Posted on 08/07/2014 4:32:23 PM PDT by markomalley
China will establish its own Christian theology compatible with the Communist country's socialist principles, state media has reported, adding that the government will promote it in a correct manner through mass programmes. The number of Christians in China is rising rapidly but so is, according to rights groups, the simmering tension with the government.
In April, one of the largest churches was demolished in the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province ending a standoff between members and authorities. Authorities said the 85000 square foot church was demolished because of permission issues and had nothing to do with religious persecution.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) ruled country does not have a formal relationship with the Vatican. China appoints its own bishops who are not recognised by the Vatican.
According to the state-run China Daily newspaper, China now has 23 million to 40 million Protestants, 1.7% to 2.9% of the total population.
"Each year, about 500,000 people are baptized as Protestants. According to the State Administration for Religious Affairs in 2012, the country has about 139,000 approved religious places. Among them, there are about 56,000 Christian churches and gathering sites," it said.
The newspaper was giving figures quoted at a seminar in Shanghai called "Sinicization of Christianity".
Speaking at the seminar, Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, said: "The construction of Chinese Christian theology should adapt to China's national condition and integrate with Chinese culture."
Wang added that Protestant churches in China have developed very quickly in the past decades with the implementation of the country's religious policy.
"In the future, we will continue to boost the development of Christianity in China," said Wang
"Chinese Protestantism's theological education, literature publishing, research, social services and foreign affairs have seen great development. Over the past years, China's Protestantism has become one of the fastest growing universal churches," the newspaper quoted said Gao Feng, president of the China Christian Council as saying.
The government had launched a five-year campaign in 2013 to promote its version of the religion. It will continue to promote "correct" Christian theology with a "range of publications, exchanges, discussions and evangelism".
This is actually positive. China now subtly promoting a new form of Christianity will only hasten people’s growing interest in it, and they will seek the unvarnished truth.
Catholics for Marx [Liberation Theology]
By Fr. Robert Sirico
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 03, 2004
In the days when the Superpowers were locked in a Cold War, Latin America seethed with revolution, and millions lived behind an iron curtain, a group of theologians concocted a novel idea within the history of Christianity. They proposed to combine the teachings of Jesus with the teachings of Marx as a way of justifying violent revolution to overthrow the economics of capitalism.
The Gospels were re-rendered not as doctrine impacting on the human soul but rather as windows into the historical dialectic of class struggle. These “liberation theologians” saw every biblical criticism of the rich as a mandate to expropriate the expropriating owners of capital, and every expression of compassion for the poor as a call for an uprising by the proletarian class of peasants and workers.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=460782B7-35CC-4C9E-A2C5-93832067C7CD
___________________
Obama’s Church: Gospel of Hate
Kathy Shaidle, FrontPageMag.com
Monday, April 07, 2008
In March of 2007, FOX News host Sean Hannity had engaged Obama’s pastor in a heated interview about his Church’s teachings. For many viewers, the ensuing shouting match was their first exposure to “Black Liberation Theology”...
Like the pro-communist Liberation Theology that swept Central America in the 1980s and was repeatedly condemned by Pope John Paul II, Black Liberation Theology combines warmed-over 1960s vintage Marxism with carefully distorted biblical passages. However, in contrast to traditional Marxism, it emphasizes race rather than class. The Christian notion of “salvation” in the afterlife is superseded by “liberation” on earth, courtesy of the establishment of a socialist utopia.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30CD9E14-B0C9-4F8C-A0A6-A896F0F44F02
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Render unto God what is God’s.
China wants to shorten this to: Render unto China what is God’s.
The Soviets did the same sort of thing but failed because the true Christian churches went underground or left.
Why not. They have done the same with Buddhism, Dao and have unsuccessfully tried with Islam. Using the methods perfected in China, Burma now has warrior mobs of monks to do their bidding. Ask the Karen Christians.
Liberation Theology and the KGB
Jay Richards | February 2, 2010
The presence of Marxism in liberation theology is well-known, at least to seminarians who are critical readers. Practically every seminarian reads Gustavo Gutierrez’s Theology of Liberation at some point, but most laypeople find it hard to believe that there could have been (and continues to be) a widespread attempt to hybridize Christian theology and Marxism.
Marxist regimes obviously benefitted from the spread of liberation theology in the churches. Still, I was not aware of any connections between liberation theology and communist clandestine organizations until now.
A new article by Robert D. Chapman in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence begins to connect some dots. In “The Church in Revolution,” Chapman, “a retired operations officer in the Clandestine Services Division of the Central Intelligence Agency,” argues that the KGB infiltrated the Russian Orthodox Church through Metropolitan Nikodim, the Russian Orthodoxy’s second-ranking prelate. Nikodim was a proponent of liberation theology. Nikodim was active in the otherwise-Protestant World Council of Churches. And the WCC, of course, became an actively left-wing organization during the last half of the 20th century.
Chapman also details the growth of liberation theology in Latin America—and the Vatican’s struggles with it—and the growth of black liberation theology in the United States. Prominent proponents of the latter include James Cone and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The arguments of liberation theologians should be challenged on their merits. The source of an argument, after all, doesn’t establish its truth or falsity. Still, it’s interesting to learn that liberation theology may have been, at least in part, a project of the KGB.
Unfortunately, this isn’t just history. Chapman concludes ominously:
“the Theology of Liberation doctrine is one of the most enduring and powerful to emerge from the KGB’s headquarters. The doctrine asks the poor and downtrodden to revolt and form a Communist government, not in the name of Marx or Lenin, but in continuing the work of Jesus Christ, a revolutionary who opposed economic and social discrimination.
A friend of mine, a head of Catholic social services in my area and formerly a priest, is a liberation theologian. He has made a number of humanitarian trips to Central America and told me, ‘‘liberation theology is alive and well.’’ The same can be said of its sibling in the United States [ie, Black Liberation Theology].”
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2010/02/liberation-theology-and-the-kgb/
This is actually positive.
It could be. I don’t know much about it at this point and hopefully the real gospel is allowed.
I don’t. The last thing this world needs is to see the violent, revolutionary overthrow of the government of a nuclear state, still less the one which is second only to the United States.
Is this where Jesus blesses the sushi and egg roll?
“I’ll have the number 6 Commandment and a side of number 4...”
Don’t forget Jim Jones either. And don’t forget the shadow of Christianity that Britain, Finland, and Denmark’s government churches have become.
I believe the Norway shooter who killed some 60 people went to a state sanctioned church where church officials are appointed by government.
Japan, too. Face alone will be one of their primary tenants.
He who sits in heaven laughs in scorn...
“compatible with the Communist country’s socialist principles”
Perhaps they are just getting in synch with some of the pope’s statements...
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