I have had an online born again Christian friend there for several years GREAT GAL So hungry to learn more, so fascinated by our technologies that can provide resources for her spiritual growth. Our churches. Our preachers and religious leaders. Yet sadly, sometimes links I send her are blocked by her government. Still, the hunger to worship a loving God and Savior transcends all.
This is certainly great news, so the following comes merely as an explanation for the Chinese former fearfulness of Christianity, not trying to dump any cold water:
One of the bloodies wars in human history, dozens of times bloodier than the Crusades, for instance, was the Taiping rebellion, wherein Hong Xiuquan revolted against the Manchu’s Qing Dynasty. 20 million died.
Hong had a vision about a heavenly man complaining that people were worshipping demons. After consulting with a Southern Baptist missionary, Issachar Roberts, he decided this man was Christ, and set out to destroy all Chinese religion. (Roberts may have refused to baptize Hong, or this failure to receive a baptism may have been rumor spread by jealous Western missionaries.)
Hong clearly was heretical; his knowledge of Christianity came exclusively from reading poor-quality Chinese translations of it, and he probably misunderstood much. For instance, he is known to have kept concubines. I’ve seen it stated that he believed himself to be the brother of Christ, but I don’t know enough to know whether this was people misunderstanding Christian brotherhood from his own poor understanding.
Early on, Mao admired Hong, seeing his as a revolutionary against corrupt and brutal power; Chinese historical interpretation blame the reign of terror on Mao’s subordinates; After Mao’s Deng Xiaoping successfully had revolutionized China, and executed all of Mao’s “Gang of Five.” Today’s Chinese government fears Falun Gong may result in another Taiping rebellion. They’re probably somewhat less fearful of house Christianity because it is so decentralized.