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China tears down thousands of Crosses; destroys churches

nota bene

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I followed a link from Drudge just now, and although the headline’s source is not reputable (it’s the UK's Express), the facts aren’t in dispute, and many sources from the NY Times and WaPo to HuffPo have reported on the ongoing attempts to smother Christianity in the People’s Republic of China.

Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign.
It also claimed that since the beginnning of 2016 to early March, 49 Churches had been destroyed in the rampage to abolish Christianity. Christian’s horror as China tears down THOUSANDS of crucifixes | World | News | Daily Express

One partial explanation from WaPo:

As my colleague William Wan reported a few years ago, long-ingrained fears of foreign infiltration and imperialist plots underlie China's official wariness of religion. Christianity also poses an obvious challenge to a nominally atheist, authoritarian leadership that has a hard time accommodating a plurality of belief systems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-removing-crosses-from-hundreds-of-churches/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/w...es-in-campaign-against-christianity.html?_r=0

NCRegister | Sino-Vatican Talks Advance

Ironically, where Christianity is suppressed or merely “controlled,” it tends to thrive. I think that the People’s Republic of China is blundering here and nurturing rebellion and disobedience to the state.
 
I followed a link from Drudge just now, and although the headline’s source is not reputable (it’s the UK's Express), the facts aren’t in dispute, and many sources from the NY Times and WaPo to HuffPo have reported on the ongoing attempts to smother Christianity in the People’s Republic of China.

Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign.
It also claimed that since the beginnning of 2016 to early March, 49 Churches had been destroyed in the rampage to abolish Christianity. Christian’s horror as China tears down THOUSANDS of crucifixes | World | News | Daily Express

One partial explanation from WaPo:

As my colleague William Wan reported a few years ago, long-ingrained fears of foreign infiltration and imperialist plots underlie China's official wariness of religion. Christianity also poses an obvious challenge to a nominally atheist, authoritarian leadership that has a hard time accommodating a plurality of belief systems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-removing-crosses-from-hundreds-of-churches/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/w...es-in-campaign-against-christianity.html?_r=0

NCRegister | Sino-Vatican Talks Advance

Ironically, where Christianity is suppressed or merely “controlled,” it tends to thrive. I think that the People’s Republic of China is blundering here and nurturing rebellion and disobedience to the state.
I would assume dem socialist, imyoda, jet57 and a few others are beating off right about now.
 
I don't believe that China follows the USA's 1st Amendment.
 
I followed a link from Drudge just now, and although the headline’s source is not reputable (it’s the UK's Express), the facts aren’t in dispute, and many sources from the NY Times and WaPo to HuffPo have reported on the ongoing attempts to smother Christianity in the People’s Republic of China.

Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign.
It also claimed that since the beginnning of 2016 to early March, 49 Churches had been destroyed in the rampage to abolish Christianity. Christian’s horror as China tears down THOUSANDS of crucifixes | World | News | Daily Express

One partial explanation from WaPo:

As my colleague William Wan reported a few years ago, long-ingrained fears of foreign infiltration and imperialist plots underlie China's official wariness of religion. Christianity also poses an obvious challenge to a nominally atheist, authoritarian leadership that has a hard time accommodating a plurality of belief systems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-removing-crosses-from-hundreds-of-churches/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/w...es-in-campaign-against-christianity.html?_r=0

NCRegister | Sino-Vatican Talks Advance

Ironically, where Christianity is suppressed or merely “controlled,” it tends to thrive. I think that the People’s Republic of China is blundering here and nurturing rebellion and disobedience to the state.

This is China, and it is still a Communist state.

They do not recognize any religion as anything but a sop for the masses which must be eliminated. Why would Christianity be treated any differently?

This source CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA - True Numbers, Issues & Persecution (admittedly biased) estimates 168 million Christians in China as of 2014.

However it goes on to say
...this number still represents only about 12% of China's 1.4 billion people

I don't think the Chinese government is very concerned about these citizens getting upset about anti-Christian policy.
 
I would assume dem socialist, imyoda, jet57 and a few others are beating off right about now.

Not as much as you appear to be right now but, if that is what gets you going then have at it.

The point is that China is an authoritarian regime where the State is effectively the religion and Christianity will most likely appear to be a foreign invasion. Our problem is that we, and particularly our business culture, love cheap Chinese labour and believe that it means that China is ready to have a cultural trade with us.
 
I would assume dem socialist, imyoda, jet57 and a few others are beating off right about now.

i am but thats just becase of the porn i got open on another tab
 
This is China, and it is still a Communist state.

They do not recognize any religion as anything but a sop for the masses which must be eliminated. Why would Christianity be treated any differently?

This source CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA - True Numbers, Issues & Persecution (admittedly biased) estimates 168 million Christians in China as of 2014.

However it goes on to say

I don't think the Chinese government is very concerned about these citizens getting upset about anti-Christian policy.

they seem to like religion when its under ther control
 
So the question I have is this:

Is China only targeting Christian churches and symbols? Or are they basically trying to control ALL religious things but this particular "press release" only mentions Christian things because they know that's going to incite the most reaction from their readers?

I mean, who really cares if China is also tearing down mosques, and temples? Right?
 
I don't believe that China follows the USA's 1st Amendment.

There's a lot of American politicians who don't follow it too. Maybe the Chinese have noticed (how could you not) the way religion becomes a corrosive influence to rational behavior and, ultimately, challenges ALL existing, deliberative, man-made authority with an alternative, magical one. Whether it's Islam or Christianity, the search for personal meaning evolves into an oppressive, totalitarian strategy for how to deal with other people. God is an opiate that, eventually, numbs the public to their own stupidity and threatens civility.

Personally, I think they would do better to acknowledge that people need existential answers and learn to utilize that innate desire in a healthier way than the Abrahamic religions have offered. If history has taught us anything, it's that one religion replaces another which replaces another. Humankind just needs a superior replacement paradigm. Preferably, one that is not so violent and dogmatic.
 
There's a lot of American politicians who don't follow it too. Maybe the Chinese have noticed (how could you not) the way religion becomes a corrosive influence to rational behavior and, ultimately, challenges ALL existing, deliberative, man-made authority with an alternative, magical one. Whether it's Islam or Christianity, the search for personal meaning evolves into an oppressive, totalitarian strategy for how to deal with other people. God is an opiate that, eventually, numbs the public to their own stupidity and threatens civility.

Personally, I think they would do better to acknowledge that people need existential answers and learn to utilize that innate desire in a healthier way than the Abrahamic religions have offered. If history has taught us anything, it's that one religion replaces another which replaces another.
Humankind just needs a superior replacement paradigm. Preferably, one that is not so violent and dogmatic.



What humankind needs and what it gets have historically not always been the same thing.

Some people will be selling snake oil until Hell freezes over.

:lol:
 
So the question I have is this:

Is China only targeting Christian churches and symbols? Or are they basically trying to control ALL religious things but this particular "press release" only mentions Christian things because they know that's going to incite the most reaction from their readers?

I mean, who really cares if China is also tearing down mosques, and temples? Right?

You're trying to hijack the topic. Please don't.

I'm guessing that you didn't bother to click on any of the links I provided.

And perhaps you're unaware that the People's Republic of China thinks that Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, is such a problem that it has created its own government-approved "Catholic" Church. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Association
 
And to answer your rhetorical question, I would be just as horrified if mosques or temples were torn down or anybody's sacred artifacts destroyed. Please consider how eager the Taliban and now ISIS have been to destroy what the rest of us would call, whether we're "religious" or not, priceless treasures.
 
I don't think that pointing out China's general wariness of (any) "outside" religions hijacks the topic at all. As such Islam (with currently more adherents than Christianity) is as protected by Chinese standards as Christianity is but is also subject to the same scrutiny. .

Of course one may criticise the standards altogether, nevertheless the general Chinese take is that any religious group is obliged to not interfere with the state or its stability. Leaving, of course, plenty of room to define that "interference", be the definition justified or not.

Nevertheless one may doubt that the aggressive proselytizing efforts undertaken by fundamentalist Christian groups in Tibet (to name just one instance and in a far away territory at that) are a singular case not designed to appease Chinese wariness. The same can be said for Uighurs and other Muslims that try to expand their faith with often aggressive methods.

There's a simple deal with Peking, "don't annoy us and we won't annoy you".

Where it appears to go totally unnoticed that the crosses being demolished were illegal by Chinese regulations (erected without permission), it should also be noted that the "rectification" campaign was put into motion by a provincial government and that the demolitions occurred in that same province (Zhejiang), the "rectification" campaign for the greater part of China having issues such as compliance with building instructions and town planning in general.

Of course a good opportunity for the locals to use the campaign, no doubt.

That China (from way before adopting the Marxist view on religions) should be leery of Western interference should come as no surprise. One need study only the history of Chinese-Western relations to get some understanding of how Chinese fears are not totally down to paranoia.
 
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I don't think that pointing out China's general wariness of (any) "outside" religions hijacks the topic at all. As such Islam (with currently more adherents than Christianity) is as protected by Chinese standards as Christianity is but is also subject to the same scrutiny. .

Of course one may criticise the standards altogether, nevertheless the general Chinese take is that any religious group is obliged to not interfere with the state or its stability. Leaving, of course, plenty of room to define that "interference", be the definition justified or not.

Nevertheless one may doubt that the aggressive proselytizing efforts undertaken by fundamentalist Christian groups in Tibet (to name just one instance and in a far away territory at that) are a singular case not designed to appease Chinese wariness. The same can be said for Uighurs and other Muslims that try to expand their faith with often aggressive methods.

There's a simple deal with Peking, "don't annoy us and we won't annoy you".

Where it appears to go totally unnoticed that the crosses being demolished were illegal by Chinese regulations (erected without permission), it should also be noted that the "rectification" campaign was put into motion by a provincial government and that the demolitions occurred in that same province (Zhejiang), the "rectification" campaign for the greater part of China having issues such as compliance with building instructions and town planning in general.

Of course a good opportunity for the locals to use the campaign, no doubt.

That China (from way before adopting the Marxist view on religions) should be leery of Western interference should come as no surprise. One need study only the history of Chinese-Western relations to get some understanding of how Chinese fears are not totally down to paranoia.

It's not just western influence they're opposed to. Just ask any practitioner of Falun Gong.
 
I don't believe that China follows the USA's 1st Amendment.

It is actually a crime to be a Christian in china and you can be put in prison for a long time.
one pastor there that was caught is serving 12 years in prison.
 
I followed a link from Drudge just now, and although the headline’s source is not reputable (it’s the UK's Express), the facts aren’t in dispute, and many sources from the NY Times and WaPo to HuffPo have reported on the ongoing attempts to smother Christianity in the People’s Republic of China.

Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign.
It also claimed that since the beginnning of 2016 to early March, 49 Churches had been destroyed in the rampage to abolish Christianity. Christian’s horror as China tears down THOUSANDS of crucifixes | World | News | Daily Express

One partial explanation from WaPo:

As my colleague William Wan reported a few years ago, long-ingrained fears of foreign infiltration and imperialist plots underlie China's official wariness of religion. Christianity also poses an obvious challenge to a nominally atheist, authoritarian leadership that has a hard time accommodating a plurality of belief systems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-removing-crosses-from-hundreds-of-churches/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/w...es-in-campaign-against-christianity.html?_r=0

NCRegister | Sino-Vatican Talks Advance

Ironically, where Christianity is suppressed or merely “controlled,” it tends to thrive. I think that the People’s Republic of China is blundering here and nurturing rebellion and disobedience to the state.



This was brought up at a guest sermon at our church last fall. The missionary was saying that China, having even Buddhism suppressed for decades, the people are hungry for God. And while they have "disappeared" a few Christian leaders, so far they have no worsened treatment of missionaries, however the living conditions they are afforded are dark ages.

But he was saying their numbers have been growing and as the hammer comes down, they go deeper underground.

What I find ironic to the degree of disgusting, is that the US ignores much of this and plays nice with Bejing. In the meantime, until Obama little Cuba has been called "bloodthirsty" and still the right goes ape**** that Obama opened the door to talks.

Cuba at its worst was a playground in comparison to China, and yet presidents have to go there and pay homage, while the hate has been directed at Cuba for 50 years.
 
It is actually a crime to be a Christian in china and you can be put in prison for a long time.
rubbish
one pastor there that was caught is serving 12 years in prison.
Where the charges were definitely trumped up and the whole proceeding demonstrably a farce by our standards, they were not about being Christian.

The salient point here is that any form of public opposition to the gubmint in China is dangerous, be that opposition voiced by atheists, Muslims, Christians of Pastafarians.
 
It is actually a crime to be a Christian in china and you can be put in prison for a long time.
one pastor there that was caught is serving 12 years in prison.

That is a bit of misinformation. A Chinese person can belong to any of 3 churches, and there seems to be a law against them meeting foreingers,

Christianity in China, Its Rise and Features

Chinese Christianity is different than traditional European or American Christianity in that women are usually the leaders in the churches and groups. Women are usually the majority at house church meetings or Three Self Church services. Chinese Christianity tends to be Pentecostal. This means that they regularly pray for miracles and believe in miraculous “gifts of the Spirit.” The house churches of educated and wealthy Chinese tend to be service-oriented and mindful or global issues and problems. For example, after the big earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, many house churches funded volunteers who went to rescue victims and finance their rebuilding efforts. Foreigners in China can attend Three Self Churches, but there are some laws against foreigners and Chinese Christians meeting together, so foreigners in China usually go to foreigner-only churches. Some of these foreigner churches in big cities are large. The house churches emphasize giving money and resources and taking care of needs of Christians more than in European and American churches. The Three Self Churches are big and impersonal. The government approved “Catholic” (Tianzhujiao) Churches are not Roman Catholic because they are not allowed to have direct contact or obedience to the Roman hierarchy in Rome. These churches have little participation though Tianzhujiao Church buildings are common in the cities. Eastern Orthodoxy is little known among Chinese, except in places like Harbin close to Russia.
 
rubbishWhere the charges were definitely trumped up and the whole proceeding demonstrably a farce by our standards, they were not about being Christian.

The salient point here is that any form of public opposition to the gubmint in China is dangerous, be that opposition voiced by atheists, Muslims, Christians of Pastafarians.

you are 100% wrong.

Is there still persecution of Christians in China today? - Resources - Eternal Perspective Ministries

you really need to educate yourself about the subject before making assumptions of what goes on.
 
all controlled by the government. I wouldn't exactly call those churches.
your own link even says so.

Well, they are controlled by the government, .. but just because you wouldn't call them churches doesn't mean they aren't churches.
 
you are 100% wrong.

Is there still persecution of Christians in China today? - Resources - Eternal Perspective Ministries

you really need to educate yourself about the subject before making assumptions of what goes on.
It might help if you stuck more to truthfulness.

Your claim that the pastor was jailed for merely being a Christian remains false and the link you supplied does nothing to support your false claim.

So don't give me this muck about my needing to educate myself. If you know too little to truthfully comment on the actual conditions of Christians in China, go and heed your own advice. Maybe, instead of relying on whatever you can dig up on the net in support of your agenda, go and work there as I have done.

Note also that I'm not even remotely suggesting that the situation in this issue is anything other than deplorable. But that's not taking anything away from the fact that your claim was false in its representation.
 
There's a lot of American politicians who don't follow it too. Maybe the Chinese have noticed (how could you not) the way religion becomes a corrosive influence to rational behavior and, ultimately, challenges ALL existing, deliberative, man-made authority with an alternative, magical one. Whether it's Islam or Christianity, the search for personal meaning evolves into an oppressive, totalitarian strategy for how to deal with other people. God is an opiate that, eventually, numbs the public to their own stupidity and threatens civility.

Personally, I think they would do better to acknowledge that people need existential answers and learn to utilize that innate desire in a healthier way than the Abrahamic religions have offered. If history has taught us anything, it's that one religion replaces another which replaces another. Humankind just needs a superior replacement paradigm. Preferably, one that is not so violent and dogmatic.

Accepting the use of authoritarian (and often brutal) measures to crack down on modes of thought that you disagree with probably isn't be best approach to building a progressive society.
 
It was common to nations that called themselves "communist" to target religion, any religion. Alternate belief structures make it harder to win absolute obedience.

Hence, somewhat similarly, the Romans killed Jesus after he developed a sufficiently large group of followers to perhaps make trouble for the local Roman magistrates, were he so inclined.



In contrast, European and South American rulers realized that they could pull things off more efficiently if their story was that they ruled by divine right, or were at least semi-divine themselves. See also Egyptian pharoahs. Etc.
 
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