[SeekAndFind]

Chinese authorities demolished this church outside Wenzhou, Zhjiang province, on April 28

[Dr. Thorne]

Catholicism is not popular in China because the underground churches where Christ is flourishing don’t have priests and popes to tell them what to believe. They have The Bible. Therein lies their faith. No silly church traditions. No worshiping Mary and other dead humans. Christ alone.

[Alex Murphy]

Fr Michael Kelly SJ is executive director of ucanews.com and is based in Bangkok.

Jealousy is a terrible thing.

[familyop]

"A recent claim by a US-based Chinese academic to London’s Telegraph newspaper – that China would have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030 – was not only exaggerated but also factually wrong."

The false claim referred to by the author was posted here more than once under more than one title (same Telegraph piece). The main message for FR consumption was that China is freer than the U.S.A. Some readers took the bait and commented to that effect. It accompanies the propaganda putsch about mythical Russian exceptionalism.

[cherry]

its easier to be a Protestant....Catholics have all those “rules” to follow.....

[familyop]

“A recent claim by a US-based Chinese academic to London’s Telegraph newspaper – that China would have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030 – was not only exaggerated but also factually wrong.”

The article as posted twice.

China on Course to Become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation’ Within 15 Years
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3146730/posts

More Christians in China than the USA?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3146502/posts

And again, neither China nor Russia are more free than the U.S.A. Bipartisan, political stealth socialists have no cause for cheering claims of victory over deposed private sector Americans. There are consequences for their economic and other errors yet to be realized.

[Sherman Logan]

In a Communist country, they are an easy target for a Leninist administration intent on detailed control.

Aside from rhetoric, I'm curious what is Communist or Leninist about the present Chinese system.

The issues and policies described here can be explained at least as easily by referring back to imperial Chinese response to Christianity and before that to Buddhism.

China has a looonnnggg history, yet the commentary on it generally assumes that only goes back to about 1949.

The systems in both China and North Korea at present have a lot more in common with the systems in place before 1900 than they do with anything Marx or Lenin would approve of. If we don't understand that, we'll have a lot more difficulty dealing with or understanding them.

After all, Communism and Leninism are themselves imports from Europe. Cultural imperialism.

[Sherman Logan]

For example, only the Chinese government thinks that Protestants and Catholics are separate religions.

Uhhhhh.

Present and upcoming comments on this thread are likely to indicate that a good many freeper Protestants and Catholics think that the other team are at minimum not "real Christians."

[redgolum]

So the point is that smaller cell based churches are more able to adapt than the big infrastructure churches like Roman Catholicism to persecution.

What is interesting to me is that at times and in places Roman Catholics have demonstrated the ability to go underground quite effectively. I am thinking of the former Soviet states.

Also, the Lutheran synods in mainland China have some of the same issues. There is a clergy, that typically needs some sort of hierarchy. But they have changed to accommodate the situation and are much more infrastructure independent than most Western Synods.

I suspect that the Catholic church could do something similar. Of course the requirements of oversight from the Vatican is an issue in China. They are very sensitive about foreign oversight of religion.