NEW YORK — Eugene Bach was brainstorming ways to make a lighter, more portable Bible when he watched Jason Bourne in the movie The Bourne Identity have a chip embedded in his back that projects a list of bank account numbers onto the wall.
“Well, when I saw that, I thought, why can’t we make a Bible that will do that?” Bach said. “So, we got a person on our team that does a lot of product development. And so, he and I began to work on a device like that.”
He and other operative tinkerers came up with what they call the pill Bible. It is a small electronic device, the size and shape of a vitamin pill that contains the entire Bible. Not only does this device enable smuggling, but it can also be safely swallowed if needed. Working best in a dark room, the device manipulates light and projects the text of different books of the Bible in front of the user’s face. It can carry the Bible in any written language.
Bach is the field coordinator for Back to Jerusalem (BTJ), which develops technological innovations to spread the Gospel message. The China-based Christian ministry hosts hacker events for CIA-types who are Christian believers. They have created advanced technology, including credit card-sized Bibles (distributed via drone) and pocket-sized WiFi devices called Gospel Clouds. They use a James Bond mindset to create inventions that 007 would be proud of if he were a man of God.
According to Open Doors, a Christian aid group, around 260 million Christians face persecution and antagonism for their faith worldwide. In many of the countries where these Christians reside, government authorities ban or restrict access to the Bible and other Christian materials.
Historically, in light of this persecution, Christian missionaries and organizations have responded by smuggling physical Bibles and other Christian materials into countries that are either closed to any religion or closed to Christianity. “Back to Jerusalem is a vision of the Chinese church to take the Gospel and continue westward from China all the way back to Jerusalem,” Bach said.
This unique approach to this mission is driven by BTJ’s missional focus on countries between China and Jerusalem. In many of these countries, government authorities ban or restrict access to the Bible and other Christian materials. BTJ works to circumvent these restrictions by constantly developing new inventions.
In China, where BTJ produces most of its devices, Christianity is heavily regulated by the Religious Affairs Bureau, part of the Communist Chinese government. All churches in China are required to register with the bureau, which then tracks the members of the churches.
“They install cameras in your church,” said Doug Johnson, an American who has worked in China for several years. “They are watching things. They have facial recognition. They keep an eye on what you are preaching making sure it is not against the government, that it’s not like Western ideology or anything like that.”
While Bibles in China used to be available for purchase online, the government recently ended that, now only allowing Bibles to be bought through state registered churches.
“They want to make sure that the Bibles that are being sold are ones that preach things that are not against the government, and all this stuff,” Johnson said. “In fact, they are actually creating a new translation of the Bible, which kind of aligns the Bible more with Chinese communist doctrine, a little bit.”
This development has led to fear by some Christians about how much the government will actually change the message and text of the Bible.
These kinds of regulations and restrictions, present in countries from North Korea to Iran, fuels BTJ’s innovative spirit. To generate ideas, they host a yearly “hacker’s conference” where they assemble a group of computer specialists from all over the world. They spend several days in a cabin in the mountains brainstorming and prototyping ideas. Often those attending are involved with intelligence organizations like the CIA.
Like many of those at the yearly “hacker’s conference” Bach has a military background. Before joining BTJ, he served in the Marine Corps as a scout sniper where he saw two tours of duty in the Persian Gulf. Bach first began working with BTJ back in 1999 and moved to China in 2000. When he arrived in China, he began organizing Bible printing, which removed the difficulty of getting Bibles into China from the outside. Shortly after, he began smuggling Bibles into other closed countries.
