How China Should Respond to the Rise of Religion
I write this post with no small amount of trepidation. It seems that whenever I write about religion, I get myself in trouble. In this instance, I run the risk of not only getting blocked by the GFW, but also angering a lot of religious people. Oh well, it’s Monday, everyone’s already upset.
First thing’s first. Bill Schiller wrote a lengthy, informative piece in the Toronto Star on recent crackdowns in China on Christian “house churches.” Highly recommended, particularly if you don’t keep up with this issue on a regular basis.
Schiller’s article is definitely worth reading in its entirety, but for the purposes of this post, his main point is that: 1) the government is cracking down on Christians; and 2) the reason is that the movement is seen as a significant threat to political stability. Some experts in the past have noted that if too many Chinese adopt an alternative belief system, they will stop believing in the legitimacy of the Communist Party. I think that is overdoing it a bit, but there is no doubt that religion is seen as a threat to the political establishment.
I wanted to briefly discuss the basic policy options for Beijing in response to the growing numbers of Christians (100 million!) in China. The choices are:
1) Embrace diverse belief systems and stop regulating entirely.
2) Allow diverse belief systems but maintain a low-key regulatory environment (e.g. some sort of expanded licensing or registration system).
3) Discourage religion and crack down on its practice.
My Liberal leanings point me in the direction of option 1, as I feel strongly that folks should be allowed to believe whatever they want. However, when I put on my econ/development hat on, I’m pushed more towards option 2. Despite my status as a muscular atheist, I would still never go with option 3; people should not be forced to adopt a certain belief system.
So what makes me so sure that government ought to play a role in regulating religion in China? It’s all about economic development, with education being a key component of China’s plans to move onward to an “innovation society.” To be painfully blunt, I believe that religion (particularly fundamentalist Christianity) fosters irrationality and can erode a nation’s science literacy. That would be antithetical to China’s plans for the future.
I’m not going to play the statistics game here (this post would be way too long if I went down that road) in order to prove my general point. Perhaps one anecdote as an illustration of my assertion, from Scientific American:
U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the big bang as factual than adults in other industrial countries.
When presented with the statement “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” just 45 percent of [American] respondents indicated “true.” Compare this figure with the affirmative percentages in Japan (78), Europe (70), China (69) and South Korea (64). Only 33 percent of Americans agreed that “the universe began with a big explosion.”
I would also point out that some of the lowest performing U.S. States when it comes to education just so happen to have large numbers of Christian fundamentalists (I won’t even get into other issues like teen pregnancy and divorce rates). I don’t think that is a coincidence. I’m not connecting all the dots here, but I believe that on the whole, large-scale adoption of Christianity in China would be a negative long-term influence on education/knowledge.
If you agree that the government has a certain level of responsibility in educating its citizens, then you can see why a rapid rise in Christianity might alarm a government. Sure, political stability is the number one concern, but the dissemination of superstition and an anti-science bias would definitely bother me if my job was in any way connected to establishing an innovation society.
If a huge increase in the spread of religion is potentially damaging to China’s long-term development plans, what should the government do about it? Again, outright restrictions are tough to enforce and foster a great deal of resentment among “true believers.” No one needs that headache.
However, in addition to an open door policy, with reasonable registration requirements1 and limits on intrusive proselytization, I would not be averse to a strong public information and education campaign that could ensure that some of the more damaging and discriminatory beliefs of certain religions are adequately addressed. I am thinking long-term here. Let’s continue to keep religion out of politics, education, and law and make sure that all citizens continue to receive mandatory schooling based on facts and not on superstitious belief.
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- Some cults spout off ideas that are extremely harmful to society. Others even promote violence. A neutral registration system that allows the government to keep track of these people sounds scary and certainly could be used for nefarious purposes, but I think it is necessary.[↩]
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I opt for option 3. While I agree that people should not be forced a specific belief system, the assumption that Christianity (or other religions) aren’t forced is simply false. Most people are Christian due to parental brainwashing and/or peer-pressure. You don’t need to go to a church to be a good Christian. A church is simply a place where peer pressure ensures you stick to your “freely chosen” beliefs.
As for China specifically, I’ve found most Christian and Muslims (not referring to Uygurs, but to Han muslims in Beijing, Shenzhen, etc.) to be extremely simplistic in their religion. I belief this can proof to be very dangerous in the long run. Numerous of job applicants explicitly assure me they are Christian, hoping it will land them a job with the (assumed Christian) foreigner. Not to mention some proud Han muslims saying that (not knowing the English word for muslim) are “fans of bin laden, you know?”.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that Christianity in China is anything like it’s anywhere else. Many Chinese that become Christian do so because they are desperate to belief in something new, not because they have a spiritual connection with what the religion stands for.
To your last point first, religion is all the same to me (and I mean this in a negative way), so whether someone is a “real” believer or not seems to be irrelevant. Same rules should apply to everyone.
As to whether religion is force-fed to kids (this is an argument of Dawkins), you are preaching to the choir. Of course it is. Again, though, I would rather not get in between a child and its parents, so I don’t go there with public policy. Parents have a role, but so does the State, which should ensure that these kids are given the opportunity to learn objective truth.
The question is whether to allow aggressive proselytization by adults, and I saw that there is a line to be drawn. Some of these folks are predatory and despicable, and the government needs to look out for vulnerable members of society. So no carte blanche for proselytization.
I am sorry but your argumentation sounds a little bit racist.
You kinda say that though religions are generally not a good thing, but for some people (like Chinese) they are especially dangerous.
Analogy to your statement –> guns are bad, but in the hands of kids they are especially bad – so lets make a law banning kids from owning guns.
I’m going to take issue with your causal inference here, Stan.
You state that the lowest performing states also have large numbers of fundamentalists. That’s a definite correlation, but you can’t just assume it is religion that causes poor performance (assuming you mean economic and/or educational performance here). Maybe it is some other factor, low income, for example, that causes both poor performance and acceptance of fundamentalist religion. If that were true, then all efforts to stamp out fundamentalist religion would be futile because you haven’t addressed the root cause.
If we want to single out one’s belief choices as causes of problems, perhaps we could blame China’s official atheism for problems we see in China. For example, China’s government is officially atheist. China has human rights problems … Ergo, China’s atheism causes human rights problems. Perhaps China should also stamp out atheism…?
I think it’s difficult to prove causation on some of these things, and yes, there are multiple factors at play here. That being said, I think many people would agree, for example, that teen pregnancy and the contraction of STDs has a tendency to go up in places where they don’t teach sex ed in school. Fundamentalists in a number of places have succeeded in pushing abstinence only programs, which do not include giving kids information on birth control.
The science education point is much more difficult to prove with respect to causation. Poor people in the US, by and large, get crappy educations and are less likely to know about the Big Bang and other issues. All I would say, though, is that if you consistently teach your kids that virtually all the scientists out there are wrong, that will have a negative influence on how that child respects science. If you want kids to grow up to be engineers and inventors, that’s a very bad message to send.
Probably no surprise, but I don’t think your atheism analogy holds up. Many countries out there are not very religious (e.g. parts of Europe), and yet we do not see high levels of human rights violations. However, in countries that are very religious, we do certain problems. That is an entirely different argument, though (i.e. whether on the whole, religion is good or bad for a society). I’d defer to Hitchens or Dawkins on that one – they make a much better case than I can.
The point about religion and poverty is a good one. I have never seen studies about this, but I assume that poverty (and substandard education) plays a role in people being attracted to religious fundamentalism. But I do think that certain religious points of view are more damaging than simple ignorance, and can therefore explain some of these survey results. An ignorant person might not have any idea how old the earth is, for example, but a fundamentalist Christian might insist it is 6,000+ years old. To my mind, someone with a poor education is ignorant of facts, while a deeply religious person often invents his own facts. I don’t think China (or anyone else) should encourage that kind of thinking.
Stan,
The atheism analogy wasn’t intended to hold up.
While I agree that fundamentalist Christianity can lead to ignorance, I also don’t think we can assume mutual exclusivity between religion and scientific inquiry. I have no doubt that we can find Christians, Jews, Muslims and Atheists working shoulder to shoulder in labs all over the US, from Harvard to Silicon Valley. It doesn’t seem to have hurt the US any.
On the other hand, China, despite its self-imposed atheism, is hardly a bastion of global innovation.
My point? Religion, or lack thereof, simply isn’t a major factor in either the US or China when it comes to scientific thinking. If it were, the US would be ripping off Chinese IP right now instead of the other way around.
Yeah, I’m with you on the point that religion is not a major factor. My (slightly manufactured) point was that there are other considerations/motivations for regulating religious activities, education and general scientific knowledge being one of them. I’ll stick to that narrow point.
Moreover, I’m worried about the future. I don’t like educational trends in the U.S., and some of the more egregious examples of eroding standards are happening in fundamentalist Christian areas. China is still on the way up and hasn’t had to deal with this sort of issue yet.
BTW, I hope that my original post did not suggest that religion and scientific inquiry are mutually exclusive. I don’t agree with that. However, at its core, religion is irrational and undermines rational thinking and science. The two can co-exist fairly well, but cannot mesh completely.
Religion is irrational, I agree. And atheism is a religion. Nobody can know if there is a God, or if there isn’t. I personally make my belief that there is based on the evidence before me.
Oh and high teenage pregnancy and fundamental Christianity? Please visit North Manchester, or any run-down suburb of any city in the UK. You’ll find no evidence of fundamental Christian beliefs, but plenty of teenage pregnancy.
Your arguments simply don’t hold up, and you reveal an awful lot about your prejudice against Christians. That kind of irrational thought is exactly what you claim to be against, but clearly you are not.
Oh and by the way, I’m a Christian economist with a PhD, and I know an awful lot of other Christians with PhDs. Why does belief in God stop us trying to find out more about this amazing place God created?
Yeah, I get that a lot. You are making a standard argument against so-called “New Atheism” by trying to put it on the same level as a religion. I believe that folks making this argument have a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism is. I would direct you to this explanation on Eugene Volokh’s blog: http://volokh.com/2010/07/15/atheism-agnosticism-and-certainty/.
When I was younger, I called myself an agnostic. I felt very good about myself; I had no proof of God, but I was keeping an open mind about the whole thing. Then I read Dawkins et al and realized that agnosticism has its limits. Moreover, atheists like myself never say that we have evidence to disprove the existence of God. That’s ridiculous. What we do say is that in the absence of any shred of evidence, why should we entertain the possibility? Dawkins uses examples of unicorns and pink elephants. No evidence for the existence of those things either, but no one in their right mind would call themselves “agnostic” on the question of whether unicorns exist, right? Why should the issue of God be any different? This to me was a persuasive argument, and I started self-identifying as an atheist instead of an agnostic.
Either way, this is mostly semantics. The point is that there is no evidence of the existence of God, or any god. Believing that there is one is an exercise of faith, which as you point out is fundamentally irrational. Now, many religious folks, such as yourself, can also believe in science and the scientific method. That’s great. But a lot of religious people have some very strange beliefs that interfere with scientific pursuits, personal privacy, human rights, etc. As a government, I’d want to keep an eye on those groups, particularly those outliers that preach about the earth being 6,000 years old and that evolution is a discredited theory.
With respect to teenage pregnancy, I don’t believe I was arguing that religion was a proximate cause. I would say it is a contributing factor in some places, either because of views against birth control, or because (as in the U.S.) they have succeeded in implementing “abstinence only” programs, which studies have shown are not as effective as traditional sex education. I would assume that poverty is a more significant factor than religion when it comes to teenage pregnancy, but that does not knock down my argument.
Hate to say it, but I still don’t get the difference between atheism and theism from what you’re trying to say via your link.
You say: “Not a shred of evidence” having looked at the same set of “documents” that I look at and say “more than enough evidence for me”. You conclude “no God”, I conclude “God”. We both take a position based on the evidence. Why, then, are you allowed to patronise my position by talking about fairies and other ridiculous things? They are both positions of faith, and you can keep trying to convince yourself they are different – but you cannot say with any certainty “there is no God”, just as I can’t say with certainty “there is a God”.
I guess you’re well suited to be an economist really. You take your position, which is only a position you’ve come to based on the evidence around you, and you raise it to the level of absolute truth, and that anyone who believes anything different is wrong, deluded, etc.
By the way, I assume you’ve seen your man Dawkins in debate with John Lennox? If not, try out http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate.
Very interesting stuff.
Well, these things are difficult to convey to folks on the other side of the issue. I thought that the post I linked to did a pretty good job of it, and I’m not sure I can do better. Religion always comes down to faith, which is not a conclusion based on evidence. I haven’t arrived at my position on the existence of God based on the evidence because I’ve never seen any. What am I supposed to look at as “proof”? As with unicorns, there are no photos or similar evidence, so I don’t see why I should treat the two differently.
Just a reminder, again: I am not saying with a certainty that there is no God. However, since I have no evidence that there is one, my answer to the question “Is there a God” must be “no.” That seems extremely straightforward, and I think that is the basic atheist position.
“Must”? Why must? It can be “no”, or it can be “yes”, based on what you feel/think/believe a God should be like.
I know, I know, I might just be playing semantics here, but a lot of meaning gets carried between the lines.
Now since you are throwing metaphors around, like pink elephants and unicorns, let me use them too.
Nobody knows what unicorns and pink elephants do, while God (in monotheistic sense) is the creator and keeper of everything, who has been around since before the beginning of time as we know it.
So, assuming such a God exists, please tell me why would he conform to any rules that puny human being such as ourselves to how he should operate? Do you think it is wise to let a 5 year old kid become the president of China?
I can exchange “should” with “must” if you like. The point is that with no evidence, the only responsible/rational choice is “no.” Again, very straightforward.
How do you know that there isn’t a pink elephant who created the universe? Seems to me that you only think that something we call “God” is the creator because someone told you or you read a book about it. To me, that evidence is quite specious.
Saying that God doesn’t conform to the rules of the universe is a great position. It is impossible to support and/or discredit. Again, when I am faced with something that cannot be supported with evidence, I discount it. End of story.
I’m not sure I understood the five year old kid example, unless you’re saying that we puny humans (sounds like someone is channeling The Hulk) are in no position to fathom the greatness of God. If God exists, sure, but you can’t use that argument to prove the existence of God in the first place. We are back again to Unicorn the Great, Lord Creator that we cannot see or hear.
Stan, you don’t like when people assume things about you, so don’t assume about me. I’m a rebellious brat and I have a huge problem doing things “just because someone told me to”. I have been given more than enough evidence to be convinced. If you say you haven’t I’m cool with that.
The main problem with the Pink Elephant/Unicorn metaphor is that it comes straight out of Schopenhauer’s manual on how to win a debate without being right. Dawkins expressly picks up the unicorn and the pink elephant to ridicule faith. You cannot honestly expect anyone to see this as a bona fide argument.
And when atheists set out to “proselytize” people out of their beliefs to start believing what they believe… Well, I completely understand why atheist hate being called religious, and why they set out to attack religion. It’s just very ironic how they become what they hate the most when they start organizing themselves.
It’s so ironic it is funny.
I guess I don’t read enough or talk to the right people, because I’ve apparently overlooked all that convincing evidence all these years. Strange, that.
The pink elephant argument is useful to distinguish between atheism and agnosticism. It is elegant in its simplicity, and unless you can come up with that convincing evidence on the existence of God, it is also quite logical.
Challenging someone’s belief is not proselytization. Atheists do not seek to replace religious belief with another belief. That being said, I generally do not go out of my way to get in someone’s face and call them out on their religious beliefs. I even rarely do so on my own blog, this post being an exception.
“Evidence” is a very, very personal thing. Also, the most compelling evidence I got AFTER I believed. Some people get it before. People have very different stories in their experiences with God. You strike me as someone who never really cared about it from how you describe your personal story. Have you ever had a moment of search in your life?
The argument of the pink elephant is weak at its core, simply because it wasn’t created in good faith, as I said before. It was constructed to ridicule faith, not a honest questioning. Yes, it’s logic, but that doesn’t mean much. You can build many logical trains of thought that aren’t true just by choosing your statements.
How about we change the color and the animal? Instead of a pink elephant, how about a black swan? If you spoke of black swans before 1697, people would have said they didn’t exist, because nobody had seen one. Then one guy saw them, but some people still didn’t believe. And then more and more people saw it until everybody believes they exist now. Is this argument any less logical than the pink elephant?
That guy, Nassim Taleb wrote a whole book about the problem of knowledge. That why an agnostic’s doubt makes much more sense than an atheist’s certainty.
When you say things like: ““Evidence” is a very, very personal thing. Also, the most compelling evidence I got AFTER I believed.” I realize we are on very very different wavelengths. That just makes no sense to me at all.
Also, when logic just doesn’t mean much, I have no basis for an argument. I think I better sign off this thread now, but I did appreciate the discussion.
That’s precisely my argument. You can build a logical argument based on any premises you want. That is a flaw of arrogance that marks many atheists. Their “scientific” logic isn’t the only possible logic.
That’s why most discussions of this type are useless. Unless both parties acknowledge that they are coming for different places and that what they hold as basic truth isn’t necessarily what the other thinks.
“Challenging someone’s belief is not proselytization”. Funny that. You criticise Christians for doing just that, but it’s ok for you to then? I’d love to know what the difference is between what you’re doing, challenging peoples’ beliefs, and what Christians do in missions, which is challenging peoples’ beliefs.
I’m really struggling to see the difference here.
At the risk of sounding patronizing, it seems that we are using different definitions of the words “evidence” and “faith.” I’ve always been very open to listening to people who claim to have evidence that would back up their religious beliefs, but whenever you drill down, logic flies out the window and we’re back to faith. That’s just not convincing to me.
This might be a poor example, but this is the way I see it:
1. Why do you believe in X? What evidence is there for X?
2. You should believe in Y.
Seems like a big difference to me. Also, and I probably don’t need to point this out, but atheists do not traditionally walk up to people and try to “convert” them to anything. They don’t go on missions, do not lobby for atheism-based laws, etc. Atheists generally keep to themselves, and it’s only recently that they have spoken up. I for one have never gone out of my way to seek out a religious person and challenge their faith, and yet I’ve been accosted by folks from several religions during my lifetime trying to tell me that their specific belief is somehow the right one.
Faith is not something you believe in absence of evidence, it’s something you believe because of evidence. You have faith in politicians, or you don’t, based on their behaviour. I have faith in God because of the evidence for the existence of God.
I do love the attempt you make to sound like you’re somehow above this debate, but the fact is you are not. This patronising attempt to portray yourself as having ascended to a new wonderful level of intellect that the rest of us poor beings can’t possibly attain to.
You have faith that there is no God based on how you process the evidence. I do the opposite and have faith there is a God. So as a result, please do me a favour and put away all the insults and patronisations, it doesn’t reflect well on you.
Religions, their underlying faith and fundamental beliefs vs. the resulting organized religions are two different thing. Organized religions are man made and by default, flawed. Thus regulations to protect the innocent masses from abuse and exploitation is necessary. Something as mundane and earthly as how monies are collected from donation or government subvention, or cheaper lands to build places of worship are all matters that deserve serious consideration.
Someone in Hong Kong figured out a loop hole and to exploit the absence of land use control over land granted to religious organizations a few years back. Most religious leaders here are now either busy counting monies from ludicrously profitable property schemes with big developers through use of land granted years ago, or are busy hatching their next property scheme. Of those who are early movers, there are no system of accountability on the use of funds or mechanism to ensure that such earthly possessions are put into “good” use. One Christian church is currently charged with profits tax avoidance by the Inland Revenue Department in the tune of hundreds of million dollars through such creative interpretation of land use restrictions granted to the site they were given by the government years ago.
Ultimately, it is down to the regulations and the regulators and most importently, the practitioners. If one looks at organized religions from an organizational point of view, trusting in the practitioners to walk the right path is no different than people’s faith in banks. Abuse can come both from the state as well as the organized religions. I am sure that there were plenty people at Lehman Bros or Bear Stearns who believed in what they were doing, and sadly, there were plentiful faithful followers too.
Agreed. Organized religion is the greater of the two evils.
Chinese Govt Universities and schools across the country are full of Christian fundamentalists packaged as English language teachers who secretly preach and proselytize on the side, both to their students and into the communities around them. Many receive healthy enough stipends / allowances from their churches abroad so they are unconcerned about the RMB4,000-5,000 salaries paid by their host organisations for their teaching work.
The rest of the foreign community in China (including other foreign teachers) barely notice because they remain very low profile and certainly don’t frequent the same bars as we do
While I don’t know much about their internal organisation, it appears they are fairly well organised and well funded for their ‘outreach’ work. Googling evangelical sites in the USA shows a lots of information on fundraising efforts and evangelical efforts into converting those ‘Chinese communists’ including large numbers of people coming in.
How tedious! I hope they get the boot. China much better off without them.
Amen, brother. Ever since the “Jews for Jesus” attempted to brainwash my father while he was in the hospital recovering from post-stroke brain damage at the time, I’ve loathed all forms of proselytization. Preying on poor folks and the mentally ill to make your quota is disgusting. This feeling predates my current heathen atheist positions.
Stan,
I am a great admirer of your blog and were inspired by it many times. Hoewever on this piece I think you are on very thin ice and we should go back and read our Max Weber!
Eventhough I certainly understand certain requirements for regulations in this area I think economic reasons should not be at their heart.
Why not economic development reasons? That and territorial sovereignty are the only jobs this government has.
Mathew. Please give me a quote from Weber concerning religion. You would be hard pressed. Weber concerned himself with the development of western bureacracy, not religion.
The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach… what about Christian Pizza in China?
http://www.christiansinchina.com/2010/06/20/christian-pizza-in-beijing/
Pizza is always granted a special dispensation.
I think the anti-religious vitriol spewed forth here reveals the true state some of the commentator’s educational attainments. Education is much more than doing your time 4+ years in some institution of higher education somewhere. A truly liberal education would include learning view the subject from all angles, including the angle of those whom you despise. I am open-minded enough not to limit myself to a narrow “liberal” or atheistic viewpoint. However, I realize that not everyone is committed to being intellectually honest, but rather most are interested in creating their own fantasy world where they are the arbitrators of what is real and what is foolishness.
I say: leave the Chinese alone. Let them decide what is good for their country. Do not pontificate upon matters which are none of your business. Who are you who dream to be more able than the Chinese people themselves? That is a Western imperialist attitude if I’ve ever seen one.
You’re right. I should not pontificate on China issues. They should discuss this amongst themselves. I hereby announce that China Hearsay will be shutting down immediately, and I will henceforth “leave the Chinese alone,” starting with my wife. I will return home and start California Hearsay, since I should only opine on matters that are “my business.”
On the other hand, since I haven’t lived in my native California since 1993, perhaps what goes on there is no longer my business either. Hmm. I lived in Boston for a few years, and DC for a couple also — both times chasing questionable academic achievements. I wonder if I still have sufficient ties to any of those places to merit issuing opinions? Probably not.
That would make me a man without a country. I heard that was a good short story, but given my suspect educational achievements, you would not be surprised to learn that I never actually read it.
By the way, I do enjoy it, and find it ironic, when religious folks claim that not they, but the atheists “are interested in creating their own fantasy world where they are the arbitrators of what is real and what is foolishness.” I believe that is called projection.
Sorry, I meant responder’s, not commentator’s, referring to the singularly virulent ones (you know who you are). I have the utmost respect for Stan, and I agree at least with the result of his position.
Also ironically, I think we all create our own fantasy world to some extent at least. But since this is not specifically about psychology, I will have to leave that for some other day.
About the Chinese: Since my wife is also Chinese, perhaps I am responding to the inner call to defend China (as if it needed defending). I regret if it came off as offensive. I meant it as a jolly joust.
Education, in the sense that I mean it, means tolerance. Just thought I’d clarify. I am decrying the lack of tolerance on the part of some.
Heh. Your position seemed directly in opposition to what you just said in your clarification. I’m confused, but we’ll leave it at that.
I am really amazed that given the abundance of natural and man-made disasters in 2010 – massive drought in the south, serious and unrelenting floods, the weekly bridge and mine disasters, etc – that these house churches have not turned to preaching an apocalyptic, End Times version of Christianity. If I was an opportunistic preacher, that would be the way to break away from the competition.
Instead interviewees in the article talk about harmony, principles and morality and the distribution of power in Chinese society (Nice quote: politics is not the exclusive preserve of the Party).
A few years ago, the unit of propaganda or whatever it is officially called, distributed a set of dvds to upper echelon Party members focussing on the lessons to be learned from the breakup of the old Soviet Union and the role of Catholicism and Solidarity in Poland. And the lesson: don’t give an inch or it will open the floodgates to competing loci of power.
One thing is certain. The CCP has a major league problem in gestation here. Bulldozing churches wont change Christian hearts and minds, If anything, Chinese christians will simply become more intractable in their beliefs. (As Ive noted on CD, I would love to be a fly on the wall in one of these churches, and hear how they interprete biblical passages, parables etc.)
Western missionaries in 19th century were not exactly a big success story. The very small number of “rice Christians” they converted simply joined up to establish a bit of guanzi in a generally chaotic society. The irony. Now that China is a united and an economically powerful empire (not nation state), a rapidly spreading western belief system has the potential to unglue the whole gig.
Western democratic societies can and are pretty inept and inefficient, but they have a number of institutions – parliaments, independent judiciaries, NGOs blah, blah – to soak up and mediate societal frustrations in times of stress unlike China. And China is one stressed out society at the mo.
Apologies for this follow up post, but by way of illustrating my point about End Times Christian opportunism, google Eastern Lightning Sect – a sort of Mansion type movement replete with a real space cadet mash up of biblical beliefs. Roundly denounced by more mainstream Chinese Christian churches. ( A quick scroll thru English- Chinese christian sites is enough for one to consider applying for a position in the PSB.)
Since I lived in Fuzhou (where christianity is going gandbusters) for years, here is a pretty interesting read prepared by the Refugee Review Panel for the Australian Federal Govt.
[PDF] China – Fujian – Fulin Kuangye An Xi Ri Christian Church – Eastern … File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
Three Grades of Servants and another quasi-Protestant sect, Eastern Lightning, were among the largest charismatic and evangelical church groups. …
http://www.mrt-rrt.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/71/chn33251.pdf.aspx
This post is ridiculous. I expected more from a thoughtful guy like you, Stan. I am not going to waste my time arguing the point, only to say I think it’s a ridiculous argument you make here.
GE Anderson is correct in his analysis and your replies seem a bit off the mark. I am not sure you totally understand his point.
At the risk of sounding patronizing myself, I don’t know what your definition of faith is, but I do think that our definitions of evidence are similar. The difference would lie in “what constitutes valid evidence” (maybe I’m just playing semantics here).
In the end, it becomes very personal. A friend back in Brazil describes his own struggles with faith. At a point, he was standing at a pier in our home town on a day with a very low tide. He said “If God really exists that water down there will wet me”. As he turned around, certain God didn’t exist, a freak wave out of nowhere came and left him soaked. Is this evidence, or just a coincidence? All I can say is that for him, it seemed impossible to get wet, yet that’s precisely what happened. Did it convince him of God’s existence? No. He actually had 2 other similar experiences to start taking the idea of God seriously. The point is that he was honestly seeking.
My impression (and it’s impossible not to sound patronizing here) is that many atheists and agnostics aren’t really seeking, they just want to be proven right.
For me, the idea that God would bow to the tenets of human-created rules such as science is preposterous. This would turn Him into a circus monkey, who makes fireballs if all the conditions are met. Science is the study of nature, and if God could be boxed into science, it wouldn’t be called the supernatural.
This whole topic is complex and cannot be put here. We can talk it over a beer if you want.
You really want to mix religion and alcohol? Brave man.