Engaging the Chinese Water God Bok Kai

By David Hobbs

For 160 years or so the Chinese water god Bok Kai, symbolized by a dragon who lives in the nearby Sutter Buttes, has held sway in my city of Marysville, CA. Supposedly prayed over by the Chinese laborers who were exploited cruelly during the Gold Rush, the dragon was supposed to protect them, offer them solace in their suffering,  and perhaps to exact vengeance upon the white Americans. Now we have the oldest continuously functioning temple to this deity, and a festival every spring where the dragon comes to life and parades down the city streets, devouring vegetable offerings that businesses leave out for it in hopes of good fortune in their businesses for another year. 

It's become quite a spiritual stronghold, coupled with a sister stronghold a few blocks away, the Old Marysville Hotel, closed for years, which has become a demonic stronghold in its own right. A five-story brick building, partially boarded up, it has defied all attempts to demolish it or turn it into something useful like a parking garage or loft apartments for at least 35 years. It has prevailed over the clueless city fathers because they fail to recognize spiritual realities and attack it with man-made, governmental weapons like zoning and permits, financing and endless changes of ownership. But they fail to come against it with spiritual weapons like prayer and repentance, binding and casting out, using the blood and the Name of Jesus, much like demons are driven out of people.

Under the ungodly influences of these two strongholds, Marysville has become impoverished. Yet the city fathers steadfastly push the parade every year because of the money the out-of-town visitors bring in, totally blinded to how these demonic strangleholds are squeezing the life out of the city.

What have the Christians been doing? For years  the Christians have been playing the game of minimizing the power and influence of the dragon, which exercises its power by keeping it from raining on its annual parade. So the Christians pray against it every year, praying it does rain, with each side hoping to prove to the other that they are right. 

But this has turned out to be an exercise in futility, because even when there is documented rain on the parade in a year, the Bok Kai promoters lay low for a few years with their claims, then when people have forgotten, trot out the claim all over again that it's never rained on the parade in its 160 year history! You can't convince the willingly ignorant, and people will always find a way to believe what they want to.

This year the Lord prompted me to take a different tack--to freely admit the dragon's power, but then question the origin of that power, whether it's from God. Let me say parenthetically that it always amazes me how unbelievers accept any supernatural manifestation as proof that something is from God--like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8, who astonished the people of Samaria with his sorceries until they said, "This man is the great power of God (v.10)." 
Because this god can hold back the rain for a few hours on one day of the year at one specific location, that's enough to prove he's Almighty God!? What a small concept of God these people have! 

So I wrote the following letter-to-the-editor which was published yesterday. The thrust of the letter was not so much aimed at the Chinese community and their religious celebration, but at the non Chinese civic officials and helpers, many of whom identify as Christians, yet participate and promote  this every year, and enable it to be successful, all under the guise that it's merely a "cultural festival."

Dear Editor,

 According to your front-page article on the Bok Kai Festival (3-13), raindrops began falling moments after the end of the Bok Kai parade, causing Marshall Gordon Tom to exclaim, “Do you believe now?” As a Christian I would like to respond. If the question is, “Do I believe there is a supernatural entity, known as the god Bok Kai, who has power to shape the weather?” Yes Mr. Tom, I believe. And I apologize to you and the Chinese community for all the Christians who don’t believe. You see, many modern Christians don’t even believe in the supernatural miracles performed by their own leader, Jesus Christ.

But the Bible doesn’t limit supernatural manifestations to God. They can also be of darker origin. In Revelation 13:13-14 there is a false prophet who “performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs.” Supernatural power is wielded by true and false prophets throughout the Bible. 

By Mr. Tom’s own statement, we are clearly dealing with a matter of religion here. Bok Kai cannot be just the cultural celebration many have proclaimed over the years, not with an invisible entity performing supernatural signs and receiving sacrifices. So the real question becomes: is this power from God? In Deut. 13:1-3 the Bible says, “If there arises among you a prophet … and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet… for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” Isn’t that the case here? The purpose for this supernatural sign is to get us to “go after” and serve another god, Bok Kai, clearly a violation of Scripture. Those who identify as Christians, yet participate in this celebration by raising money, riding in floats, etc. should listen to their own Scriptures. Yes Mr. Tom, I do believe. That’s why I want no part of Bok Kai or the dragon.