China Still Afraid of Religion
China is still afraid of organized religion.
There are two streams of Catholicism in China – one is government sponsored and the other is recognized by the Vatican.
The government sponsored group installed two new bishops this week withOUT approval from the head honcho in Rome. This will NOT help relations between China and the Vatican.
My feeling is, so what? Neither have an inroad to God/heaven/eternal life as far as I am concerned.
Yet, Chinese party elders fear that if the Catholic hierarchy was freed it might try to replicate in China what the Pope did in Eastern Europe and in Poland in the 80’s.
China is still afraid of peope with faith.
That’s too bad.
What do you think?
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07/05/2006
This issue is extremely controversial and sensitive. One the one hand, communists are atheists. One the other hand, the contemporary history of Christianity has been filled with ideas and people who praise democracy but condemn dictatorship.
Nowadays, The Chinese government is not afraid of people with faith (since 1976, the government has seldom cracked down on ‘private’ religious worship) but it is a fact that the government is quite anxious about the political influence of the Pope towards catholics in China.
07/05/2006
If only all people could understand the difference between faith and religion. Faith dictates how a person lives…religion is man made and can be as confrontational as political ideology.
I am not a fan of organized religion but I do have a deep faith and it affects how I live my daily life.
Thanks for your thoughts.
07/05/2006
Hi Bill,
Nice, informative blog. First, Hubert’s comment that “since 1976, the government has seldom cracked down on ‘private’ religious worship” glosses over a considerable amount of ongoing persecution of various religious groups, which reportedly has been stepped up in the last year or two.
That said, as I understand it, one of the basic characteristics of Chinese Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, is that there are two parts of each, the official Three-Self Churches and the underground churches, which face varying degrees of persecution in different regions.
While the Chinese government seems focussed on hindering unregistered Christian groups (along with Falun Gong and Tibetan movements), this concern is largely misplaced, at least toward the Christian churches.
Where they should be concerned, from a political standpoint (though that doesn’t justify violating human rights), is toward various extremist cult groups that are outside of orthodox Christian doctrine. These kind of groups have a history of getting out of hand in other countries, because there is no sound doctrine to restrain them.
A similar situation is obviously happening in many Muslim societies, where religious leaders seem unable to agree enough on doctrine to marginalize fanatics. One of the questions that keeps popping up in my mind is whether Islamic fanaticism is going to be a big problem in China, too, before long.
In summary, Christians with stable churches and traditional doctrine have a history of being contributors to societies and a stabilizing influence, and the Chinese government should move towards embracing these folks as part of the solution, not the problem.
08/05/2006
Christianity cannot go well with the communist orthodoxy and China is no exception. The Polish Revolution has already demonstrated the destructive power of religion towards the legitimacy of a less democractic government.
The Chinese government has seldom cracked down on ‘private’ religious worship so long as it is not politically organised.