We have two items here covering
the development of Christianity in China
The type of Christianity appealing
to the Chinese is informed by Calvin, as was the Scottish enlightenment that informed
the emergence of both the USA
and Canada
The movement is now strong enough
to confront authority and act as a recipient of the disenfranchised and the disaffected. This publicizes who are members and shows the
rest of the population those prepared to help them deal with that
authority. Obviously this will promote a
rapidly increasing movement that is already internally organized.
Of course the Chinese government
is spooked. Communism itself was a Christian
knock off, as was the Taiping rebellion in the mid nineteenth century that
split China
Chinese Christian Persecution
Chinese Christians Fight for Religious Freedom
June 3, 2011
(3:08)
It is Beijing
BY MARIA LOPEZ
pp
You're watching multisource world video news analysis from Newsy.
It is Beijing
And it’s not shy about holding services.
In the month of May, government forces arrested all those who attended church and kept core leaders under house arrest. This is the eighth week the church has defied
“It also shows no signs of slowing down. More than 160 were arrested the first week Shouwang tried to meet outdoors, about 50 were arrested the second week, approximately 40 on the third week, about 30 on the fourth week, 13 the fifth week, 20 the sixth week and 25 the seventh week.”
But the arrests are just the tip of the iceberg...
THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS: “One church leader says he was tortured while in police custody. Many members have lost their jobs and homes due to government pressure on employers and landlords.” In e-mail, one church member says, quote, “This is a great spiritual battle, keep praying for us.”
Why are Chinese authorities cracking down so hard on Christian groups? Northumberland Today explains.
“…[T]hese churches are … regarded as a potential threat to the political monopoly position of communist leaders… [T]hey are wary of churches not directly under their control…Now especially… given the Jasmine Revolution in the Middle East, the Chinese government is afraid that this spirit could spread in
According to a French magazine, a leaked report from 2006 suggests there are almost 130 million Chinese Christians, compared to the just 5 million in 1949, when Mao came to power. This means Christianity is probably the second largest religion in
“The growth of Christianity is all the more remarkable considering it occurred despite decades of bloody persecution under Mao... Christianity has now adapted to the local realities and is no longer seen as a strange faith imported from elsewhere. Millions of new devotees are convinced that
Le nouvel Observateur also says Christian congregations like the
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Transcript by Newsy.
CHRISTIAN GROUPS DRAW PROFESSIONAL ELITES AND SOCIAL ACTIVISTS, AND PUT
AUTHORITIES ON RED ALERT
The Shouwang Church and other Protestant Christian groups have a
potentially powerful mix of Calvinist ideology, social activism and influence
among China
By Ursula Gauthier
BEIJING – Every Sunday at 8:30 a.m. sharp, you see them coming to
the unwelcoming square in the middle of the university neighborhood in Beijing
The people who so bravely defy the formidable security forces every
week belong to the Protestant Shouwang church, the biggest and best known
“house” church in Beijing. Shouwang means “to keep watch” in Mandarin.
Notoriously independent, they refuse to let themselves be absorbed by the
official “patriotic” church, which sits entirely in the government’s fold. This
autonomous group of worshippers holds their services at one of their member’s
homes, or in a simple conference room rented especially for the occasion.
The devotees elect their ministers – the members of the small “elders”
committee charged with governing the church – and they are deeply dedicated to
the life of their community.
“We have absolutely no political agenda, and we are not opposed to the
government,” a Shouwang official who is now under house arrest recently said.
“We only want one thing: to freely practice our religion.”
So why are the Chinese authorities so dead set against the church?
Several dozen Shouwang devotees are detained every week. Since the beginning of
the civil disobedience movement, more than 300 of them have been questioned by
police and pressured into signing a disavowal of their spiritual guide before
being eventually freed. Six Shouwang members have nevertheless been assigned to
house arrest in recent months, with rumors circulating that they'll soon be
thrown in jail.
According to Bob Fu from China
Aid, an American NGO which focuses on the life of China ’s
Christians, Beijing
Founded in 1993 by the charismatic minister Jin Tianming, who was then
a young chemical engineering graduate of the prestigious Tsinghua University,
the number of Shouwang devotees has grown from 10 to 1,000 over the past 15
years. This has attracted the ire of the authorities, who have constantly
harassed them and even forced them to change headquarters more than 20 times.
“Two recent events explain the government’s attitude,” says Bob Fu.
“First, there was the fact that in 2010 Shouwang was preparing to send 200
delegates from around the country to the international evangelical conference
in South Africa
Alarmed by their capacity to coordinate and their desire to present
themselves as the legitimate representatives of Chinese Protestantism, the
government banned the delegates from leaving the country. “And then the
‘jasmine revolutions’ started. Fearing [the Arab world's revolutionary spirit]
would spread, Beijing
In 2010, Shouwang worshippers managed to gather $6 million in
donations. The money would have bought them an entire floor of a building in
the university neighborhood. But the sale was cancelled under pressure from
authorities. The church had to settle instead for a big conference room, rented
from a posh restaurant. Several months later, that contract was cancelled as
well, for the same reasons, leaving the devotees without any roof over their
heads.
“They would like to split us up, or, even better, dissolve us
altogether,” says one of the Shouwang worshippers. “We will never allow that to
happen. We have not turned ourselves to the Savior to find ourselves listening
to so-called ministers who are bureaucrats in reality and who follow the orders
of the Communist Party’s atheists!”
With its 40 Biblical reading groups, choir, catechism, its faithful
(typically members of the new bourgeoisie – professors, doctors, lawyers,
students, and even Party members), Shouwang gains dozens of new
converts each month. For the regime, it is the strongest symbol of the wave of
religious conversion that has swept over the country of late. Urban, educated,
disgusted by the “red” discourse served by the media, and fed up even with the
cult of consumerism, the new, Christ-conscious Chinese upper class is on a
moral collision course with a government that it perceives as soulless.
The numbers speak for themselves. A survey conducted in 2006 suggests
that about 300 million Chinese (31% of the population) practice a religion.
Government estimates put that number far lower. Among Chinese religious
practitioners, two-thirds declared themselves Buddhists or Taoists. The
remaining third (100 million people) are Christians.
A leaked report dating from the same year suggests that the real number
of Chinese Christians is closer to 130 million – up from just 5 million in 1949
when Mao came to power. Roughly four-fifths are Protestants. In the past 60 years,
in other words, the number of Chinese Christians has multiplied by a factor of
25. They now make up between 7%-10% of the population, meaning that
Christianity is quite possibly the second religion in China
The growth of Christianity is all the more remarkable considering it
occurred despite decades of bloody persecution under Mao, who viewed the
religion as a “foreign” doctrine used to serve the interests of capitalist
imperialism. Christianity has now adapted to the local realities and is no longer
seen as a strange faith imported from elsewhere. Millions of new devotees are
convinced that China
“I believe Christianity will become the main religion, but not the only
one,” says historian Fan Yafeng. A specialist on the Chinese conversion
movement, Yafeng is now under close surveillance. In a recent interview, he
told Le Nouvel Observateur that by eradicating local religions, the
Communist Party had involuntarily made conversion easier for the country’s
elite.
“Still, we should remember that the peasants, who were once converted
to Christianity by foreign-born ministers, are the ones who managed to keep the
flame alive despite facing terrible repression,” says Yafeng. “As soon as they
could, they became missionaries themselves. In the 1980s, they converted up to
80% of the inhabitants of certain districts in Henan
and Zhejiang
So when the intellectuals started looking for a spiritual outlet, they
had all this groundwork they could rely on. Suspicious of an overly emotional
faith, they first focused their attention on theoretical sources, translating
the works of Saint Augustine
“(Calvin) allows us to understand the links between individual faith and
society better than anyone else,” says Yu Jie, another well-known Protestant
thinker and dissident. “We support the idea of a clear distinction between
religion and politics, but without making any concessions on our relationship
with God. How does one best practice their faith within their family, at work
and in the society? Calvin thought a great deal about this questions and he is
the one guiding us today.”
It seems clear that the Christianity now being promoted by
intellectuals such as Yu Jie is having an influence on China
Alarmed by the escalating crisis, approximately 20 “house” churches
from different provinces have recently declared their support to their Beijing
Photo - Nataliechiu
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