Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of PowerAikman, David
You won't hear about it from Dan Rather or the New York Times, but there's a new revolutionary movement sweeping China. This movement could, within just a few years, transform China and alter the political alliances and balances of the entire world. It's called Christianity.
Christianity, explains David Aikman in Jesus in Beijing, is growing so fast that by 2050 or even earlier, China could be one of the largest Christian nations in the world. Nor is Christianity's growth unanimously resisted by China's authoritarian top brass. Aikman, Time magazine's former bureau chief in Beijing, reveals that even top Chinese officials -- including former President Jiang Zemin -- have identified Christianity as the secret of the West's success, and want to bring that success to China.
Those officials, of course, want to bring Christianity's economic and social benefits to China, without allowing it to become in any real sense a Christian nation. But Jesus in Beijing provides provocative evidence that those officials may be powerless to halt Christianity's spread, and that both Protestant and Catholic groups are flowering today despite the continuing threat of persecution. Aikman traverses China to interview rank-and-file Chinese Christians and their leaders, establishing beyond any doubt that Christianity is already growing in numbers far beyond the minuscule figures recognized by Chinese officialdom -- and that with those numbers goes influence. He also places Christianity's recent growth in context by recounting absorbing and revealing facts about how Christianity began in China many centuries ago, the bloody anti-Christian persecutions led by the Communists and others, and how Christianity was revived underground in the Communist regime by men and women who were unafraid to risk their lives for their faith.
David Aikman demonstrates that what is happening in China today is what happened to the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago -- nothing less than the Christianization of one of the greatest nations in the world. The results could change the face of geopolitics forever. A few of the startling revelations of Jesus in Beijing:
America's greatest potential ally against radical Islam: a Christianized China
Why so many Chinese, even at the highest levels of government, believe that Christianity was the cause of the rise of the West -- and that it could do the same for China
Why fierce anti-Christian persecution and covert government encouragement of Christianity exist side by side in China
How the Christian underground has won over key members of the Chinese Communist Party
China's unregistered house churches: how they preserved Christianity and helped it grow even during the darkest days of the Cultural Revolution
How Christianity could help China evolve into a stable democracy
The remarkable doctrinal accords Chinese Christians have developed in order to maintain unity in the face of persecution
Why, despite signs of an official thaw towards Christians, the harsh punishments given to practitioners of Falungong meditation techniques boded ill for the safety of Christians in China
How a Christian China could transform not only global Christendom, but long-standing international political alignments