Following her father’s suggestion in early 2013, a Christian university student contacted China Soul for Christ Foundation—a top evangelistic organization for the global Chinese church—asking to apply for an internship.
Across two days in September, she met in Paris with China Soul’s famous founder Yuan Zhiming, expecting an interview. But the first time they met, the 23-year-old student alleges she found herself in bed with Yuan, watching a soft porn movie in an airport hotel room. She realized something had gone horribly wrong and left the hotel.
This woman’s story of surviving sexual misconduct is laid out in a new independent investigation from GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), which has produced other reports about abuse at Bob Jones University and New Tribes Mission.
The investigation was undertaken at the request of Chinese Christian Life Fellowship (CCLife), a publishing and discipleship ministry founded in 1996. An earlier report, published by CCLife, found that four people alleged misconduct by Yuan. But the GRACE report focuses on just the university student’s account.
During their next meeting the following day, she again was in Yuan’s hotel room late at night alone with him and was asked to spend the night. “He started saying that he was lonely and that he needed to have company,” she told GRACE. She refused to stay, yet agreed to hug him before leaving.
“While he was hugging me, he was again asking me to stay and not to go and I said, ‘No, no, no.’ I was refusing [to stay]. In the end, I was struggling.” She said that as she left the room Yuan offered her 50 euros ($66). He never offered her an internship.
GRACE concluded that the woman’s account is credible because five individuals corroborated her narrative during 2016 interviews in Paris with a professional investigator. Also, there are email messages that Yuan invited the unnamed woman to his room in a hotel near Orly airport outside Paris.
The GRACE report highlights the chronic difficulty that Chinese churches, many of which are independent, have in holding pastoral leaders publicly accountable.
“Yuan and [China Soul] stand on the threshold of a unique opportunity that could allow them to be a powerful example of authentic Christian repentance to those inside and outside of the Chinese community,” stated GRACE.
Yuan, through his attorney, denied any wrongdoing with the student. During the investigation, he declined a request from GRACE for an interview. In late June, he received a copy of the report. But he has not read it, his attorney said.
During the past year, Yuan has been on sabbatical after being accused of raping an acquaintance, Chai Ling, in 1990 while both were pro-democracy dissidents and not yet converts to Christianity. Both gained asylum in the United States after escaping China after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
In response to Chai’s claim, Yuan said he was guilty of “sexual iniquity” but not rape when the two met in her apartment more than 25 years ago. Chai, who went on to found pro-life ministry All Girls Allowed, did not publicly allege rape until late 2014.
“I deny all of the defamatory accusations involving ‘rape,’ ‘attempted seduction,’ and ‘sexual assault,’ ” Yuan said last year on the China Soul website.
A leading dissident filmmaker in the 1980s, Yuan became a Christian after arriving in the United States. About 12 years ago, he produced the renowned four-hour documentary, “The Cross: Jesus in China.” Yuan is recognized as one of the leading preachers and theologians for the global Chinese Christian community, numbering an estimated 70 million believers.
