A Story of Harry Lee’s Deliverance from the Chinese Red Guards

Christian biographies always act like a shot of caffein to my spiritual life. Within the hours and usually days after finishing one, I always feel a bit stronger, a bit more aware, a bit more bold in my faith. I honestly don’t know why I’m not reading them more often.

This book published by OMS International is just 143 pages long, but it packs a wallop in describing Henry Lee’s suffering for the faith during the most troubling years of Mao’s revolution. While I’ve got nothing against best-selling biographies like Eric Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer, there’s just something to be said about the shorter biographies of lesser-known saints, books generally published by mission organizations or smaller Christian publishing houses. They reveal the struggles of people we otherwise would never have heard of and help us realize that everyone’s story matters—something I think will be proven true throughout in eternity.

Before picking up this book, I had never heard of Harry Lee, and maybe the same goes for you. Born in Shanghai in 1925, Lee came from an affluent family and was schooled by missionaries who taught him English and about the Lord Jesus. In almost any other time period or location, Lee’s life might have been enviable: wealthy, educated, Christian. But China in the ensuing decades was no enviable place to be, and Harry Lee’s status made him an easy target for the Red Guard.

Following school and his father’s death, Harry because a leader in the church and over his own household, but the deeper entrenched the Communists became in his area, the more his family’s status and lifestyle drew attention. Unmarried as he was, Harry took every effort to attract abuse away from his family and onto himself, a habit that eventually resulted in public humiliations by the Red Guard and, in the end, imprisonment.

Now I’ve read books about the Red Guard before, those Communist Youth who carried around Mao’s Little Red Book like it were the holy scriptures and committed atrocities against the bourgeoisie in the name of Mao and the proletariat (but in their own words, of course). Reading about their attacks from the perspective of someone who suffered them, though. highlights the shame of it all—shame for those abused, tortured, and publicly mocked; and shame for the uneducated abusers who acted so violently all because it’s what the rest of the crowd was doing. Harry recalls several individuals over the years—would-be attackers—whose faces revealed unhardened hearts, and yet they had no choice but to follow along with the violence, lest they too face the same ridicule and abuse.

This book records a sad period of recent history, yet it’s one that could very well be repeated, and not only through the uneducated followers in China. Do you recall the fist-raising mobs terrorizing restaurant patrons in American cities three years ago? Rand Paul being mugged? Bystanders being viciously attacked on the streets of Portland? City blocks being burned to the ground? The Red Guard is alive and well at home and abroad, though it goes by different names (e.g. Antifa) and holds to different “ideals.” Dark hearts await the next trigger that’ll let them reform their mobs and terrorize our cities again. Harry Lee suffered for 11 years at their hands fifty years ago. Others will suffer again. Oh, if only there was Hope, a Light to counteract the darkness!

One thing I liked about this book was how the author fictionalized some of the early, childhood scenes with description and dialogue. It began more as a biographical novel in the vein of These Are My People, though eventually it she adjusted more into the flow of a standard fact-filled biography. What I liked in the fictionalize portion, however, was her method describing dates and politics only as they related to young Harry, for example referencing how he wasn’t interested in his father’s discussions about Chiang and Mao. It helped establish the reader in the right historical context, yet it kept us on Harry’s side, caring when we needed to care, and ignoring the world’s politics when it had no effect on the man and his troubles.

Another aspect of this book that I really enjoyed was the final chapter covering the love story between Harry and his college sweetheart, a story that didn’t find a happy conclusion for three decades, past prison and seminary and long into Harry itinerate speaking career. A child and car accident later, these two wandering souls eventually reunited, and the book closed with the couple and the stepson on their wedding day. It was an unexpected silver lining to this important yet sad story, and it ended up being the main portion that I shared with my wife!

I enjoyed reading this book, though of course it wasn’t a fun read. It’s disturbing at times and sad, but it’s a powerful story about one man’s faithfulness in response to God’s own flawless faithfulness. It was an encouragement to me, and if you can find a copy out there, it may be to you as well.

©2023 E.T.