The Times yesterday reported on how well the Bible is now doing in China, both for Chinese readers and as yet another manufactured-in-China export:
One book a second glides off the production line at this joint venture between a Chinese Christian charity and the United Bible Societies, a Protestant organisation. Amity has been printing Bibles since 1986. The new factory will have a capacity of one million Bibles a month, increasing the current output by one third.
… Authorities at the officially approved Protestant and Catholic churches put the size of China’s Christian population at about 30 million. But that does not include the tens of millions more who worship in private at underground churches loyal to the Vatican or to various Protestant churches.
Of the 50 million Bibles Amity has printed, 41 million were for the faithful in Chinese and eight minority languages. The rest have been for export to Russia and Africa. Sales surged from 505,000 in 1988 to a high of 6.5 million in 2005. Output last year was 3.5 million and is expected to rise in 2007.
Does this mean that China will behave more nicely in the future than it is behaving now? An American commenter on the above piece reminds us that Christianity and niceness do not always go hand in hand:
After several visits to China I became concinced that if China ever turned ti the God of the Bible, God would bles that nation. It apears that China is turning and God is blessing. Will China become God’s instrument in brnging destruction to a Western Civilization that is becoming increasigly athiest, immoral and blastphemus toward the God of the Bible?
And its spelling has not been improving lately, either.
God will not long toledrate a society that has denigrated His word and His Christ in ways that are so filthy that it is beyond imagining. God is going to judge America and China just might be that instrument. …
Charming.
Speaking as one of the “athiest” and “blastphemus” ones, I do nevertheless concede that Christian congregations scattered around the landscape can do dramatically good things economically. Small groups of mostly decent people, constantly urged to refrain from frivolous consumer spending and to treat each other with kindly and thoughtful reciprocity, can become hugely productive. This in its turn causes others to join in, perhaps for rather less spiritual reasons than those which animated the prime movers, but in ways which also end up improving the newcomers morally, to the general betterment of economic life, among much else. So this process will surely strengthen the Chinese economy, provided only that it is allowed to take root.
But what will then be done with China’s economic strength? Unlike Islam (which positively encourages it), Christianity offers little justification for war making. But by contributing mightily, in the indirect and rather surprising ways described above, to the making of the means to fight wars, it nevertheless does encourage warfare, indirectly. Christian powers have fought wars because they did become, almost in spite of themselves, Christian powers. They fought, in other words, and fight still, because they can.
If a somewhat Christianised China veers away from the warlike pattern set by the West, it will be because the weaponry of all-out war has recently become so much more destructive than was the case when the Christians were fighting most of their wars, rather than because Christianity has become any more persuasive at making people nicer to foreigners of whom they know little.
I have a memory of Deng saying that if there was one thing he could have, it would be that China became Christian. Anyone remember this? Or able to provide a reference?
Or am I talking absolute shite?
I have read estimates that, including the hiddens (Marano Christians?), there are between 60 – 90 million Christians in China now, two to three times the official number quoted in the article.
That is a lot, given that evangelism is frowned on.
Why would Deng want China to be Christian? He wasn’t planning on becoming a second Prester John? Surely Daoism or something was closer to his schtick?
I get on quite well with athies, and if they’re a bit athier, I can usually handle it. It’s the athiest that can sometimes be a bit tiresome.
As to the relationship between Christianity, (or any other religion), and war – it’s an indirect one.
Wars are tribal. Religion, political ideology or ethnicity can be the glue that binds the tribe together in a warlike purpose, but it is the tribe that makes war.
Having said that, some religions lend themselves to warlike tribal leaders better than others.
Part of me wants to rejoice that this would appear to represent _some_ increase in individual freedoms in China.
The other – far more insistent – part of me despairs at the idea of religion rather than reason making its’ resurgence anywhere on the planet.
I believe South Korea is about 30% Christian these days. Think of it as a secret sauce. You may not believe in God, and neither do I, but the culture that comes along with Christianity carries a lot of pluses for the public sphere. Separation state and conscience, charity, and community being among them.
part of me despairs at the idea of religion rather than reason making its’ resurgence anywhere on the planet.
The record of “reason” in the last century is hardly a recommendation. Reason served the same old human impulses and enabled many of the worst. When reason sits the throne human nature stands close behind and whispers in its ear.
Tanuki, you mean secularism, not reason. Reason is something that both the religious and atheists alike can possess, and that is attacked equally by both groups.
There is nothing new under the sun. The things you dislike about governments have happened in every stage of human history, though they were worse under secular states in some cases. History changes, but human nature does not change.
You might as well just accept the fact that it will always be this way, barring divine intervention.
chuck,
By “reason” I assume you mean Marxism, Keynesian economics and National Socialism. All three aren’t my definition of “reason”. My definition is science and technology and quite frankly we did OK on those oer the last hundred years. My wifes Grandmother had Polio as a kid and that just doesn’t happen anymore.
Your argument that there is some kinda “Royal Road from Descartes to Dachau” is facile. That it’s facile is demonstrated by your peculiar belief that religion is a good thing without having any faith. If it’s a bunch of fairy tales it ain’t a good thing. That’s utterly fatous. What is Christianity then? A C21st version of the Platonic Noble Lie? We all know what that was for don’t we! It was to bolster a totalitarian state.
No matter how community spirited or charitable I became from going to church it would be a pathetic charade if I didn’t believe in God. And you know what? I somehow suspect the clergy and the worshippers would think me a total charlatan or at least somewhat deranged if they found out I am, and always have been, agnostic verging towards atheist. I was mates with a lad who (briefly) took communion for the very simple reason that he fancied a believer. I thought that somewhat low.
time for a sneak attack with Rashi and the Rambam to tikkun olam their asses. besides nobody stays angry when they eat a lot of babka and blintzes.
I used to agree with your sort of view in entirety, Nick M. But it was actually seeing Martin Scorcese’s particular take on the life of Jesus that made me realise quite how radical (and potentially individualist) Jesus could be intepreted. Bonkers but apparently in a good way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGJP7ppejcM
Of course, Christianity has been co-opted into a great many authoritarian systems over two thousand years but I would much rather people were examining Jesus’ life than Mohammed’s, or Marx’s or (frankly) J. S. Mill’s!
Also Christianity has a tremendous advantage over every other religion at the moment: Archbishop Desmond Tutu who seems to be consistently right on moral issues.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who seems to be consistently right on moral issues.
Except for Israel, he has joind the side of the lunatics on this one.
Well, it’s all in how the Chinese use their Christianity, isn’t it? Very few religions are truly bad, all have questionable passages, but the actions of any violent believers would make most rational persons take a second glance at any religious tome. A good religion with bad followers can make any religion seem evil, controlling, and a bad idea.
At it’s base, religion is a spiritual tool that anyone can pick up and use. They key is how they use it.
Ok, I have no idea what any of that means. Not even a little.
I can certainly think of one.
It would be interesting to see where the rise in Christianity is occurring inside China. Is it mainly a rural phenomenon or an urban one? Or both?
Does it attact the poor who feel bypassed by the dash for capitalism or the middle classes who feel there must be something more to life than this?
Why are the current religious/ideological belief systems being discarded by many Chinese?
Perhaps studying this phenomenon can give us some insight into the extrordinary spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire all those years ago.
You thinking of Buddhism’s persistent links with slavery, feudalism, and marxism, Perry? Or are you thinking of the other great suicide bombing faith?
Christian theology was heavily influenced by Classical Greek and Persian theology in its formative days. What effect will Confucian thought have on it as it grows in China? And will that spread once Chinese Christian missionaries start moving into the outside world when China starts relaxing? Which it will.
Lest anyone forget that it was the Christian faith that facilitated the birth and growth of freedom and liberty in Europe. It was the reformation against Medieval Catholicism that brought about literacy, equality, suffrage etc. The Christians helped found liberal democracy in both England and the U.S. They helped end slavery in the British world. Even the very concept of separation of church and state (“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s) is Christian.
I think you’ll find the tamil Tigers are Hindus, JOE
Well I have never shilly shallied. I am an atheist.
But if you had to pick a fiction to tell people, then Christianity will do them a lot less harm than most others.
Good luck to China. I’d rather see them rational than religious. But then I think most of them just have getting rich on their mind already.
RAB.
atheistic humanism, the religion of genocide. I’d rather see them religious than rational. the “rational” solution to things is stuffing them in ovens, purges, starvation….. 100 to 200 million people killed by their own “rational” governments in about 70 years.”rationally” the intrinsic worth of your average person is something less than the going rate of beef chuck.
Perry:
They’re not completely bad. Without satanism, there would have been no good music at all in the 1980’s.
I have this funny feeling that the approved churches may interpret Scripture in ways that the rest of us might not be willing to own.
I can only imagine that Romans 13 gets heavy rotation in a state-approved church in a socialist thugocracy like the PRC.
Anybody with personal knowledge?
sunfish,
well, I can tell you that is a problem where I go here in the US. collectivist charity is stressed a lot more than individual works so it wouldn’t surprise me to see a chinese jesus with a red star on his hat in china. maybe a little red gospel.
Venom fan?
Spidly,
Re. your “sneak attack” idea, don’t think it hasn’t already started. Chabad is on the case.
I’m kidding a little; sadly Chabad doesn’t proselytize much at all. But I’m sure it will have some sort of effect.
The big question is whether the P.R.C. regime will allow the Christians in China to be part of churches that are based in other counties – or whether they will continue to insist on “Patriotic Churches” that are controlled by the athiest regime.
If churches are not allowed to break through the dividing lines between “Our Land” and the rest of the world (which is supposed to become part of “Our Land” at some point) then it is a bit of a farce.
That being said, the strength of the underground churches (in the face of persecution) is a sign of hope for China and the world.
I hope that the West (for example the Roman Catholic Church) does not betray the Christians in China and make some shabby deal with the government.
Paul marks makes a good point. Other than who is in charge, what differences exist between the Patriotic Catholic Church and the Roman one? Does the party insist on theological additions, or do they just not care so long as the government is not criticized? I have heard of the Pope appointing bishops “in petto”, that is incognito, to communicate with the underground church. Rome isn’t making many waves with Beijing right now, but then Rome always takes the long view. Look at what happened in Poland. The party there thought the new Cardinal was a quiet scholar. Imagine their shock when they discovered that he had secretly built an army of the best minds in the country, one student at a time. Those 50 million Bibles are going to explode one of these days, when Beijing least expects it.
One thing nobody has twigged to is that this is a protestant effort. The Catholics have a somewhat more expansive view of the canon and so some other people are churning out a like number of Bibles with nihil obstats (the episcopal mark that certifies that there are no theological errors in a translations) Protestants tend not to appreciate that mark and Catholics/Orthodox don’t like Bibles without them.
You’re only catching half of the game here.
It is very interesting to see Christianity debated here by agnostics and atheists and yet no one seems to ever ask the most important question.
What if it’s true?
I mean rationally speaking, there is no reason to discount the possible veracity of the Biblical accounts other than your own professed faith in materialism. But materialism is very hard pressed to answer for – the origin of life, the incredible fine tuning of the universe for life, the conscience, the appearance of free will. All of these things the materialists claim will eventually have a good scientific explanation. But right now, with the available evidence we have, the most rational explanation for the existence of us and our ability to rationally discuss these issues is, “There is a God”. It is actually only your faith in atheism that allows you to belive that materialism will eventually prove to be the correct answer.
John Hansen
What if my aunt had balls? Would she be my uncle?
Whether or not any given religion is actually ‘true’ isn’t relevant to the discussion of what effect it has on Chinese society. Which makes your post come off a little troll-ish. This is probably one of those places where trying to convert people will mostly annoy them.
And that’s speaking as a practicing Protestant of some sort or another. There’s a time and a place and this isn’t either.
Does anybody have a link to the actual doctrines of the ‘approved’ churches for comparison and contrast to the outside churches?
I have a hard time with the PRC letting in people who practice religions that teach salvation as an individual matter, a person’s relationship with God as an individual matter, the existence of a power independent of or even superior to the state, etc. And while some churches may involve a hierarchy or bureaucracy in the relationship between mortal and divine (I’m looking at you, Rome) they are also emphatically not a part of the PRC’s bureaucracy.
Never mind that pretty much every church teaches disobedience to temporal authority at least in some contexts. That’s one hell of a camel to stick it’s snout in the Chinese tent.
My respectful opinion and answer to some of your posts:
Kevin,
I lived in China and worked as a Christian missionary.
As far as I saw, Christianity in China is spreading in both, rural and urban areas.
I perceived the permissibility from the government in the spreading of Christianity, with important obstructions not in aspects regarding to the spirituality of people, but in concerns linking religion and colonization (which historically happened, when religious missionaries were sent ahead to “soften” people).
Chinese are truly proud of their culture, and if religious beliefs seem to contradict their system of beliefs, they show resistance.
Old generations hold tight to Buddhism, new ones to nothing.
Chuck,
God exists whether you believe it – or see it – or not.
“Christian culture,” almost always carries pluses, hearts truly surrendered to God, always do!
Kresh,
it is not “how the Chinese use their Christianity” but how they allow God work in their hearts.
Countingcats,
Confucianism is leaving a syncretic mark in the way Chinese live Christianism, but the Spirit remains the same.
Sunfish,
The official church in China is as strictly controlled as possible by the government. No allowance to show any loyalty to any “kingdom” which is not the communist one, but the underground church is different.
Paul Marks,
I really hope the Roman church doesn’t make any deal with anyone in China.
I would go for a more Christian creed. No pope or anyone like that, just Jesus Christ and Chinese.
Respectfully,
Marvin
Why dont you leve people alone and their beleves dont you have enogh money with the countries the you have all ready cristianity is all about thaking peoples money thats all you need if you want to bless people just for the good dont ask them for theyr money I know a bunch of people that have turned rich by turning in to leaders of christian churches and I have family members that have been cocowash by these leaders and give them theyr money and they are poor still for making these leaders rich.
I also know this guy that whants to turn a pastor of his church, and I ask him , Hello!!!!!!! who doesnt they drive these nice cars dress the best Italian clothes and have this beatifull houses and plus is not like the priest of catholic church these guys they even have lovers and wifes.
Watch out with these guys they can brain wash 1000’s at a time and thats dangerus!!!!!!!!