Posted on 11/16/2014 6:04:44 AM PST by marshmallow
The state’s response to this resurgence of faith is an escalating campaign of repression
As he stood in the hot sun and watched a dozen earth movers smash through the walls of the Sanjiang church, Mr Dai felt a great sadness and also fear – for himself and for the future of his fellow Christians. “There were so many police blocking the road and surrounding mountains. They had cut off power to the whole area and blacked out mobile phone coverage and they were trying to stop anybody coming near,” he says.
By pretending to be part of the demolition crew, Dai managed to get through the outer cordon of riot police and huddle with a small group of believers on a hillside watching the massive building collapse under the onslaught. “Words can’t express how traumatic it was,” says the devout Christian, who had travelled from another parish to join members of the congregation trying to protect the church. “I just kept thinking of Jesus’s words – ‘They know not what they do’ – they don’t realise it but they will surely be judged by God.”
The demolition of this towering Protestant cathedral on the outskirts of the coastal Chinese city of Wenzhou on April 28 2014 marked the spectacular launch of a government campaign to curtail the fastest-growing religion in nominally atheist China. There are now about 100 million Christians in the world’s most populous nation, eclipsing the 86.7 million-strong membership of the ruling Communist party. According to western intellectual tradition, modernity is supposed to bring secularisation but in modern Communist China it has been accompanied by an extraordinary rise of religions formerly banned as “opiates of the masses”.
Perhaps most surprising, given its status as a “foreign” religion and its close association with an earlier era of gunboats....
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
What the Chinese Communist Party apparently does not know is that Christianity becomes even more vigorous under persecution.
RE: What the Chinese Communist Party apparently does not know is that Christianity becomes even more vigorous under persecution.
That’s why many of the member of the Communist Party are treading a fine line... not exactly outright banning Christians, but REGULATING them.
And oh, here’s a surprise, according to the article, the biggest printer of Chinese Bibles is actually BASED IN CHINA !
Yeah, but you’d think Satan would have figured it out long ago. I suppose it’s the “this time will be different” arrogance on his part.
China now has the 3 pillars developing that Marxists decry gives Western Civilization its strength: Capitalism, Christianity and Patriarchal Family...
The thing to worry about in China is that their leader said recently that they were going to create their own brand of Christianity. Now that will not stop the underground Christianity that is based in Christ, that missionaries for centuries brought from America.
In fact L. Nelson Bell, the father or Ruth Graham Bell, was a missionary to China, as well as, Pearl S. Buck (Author) and her family; parents: Absalom & Carolyn Syderstriken.
In fact, Pearl S. Buck wrote many books about China and the Christianity planted there.
Here is a list on Wikepedia of the Missionaries from Protestant Churches, although probably missing hundreds from some of the lesser denominations...we don’t know the impact some of these people had on China, it was huge!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Protestant_missionaries_in_China
re: “Yeah, but you’d think Satan would have figured it out long ago. I suppose it’s the “this time will be different” arrogance on his part.”
I think it’s because Satan has such hatred toward God and anyone or anything connected to Him,that he cannot help himself from lashing out again and again.
I also believe that if it were not for God’s restraining hand, not one believer would be left alive by tomorrow morning if He were to remove it.
The thing to worry about in China is that their leader said recently that they were going to create their own brand of Christianity. Now that will not stop the underground Christianity that is based in Christ, that missionaries for centuries brought from America.
In fact L. Nelson Bell, the father or Ruth Graham Bell, was a missionary to China, as well as, Pearl S. Buck (Author) and her family; parents: Absalom & Carolyn Syderstriken.
In fact, Pearl S. Buck wrote many books about China and the Christianity planted there.
Here is a list on Wikepedia of the Missionaries from Protestant Churches, although probably missing hundreds from some of the lesser denominations...we don’t know the impact some of these people had on China, it was huge!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Protestant_missionaries_in_China
“And oh, here’s a surprise, according to the article, the biggest printer of Chinese Bibles is actually BASED IN CHINA !”
Actually the largest Bible printers IN THE WORLD are in China (not just for Chinese language Bible).
Protestants showed up 500 after the Catholics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_Catholic_missionaries_in_China
I believe Chinese are not turning to Christianity.
Just saying.
I don’t think it was a competition, it was a mandate from God...to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So since Roman Catholicism was all there was until the Protestants broke away, I guess that would explain it.
Now let us get BACK ON TOPIC to what we were talking about...MISSIONARIES IN CHINA, which shows why I posted the Protestant Missionaries sent from America TO COVER those in 1880-1900s.
My post had nothing to do with the Catholics in 1200 forward to the REFORMATION, it was irrelevant to the discussion.
“My post had nothing to do with the Catholics in 1200 forward to the REFORMATION, it was irrelevant to the discussion.”
Interestingly enough you don’t get to decide what’s irrelevant to the discussion.
My reply was about AMERICA being the nation to send a flood of missionaries to CHINA..’stay on topic’ no one is saying Roman Catholic church did not have missionaries...Please read about ‘The SECOND Great Awakening’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_missions_in_China_1807%E2%80%931953
Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture
How Rome Went to China
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/romechin.html
Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East
An example of 19th century Protestant bigotry toward Catholicism in China:
Ricci died in 1610. He was the first Catholic missionary who had penetrated into the empire, and had spent only 27 years there in his work; yet when he died, there were more than 300 churches in the different provinces! “What cannot one zealous man do, if his whole soul be directed towards one object! What might Ricci have done, had he dedicated his labors to the blessed Redeemer!”
Ricci was succeeded by Schaal, a German Jesuit, equal if not superior to himself. The prime minister of the new emperor Yungleih, his two principal generals Keu and Chin, the empress dowager, the empress herself, and her son Constantino the heir of the crown, •
were converted to Christianity, and baptized by Koffler, a German Jesuit, in 1650; and the Catholic faith would doubtless have been established as the religion of China, but for the success of the Mantchoo Tartar arms, which placed a new dynasty on the throne. Perhaps in the end we have reason to rejoice in this event, rather than to regret it. Providence seems to have purposely reserved this vast empire for a purer faith, and for this reason prevented it from falling under the yoke of the Man of Sin.
Schaal however, and Verbiest, became favorites with the new government, and the Emperor Shun-che, and Kang-he, who, next to Kublai, was the greatest prince that ever sat upon the Chinese throne, favored the Catholic missions. Yung Ching, his successor, in 1723, was their enemy, and banished all the missionaries, except such as he found subservient to his interests at court, forever from the empire. By this order 300,000 native converts were deprived at once of their spiritual guides; many were cruelly punished; many apostatized; but some steadfastly endured. Perhaps these had really found the Saviour. We would not willingly believe that all the fruit of these missions was chaff. Even in Babylon the Lord has his people, and it might be so here. Successive efforts have been since made by the Catholics to regain the ground lost in China, but with little effect. Regarding them as enemies to the state, as intriguing emissaries of a foreign power, (not indeed without some reason) the succeeding Emperors, Keen-lung, and Kea-king, repeatedly persecuted them. The present reigning monarch, Taou-kwang, who came to the throne in 18i22, has been less hostile, and of late many Catholic missionaries have entered the country; but their principal work is reading mass, and distributing crucifixes and pictures, and the calendars of the Romish church. The number of their converts is said to be 600,000. But they are generally very poor and ignorant, despised and bigoted, a stumbling-block, instead of an honor to the Gospel. They have lately manifested much opposition to Mr. GutzlafFs labors in diffusing the word of God in China. Yet to extend this spurious form of Christianity in China, there are now seminaries for training Catholic missionaries at Macao, Lisbon,”Naples, and Paris, and from 30,000 to 50,000 dollars are expended annually!
The Baptist Missionary Magazine, Volumes 15-16, pages 172-173.
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