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> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims

by tivert 8y ago

> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims of China’s authoritarian government and Mr. Xi’s embrace of traditional Chinese culture and Confucian teachings that emphasize obedience and order. > But the government’s heavy-handed efforts to obliterate several high-profile churches have been met with resistance among Christians.... > “If you see the police, national security or community workers greet them with gentleness,” Wen Hongbin, an elder at Xishuipang, told the congregation. “If they try to grab the microphone, I ask the brothers sitting in the front row to please stop them.” ... > Independent churches like Early Rain, with more than 500 members, have attracted large followings in recent years, especially among white-collar workers seeking an escape from rampant materialism at the center of modern Chinese life. > While sermons at state-sanctioned churches are often tightly scripted, independent churches boom with searing indictments of corrupt officials and rousing calls to protect the rights of the poor.... > “I saw injustices in society,” Mr. Gu said. “I saw that the government’s promotion of China as a just country that enforces laws in a civilized manner was all a lie.” > Worried for his own safety, Mr. Gu recently closed his business, hoping to avoid government scrutiny. He said he has grown fearful as he has watched the police arrest his friends. These people are much braver than I am, and I wish them peace and strength to overcome these trials.

StevePerkins 8y ago
> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims of China’s authoritarian government This is the part that confuses me. I'm not sure what Christianity intrinsically promotes (ask 12 Christians and I suspect you'll receive 13 conflicting opinions). But practically speaking, governments and ruling classes have used it for nearly two-thousand years to promote social order and subservience. It's been used to justify the Crusades, and slavery. Within living memory it's been used to justify Jim Crow laws, and the Salvation Army used as a tool against labor union organizing. It's been used to promote leftist regimes in Catholic South America, and the far-right "Protestant work ethic" class structure in the USA. It's been used everywhere to enforce a social order based on strict sexual norms and patriarchal gender roles. Christianity became one of the Top Two religions on earth, precisely because of how malleable it is. In other words, in practice, it tends to promote whatever the ruling class in a given place and time WANT it to promote. It's been that way since Emperor Constantine. So why try to violently suppress it? That's never been an effective strategy. Just co-opt it, and make it promote whatever Chinese/Confucian values you want like everyone else does.
- wbl 8y ago
  You also had William Wilberforce and Oliver Cromwell. Co-option can only go so far: they have state run churches, but those don't appeal to people. See also Dissenters in England during the industrial revolution.
- skymt 8y ago
  China has party-authorized Christian churches with exactly your goal in mind. This crackdown is on unauthorized churches. For an example of how they frame it in propaganda: http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0807/c90882-8766262.html http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0807/c90882-8766262.html
  - acqq 8y ago
    It matches what’s written in the OP article: “The government has focused its campaign on unofficial Christian churches that promote ideas like social justice or have been critical of the party’s grip on society.” And knowing what’s documented about the CIA activities in the past, which include using religion(1) I fully understand that attitude. 1) See https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview but also what was yearx before: https://www.npr.org/2010/06/05/127500908/cia-fight-against-communism-bolsters-radical-islam https://www.npr.org/2010/06/05/127500908/cia-fight-against-c...
    - candiodari 8y ago
      Focused ? Why that word ? That's very different from only unofficial churches ? This is a fact that comes back in the stories of Chinese people very often: it doesn't matter how "approved"/legal or tolerated something is. Parts of the government go after it. Parts of the party are in open war with eachother, to the point that they send child services after eachothers' children, police after restaurants that commit the crime of allowing political rivals to eat there, and then there's the occasional moral panic, which is the most disruptive. Every now and them some fact will make the news, through social media most often. This may be quality of goods (food for children happened once, but has likewise happened with houses, animal feed, ...), relationship stuff (e.g. a young couple, a girls pictures "leaking", in some cases outright racism (romeo and juliet couple), ...) someone dying from exhaustion while gaming, a few people very sick or dead from food poisoning, hospitals getting caught abusing psychological patients, ... and then the police will take "action". By that of course we mean arresting hundreds whose only crime is to be in the same street as where the news event happened. Or arrest everyone under 16 out after 18h. Or arrest everyone including owner and customers in every internet cafe, or real cafe. Or ... They're innocent. Doesn't matter of course. They get convicted. And yet, under normal circumstances, anyone in China will tell you it's absurd what you get away with.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by tivert 8y ago

StevePerkins 8y ago

> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims of China’s authoritarian government This is the part that confuses me. I'm not sure what Christianity intrinsically promotes (ask 12 Christians and I suspect you'll receive 13 conflicting opinions). But practically speaking, governments and ruling classes have used it for nearly two-thousand years to promote social order and subservience. It's been used to justify the Crusades, and slavery. Within living memory it's been used to justify Jim Crow laws, and the Salvation Army used as a tool against labor union organizing. It's been used to promote leftist regimes in Catholic South America, and the far-right "Protestant work ethic" class structure in the USA. It's been used everywhere to enforce a social order based on strict sexual norms and patriarchal gender roles. Christianity became one of the Top Two religions on earth, precisely because of how malleable it is. In other words, in practice, it tends to promote whatever the ruling class in a given place and time WANT it to promote. It's been that way since Emperor Constantine. So why try to violently suppress it? That's never been an effective strategy. Just co-opt it, and make it promote whatever Chinese/Confucian values you want like everyone else does.

wbl 8y ago
You also had William Wilberforce and Oliver Cromwell. Co-option can only go so far: they have state run churches, but those don't appeal to people. See also Dissenters in England during the industrial revolution.
skymt 8y ago
China has party-authorized Christian churches with exactly your goal in mind. This crackdown is on unauthorized churches. For an example of how they frame it in propaganda: http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0807/c90882-8766262.html http://en.people.cn/n/2014/0807/c90882-8766262.html
- acqq 8y ago
  It matches what’s written in the OP article: “The government has focused its campaign on unofficial Christian churches that promote ideas like social justice or have been critical of the party’s grip on society.” And knowing what’s documented about the CIA activities in the past, which include using religion(1) I fully understand that attitude. 1) See https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview but also what was yearx before: https://www.npr.org/2010/06/05/127500908/cia-fight-against-communism-bolsters-radical-islam https://www.npr.org/2010/06/05/127500908/cia-fight-against-c...
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Focused ? Why that word ? That's very different from only unofficial churches ? This is a fact that comes back in the stories of Chinese people very often: it doesn't matter how "approved"/legal or tolerated something is. Parts of the government go after it. Parts of the party are in open war with eachother, to the point that they send child services after eachothers' children, police after restaurants that commit the crime of allowing political rivals to eat there, and then there's the occasional moral panic, which is the most disruptive. Every now and them some fact will make the news, through social media most often. This may be quality of goods (food for children happened once, but has likewise happened with houses, animal feed, ...), relationship stuff (e.g. a young couple, a girls pictures "leaking", in some cases outright racism (romeo and juliet couple), ...) someone dying from exhaustion while gaming, a few people very sick or dead from food poisoning, hospitals getting caught abusing psychological patients, ... and then the police will take "action". By that of course we mean arresting hundreds whose only crime is to be in the same street as where the news event happened. Or arrest everyone under 16 out after 18h. Or arrest everyone including owner and customers in every internet cafe, or real cafe. Or ... They're innocent. Doesn't matter of course. They get convicted. And yet, under normal circumstances, anyone in China will tell you it's absurd what you get away with.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]