On Sunday, President George W. Bush attended a church service at one of four state-sponsored Christian congregations in the People's Republic of China, Gangwashi Church in Beijing. He had this to say after the service was over:
THE PRESIDENT: Pastor, Laura and I thank you very much for your hospitality. Our friend, Luis Palau, from America, is here, as well. You gave a great sermon. The spirit of the Lord is very strong inside your church. We thank you for carrying a message of love, like you did.
You know, it wasn't all that long ago that people were not allowed to worship openly in this society. My hope is that the government of China will not fear Christians who gather to worship openly.
A healthy society is a society that welcomes all faiths and gives people a chance to express themselves through worship with the Almighty. So we welcome -- we really thank you for letting us come by, and we ask for God's blessing.
Thank you all.
I have to ask this question: Would it really be a good thing for China to declare that all forms of Christianity are allowed to meet openly and freely, without fear of persecution or the requirement of registering with the government? Would one of the greatest movements of God -- I am talking about the millions of underground, "house church" Christians in China right now -- be stifled by such legislation? Would some Christians still choose to meet in secret, reproducing communities of faith quickly and organically and not bowing to the strong-armed Chinese government?
The reality of the coming of the kingdom of God is spreading the fastest within the most "closed" countries to Christianity -- China, India, and many African countries. Small, reproduceable communities that embrace fully the working of the Holy Spirit in their midst are spreading across these "closed" countries like wildfire, and one must ask if supporting the founding of more "state-run" churches in China (or any of these countries, for that matter) is the best thing for the kingdom of God. It seems to me that where Christians are on the margins, there they are the most fervent and the most obedient disciples.
We have friends headed to China to study Mandarin and eventually settle down there. Friends, do you have anything to add on this subject? Am I completely off-base?
6 comments:
I think there's a difference between the state banning religion and the state sposoring one. There's a definite middle ground, as U.S. citizens know. The American government doesn't support an official religion, so many types are allowed to co-exist.
I think that it's right to hope that China will allow Christians to congregate and worship openly. Doing that is not the same as establishing a state religion, and I can't see how the Christian movement there would be hurt by eliminating the inherent fear that accompanies the underground churches.
Well... it's complicated. There are missiologists and Chinese church leaders who explicitly don't pray for the persecution to stop and are afraid that Western Christians will get too involved in a free-er Chinese church and mess it all up (can't say I blame them!). But at the same time, an accurate picture of China's unregistered churches is not a romantic, idealistic one. Churches on both sides of the Pacific have a lot to learn from each other.
And for the record, the official government-controlled legal churches are more Western than the unregistered ones.
I didn't hear anyone saying we have to know the exact number of unregistered churches, Sean. What I heard was that we can learn from each other. I'll let our "anonymous" friend answer your second question, though -- I don't have much credibility on the subject (especially on what THEY can learn from us).
Interesting FYI, though: Alan Hirsch are releasing a book called Dangerous Stories in which they bring insights from the Chinese House Church movement into the wider emerging missional church conversation. Wish I had that in front of me right now.
I should emphasize that the situation with the official churches and the unregistered churches is much more complicated than what usually gets expressed in Western Evangelical churches. The unregistered churches aren't all good, and the official ones aren't all bad. Who you want to work with really requires a case-by-case treatment. The "Registered vs. underground" debate was off-limits at the last big China missions conference we went to.
That, and we don't really know much - we just read a lot and talk to people with experience.
By "idealistic picture" I'm not talking about numbers (quantity), but the idea that the Chinese unregistered churches don't have significant problems and shortcomings (quality). Western churches and Chinese churches have a lot to gain from each other. The majority of unregistered churches are rural, poor, less-educated, and elderly. Families in China in general are in a bigger crisis than ours are, and they don't fare too much better in the unregistered churches. Many 'successful' church leaders are divorced. With some networks it's hard to tell (from Chinese and Western perspectives) what's a cult and what's a church. Chinese society is changing ridiculously fast due to our cultural imports, but the bulk of the underground church developed an articulation of Christianity under the Communists.
There are big changes in our own society and we feel the struggle to express our faith in relevant ways - but China's changes are even bigger. How is a peasant farmer with a Grade 3 education supposed to train up his children in the Lord when those kids are migrating to the increasingly-Westernized cities?
I sure don't want to make it sound like we need to get over there and tell them what's up, just that neither church really has much right to take a superior attitude over the other one. Each church will speak to the other with more or less authority in different areas. There is plenty to criticize us for, and we'd be doing them a favour to not export much of our Christianity.
If you're getting a cut-and-dry, black-and-white picture of the Chinese church situation, I'd recommend you take it with a couple grains of salt. I haven't even scratches the surface here. If you want I can shoot you some articles (PDFs).
Speaking of us going over there and screwing things up for the underground church, check this out:
Louis Palau Betrays the Suffering Church
Palau China Outrage: "Christians, Register Your Churches"
I received this in a China e-mail news digest from ZGBriefs:
Luis Palau Apologizes for Remarks on Religious Freedom in China (December 2, 2005, CNS News)
American evangelist Luis Palau has apologized for saying during a recent weeklong visit to China that the religious freedom situation there was better than expected, and for saying that “underground” Christians should register with church associations set up by the government. Palau’s trip coincided with a visit by President George W. Bush, and he was invited to attend a church service in Beijing with the president and first lady. In an interview with the official China Daily newspaper, Palau called for unofficial churches in China to register with the government bodies. In response, the South China Church said in a statement that 16 of the denomination’s leaders were in prison, and more than 1,000 of its pastors, evangelists and believers had been jailed since 2001. Palau said he regretted some of his comments. “It’s not my role as an evangelist to suggest that churches in China should register,” he said. “My role is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.”
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