In March of this year I wrote an article entitled: Condoleezza Rice and Religion in China http://magic-city-news.com/article_3449.shtml in which I said:

"From what I know of China, there is no restriction on worship. Anyone may worship the god of their choice, either personally and privately, or publicly (corporately) and openly in a legitimate and legal church."

I had a little correspondance on the matter and then gave it no further thought.

Today however as I was surfing the net, I came across a reference to persecution in China, and finally found an article in the Vietnamese Student Association Forum Index: http://tinyurl.com/7zrow which was Posted on: 2004/11/26 4:07.

The article was entitled: "Convert or DIE!!" but is a complete copy, apparently, of an article from the New York Times. "THE GREAT DIVIDE | COMPETING FOR SOULS Violence Taints Religion's Solace for China's Poor," by Joseph Kahn, published: November 25, 2004 NYtimes.com.

Obviously, I cannot 'lift' this copyrighted article, but I will provide you some excerpts that might give you another side to the 'Underground Christian Churches' situation in China.

The story starts with government action against one Kuang Yuexia and her husband, Cai Defu, and then continues on with a look at the overall situation in China. What this story reveals is extremely interesting, if not shocking.

I leave you here with excerpts provided in point fashion:

• China's growing material wealth has eluded the countryside, home to two-thirds of its population. But there is a bull market in sects and cults competing for souls. That has alarmed the authorities, who seem uncertain whether the spread of religion or its systematic repression does more to turn peasants against Communist rule.
• The demise of Communist ideology has left a void, and it is being filled by religion.
• Beijing college students wait hours for a pew during Christmas services in the capital's 100 packed churches.
• But it is the rural underclass that is most desperate for salvation.
• But government-sanctioned churches operate mainly in cities, where they can be closely monitored, and priests and ministers by law can preach only to those who come to them.
• But they (the Govt) have made it so difficult for established churches to operate there that many rural Chinese have turned to underground, often heterodox religious movements.
• Charismatic sect leaders denounce state-sanctioned churches.
• Three Grades of Servants, a banned Christian sect ... also attracted competition from Eastern Lightning, its archrival ... the two sects clashed violently.
• "Beijing cannot tolerate religious groups that are not directly under its control," says Susanna Chen, a researcher in Taiwan who has studied the rural sects. "But for every group they repress, there are two to replace it. And the new ones are often more dangerous than those that came before."
• Many visiting ministers criticized the government-licensed church Ms. Yu had attended.
• One day a visiting minister - Ms. Yu says she remembers him clearly for his southern accent - delivered a scathing criticism of state-backed churches.
• Mr. Xu, followers say, predicted that Jesus would return to earth and eliminate nonbelievers in 1989, then again in 1993.
• But registration requirements and periodic harassment limit growth, as does a chronic shortage of clerics....The goal seems to be to prevent any from acquiring clout to rival the Communist Party.
• Christian sects form and mutate in the countryside, vying to attract the same disadvantaged classes.
• There are the Shouters and the Spirit Church, the Disciples Association and White Sun, the Holistic Church and the Crying Faction. Many are apocalyptic. A few are strongly anti-Communist.
• They erupt suddenly, shocking authorities with their secrecy, financial wherewithal, tight-knit organization and, occasionally, their willingness to use force.
• For the Communist Party, this is uncomfortably reminiscent of China's past. Millenarian sects have been harbingers of dynastic change since the Yellow Turbans contributed to the fall of the Han Dynasty at the end of the second century.
• "He told us that if we joined Lightning, then God would protect us," Ms. Kuang said. "But if we didn't join, we would die."

Nothing in this world is as plain and simple as we want it to be, and nothing is ever exactly what it appears to be.

R.P.Bendedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

Note: Because of the recent Server change, some links may not work. This file was amended September 2007. Photographic Stories from China can be found at:  http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=128

The 'King's Calendar:The Secret of Qumran is a chronological study, of people and events listed in the Bible, Josephus, and The Damascus Document of the Essenes. It both confirms and challenges many cherished concepts in relation to Biblical Infallibility and Bible History, The Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Josephus, the Reign of Nebuchadrezzar, Moses and the Exodus, Jeremiah's Seventy year prophecy of the Babylonian Exile, Daniel's Vision of Seventy weeks, and discrepancies between the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts of the Bible. http://www.kingscalendar.com.