If yesterday you attended church without fear of being arrested for expressing your faith, say a prayer today for the tens of millions of Chinese Christians who have to worship in hiding:
Beijing police on Sunday detained dozens of worshipers from an unapproved Christian church who were trying to hold services in a public space after they were evicted from their usual place of worship, a parishioner said.
Leaders of the unregistered Shouwang church had told members to gather at an open-air venue in Beijing for Sunday morning services, but police, apparently alerted to their plans, taped off the area and took away people who showed up to take part.
China’s Communist government allows worship only in state-approved churches, but many Christians belong to unregistered congregations. Such “house churches” are subjected to varying degrees of harassment by authorities.
More than 60 million Christians are believed to worship in China’s independent churches, compared with about 20 million who worship in the state church, according to scholars and church activists.
April 11th, 2011 | 1:45 pm
Hello, Mr. Carter,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
When any member of a body is wounded the whole body reacts to it. It is not like the foot is indifferent to an injury to the hand, or the hand indifferent to an injury to the eye. The whole body reacts when any member is wounded.
This should be true of the body of Christ as well. Sadly, this often isn’t the case. Pointing out such things as what is happening to Christians in China, as you have done, is the beginning of correcting this sad situation.
Thanks
April 11th, 2011 | 3:14 pm
But what can be done?
April 11th, 2011 | 8:32 pm
Blake,
If nothing else, prayer.
April 11th, 2011 | 9:57 pm
Perhaps there is a legitimate public interest in restricting the actions of cults.
April 12th, 2011 | 8:45 am
[...] Christian Worshipers Arrested in China By Joe Carter in First Things [...]
April 12th, 2011 | 12:28 pm
Blake wrote, “But what can be done?”
I suspect that if the U.S. would treat the Chinese government as though it were the tyranny it most certainly is, that would be helpful. Because of China’s economic might we ignore its human and civil rights abuses. Its economic power has been obtained at the expense of U.S. jobs and the abuse of the Chinese people. This situation is to the advantage of ours and China’s elite ruling classes only. The U.S., with an unpricked conscience, looks the other way while a handful of Americans, whose influence on our foreign policy is way out of proportion to their numbers, are unjustly enriched by the exploitation of others.
The members of the body of Christ in the U.S. seem benumbed when it comes to the agony of the body of Christ in China. Even though we are free to do so, we do not loudly and unashamedly assert our views in the public square regarding this matter. What is needed is policy regarding China that serves the “common good.” No, the “common good” is not code for “big government.” Subsidiarity, not centralized federal power, is for the “common good.” For Christians, the pursuit of the “common good” has to include that of our nation as well as the nations we trade with. How can it be any other way if the body of Christ is universal?
So, what can be done? Christians can include a Christian understanding of the “common good” in what we are working to obtain politically, and add to our political agenda the implementation of a policy towards China that reflects the basic decency and fairness of most Americans.
April 12th, 2011 | 9:02 pm
[...] Finally, I strongly recommend reading this short article pointed out this morning in a tweet from Tom Gilson regarding Christian Worshippers Arrested in China http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/04/11/christian-worshipers-arrested-in-china/ [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact