Samuel Lamb or Lin Xiangao (; October 4, 1924 – August 3, 2013) was a Protestant pastor in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

, China. He was a leader in the Chinese house church movement and known for his resistance against the state-sanctioned

Three-Self Patriotic Movement The Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM; ) is the official government supervisory organ for Protestantism in the People's Republic of China. It is colloquially known as the Three-Self Church (). The National Committee of the Three-Self Patriot ...

(TSPM).

Biography

Lamb was born in a mountainous area overlooking

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

. His father, Paul Lamb, was the pastor of a small Baptist congregation. In the 1940s, Lamb worked with pastor

Wang Mingdao Wang Mingdao () (July 25, 1900 – July 28, 1991) was an independent Chinese Protestant pastor and evangelist imprisoned for his faith by the Chinese government from 1955 until 1980. He has been called the "Dean of the House Churches." Name Wa ...

.Kindopp, Jason (2005). "Samuel Lamb" i
''Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture''
edited by Edward Lawrence Davis. Routledge, p. 314. . Lamb was imprisoned for more than 20 years (1955–57; 1958–78) for his refusal to join the TSPM. In spite of " honey-bucket" duty at labor farms or backbreaking work in coal mines at labor camps, Lamb continued to teach. In 1978, Lamb was released from prison and, in 1979, he restarted the church in 35 Da Ma Zhan, Guangzhou. Because the attendance grew quickly, he then moved the meetings to 15 Rong Gui Li, De Zheng Bei Road. The house church is now known as Rongguili Church, under the name Damazhan Evangelical Church. The house church continued to hold four main services each week, with an estimated attendance of four to five thousand, but was closed on October 14, 2018, and a second time on December 15, 2018. Starting in 1979, Lamb published a series of booklets called "Voice of the Spirit" (); now there are more than 200 booklets. He died in Guangzhou in 2013, aged 88. For reasons of security and site elements, the date of the farewell ceremony was changed from August 17, 2013 to August 16, 2013, in Baiyun Hall, Yinhe park, Yinhe cemetery, Guangzhou. There were nearly 30,000 mourners in attendance.

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Lamb preached theologically conservative teachings. His refusal to register his church with the Chinese government and join the TSPM was due to his strong support of the

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular s ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamb, Samuel 1924 births 2013 deaths Chinese Protestants Evangelists Chinese prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China Chinese Protestant ministers and clergy

Biography

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See also

References