own beliefs and comfortable with church history and church doctrine so that we can spend our energy finding common denominators with people of other faiths rather than searching for ways to prove ourselves and our religion.

While I acknowledge that the steps above coincide with the church’s efforts to improve its public image, could they also be indicative of the kind of marvelous work that the current generation needs to be focused on?

In my experience, there has been a real effort by the successive prophets in my lifetime to bring the Saints to a better understanding of this expansive vision of the Church and its mission. President McKay’s international experiences took temples outside America. President Kimball prepared us to expect miraculous things to happen to expand the mission field, and his revelation on priesthood did its part accomplishing that. President Benson’s emphasis on the Book of Mormon made a real change in the Saints’ spiritual knowledge and power. President Hinckley was a leading force in facing the Church outward toward the world throughout his career in the Church. The effort to spread temples and other programs like Seminary across the world have helped members justify the decision to be Mormons in their home countries.

The Church in 2008 is not only larger than in 1968, but also stronger and more powerful in its meaning to the Saints. There is more understanding of the scriptures. This of course is not uniform for all members, but I perceive that the bell curve has moved further along the scale of righteousness and faithfulness and intelligent testimony. I think there is an increased optimism that the Church is up to the challenge, with God’s help, of doing what he wants us to do.

The Baby Boom generation of Saints has had the blessing of obtaining more education than most of our parents ever dreamed of. That general level has risen and produced at its top some first class scholars in history, and ancient cultures and languages, who have produced a significant foundation of intellectual understanding that reassures us that the Restored Gospel has all the intellectual depth we could ever desire. We have come to appreciate more and more the remarkable nature of the Book of Mormon, both in doctrine and in poetry and as a window into an ancient culture that has many correspondences, not so much with America in 1829, but with America in 2008. As time advances, the relevance of the Book of Mormon grows.

We have also grown in our understanding of Church history and appreciation of it beyond the set pieces of the Mormon pageant. While the Reorganized LDS Church has largely forsaken its commitment to Joseph Smith as a prophet as it seeks to join Protestantism, the LDS Church has found that a closer familiarity with the details of Joseph’s life can enhance our testimonies of his work.

So I would propose that the Church is, looking back over the last 40 years, accomplishing a marvellous and miraculous work, not only in quantity of Saints around the world, but also in quality of their lives and testimonies and understanding of the gospel.

I think also there is a direct correlation between quantity and quality, namely, that as Saints come from diverse cultures around the world, they enrich all of us with their perspectives and talents. As we have more hands and arms and eyes and ears, the Church as a whole is stronger, faster, more caring, and more perceptive. As we see the gospel through the eyes of 165 nations, we see better what is truly at the core of the gospel and what is our personal cultural baggage and traditions of our fathers. Paradoxically, as we become more numerous, we also become more unified. As Joseph Smith said, Zion is encompassing North and South America, and the world.