“Surviving the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Cai Yongchun in the Cultural Revolution.” Church History 92, no. 2 (June 2023), 342–56.

Using Cai Yongchun—a graduate of Yenching and Columbia University—as an example, the article aims to 1) demonstrate the overwhelming conformity demanded by the Communist regime and 2) analyze how Christians like Cai sought to align with official lines through intellectual reconstruction. Despite state marginalization, Christian intellectuals like Cai persisted in their patriotism, eager to remain relevant even amid ideological fanaticism. Though active adaptation as such, Cai came to experience a fundamental and perpetual denial of the self, pressuring him to become an ever more faithful follower of Mao and his words. Nevertheless, the proletarian redemption proved elusive, and the old Christian identity resilient.