China: Christian v Communist
Europeans sent missionaries to Africa a couple of centuries ago. Now, Africans are sending missionaries to all those pagan white people and their empty churches. Europe is being Islamized, while China is being Christianized. If I'm not mistaken, Christianity also spread to the disaffected Roman cities first, just as it now seems to be doing in China. If God exists, He must have a sense of humor. I'm not a religious man myself, but neither am I among those stupid atheists who think Christianity and Islam are "all the same". I keep bashing China here, and I do believe it has bigger internal problems than many people realize. My view is close to that of Mark Steyn: China has no chance of rivalling the USA. The 21st century will belong to the Anglosphere, with India as an honorary member. But a capitalist and increasingly Christian China may well leave Socialist and Islamic Europe behind:Christian v communist
Richard Spencer reports today from Beijing that there may now be more practising Christians in China than there are members of the Communist Party. The precise figures cannot be known, in a country in which Christians are still persecuted. But the evidence suggests that there may be as many as 80 million or even 100 million members of underground Christian churches in China, unapproved by the state. The Chinese Communist Party, meanwhile, has only 70 million members. If those figures for worshippers are even roughly accurate, then we are looking at a very remarkable development in the history not only of Asia but of all mankind. Xun Jinzhen, a Christian convert who runs a beauty salon in Beijing, put it eloquently when he said: "We have very few people who believe in communism as a faith. So there's an emptiness in their hearts."
Christianity is China's new social revolution
Protestantism and Catholicism are among the approved faiths, the others being Budd-hism, Taoism and Islam. Buddhism and Taoism claim most worshippers but the state-sanctioned churches count up to 35 million followers. More significant are the underground or "house" churches, which are said to have 80 or even 100 million members. "City people have real problems, and mental pain, that they can't resolve on their own," said Mr Xun. "So it's easy for us to convert these people to Christianity."
Converts inspired by democracy protests and western values
Among China's Christian converts are some of the most prominent figures from the 1989 Tian-an-men Square democracy protests - now mostly in exile. "I think human beings need something at a spiritual level," he said in Hong Kong, where he now broadcasts on labour issues for Radio Free Asia. "We don't want to believe we are coming from nowhere; going nowhere. "In China we have traditionally followed Buddhism. We had quite a deep religion. But communism destroyed everything."
posted by Unknown @ 9:37 PM
2 Comments:
Christianity has been growing in China for more than a century (even counting the Mao jackboot period) and should continue to do so. It is interesting to note that during the "Rape of Nanking" it was the foreign Christian community that saved thousands of Chinese civilians from the Japanese, a fact that is well known to the Chinese public.
Actually, it was a movement against western hegemony and foreigners in general, but missionaries (and many Chinese Christians for that matter) were a visible target.
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