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I'm not supporting China here, but the ideology "accepting all faith" is strange and, maybe, dangerous. Bible contains some cruel stories. But Christianity has a leader, which is Pope, who has ties with modern world and updates/rejects the stories from Bible, so it works decently enough with modern world. Other religions don't have that kinds of checks and balances. some religions just interpret whatever ancient book…
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(disclaimer, this is more of a FYI than my opinion about anything) > From the article: The government requires religious groups to register. China allows for the operation of pretty much all religions including the world's favorite Abrahamic ones. Unregistered religions pique the interest of countries founded on religious persecution, and ignore the operation of registered ones. Registered ones are able to continue v…
Apologism. Having a party member approve the sermon before preaching is oppression.
whats "apologism" about what I wrote?
How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place?
China isn't North Korea. There's a lot of travel of both Westerners and Chinese into and out of China, and free-ish communication between them. Within China, you can talk about many things privately without having to worry about the police showing up. The government's big red lines are public advocacy and especially political organization.
https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experiment...
Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky describes a similar situation in the Soviet Union: https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan-Sharansky/dp/18916.... (As in aside, is there a Chinese translation?)
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>This is why it's frustrating when some make it seem that Christians are incapable of facing persecution, Literally no one does this. Western Christians are incapable of facing persecution in the current social and economic climate. This is because Christians by and large make up every pillar of Western society. It has nothing to do with someone being a Christian else where in the world. The sentiment you are attempt…
I agree with you that the "war on Christmas" stuff is nonsense, but you'd be surprised at how many people write off Christian persecution, based solely on the fact that some of the most powerful nations in the world are "Christian nations".
Feel free to link any kind of substantial material backing up the frequency of such opinions.
This is why we need to sever economic ties with China. The more we support this the worse this type of thing will intensify, including beyond China's borders....and it won't stop at just Christianity, they have targeted Islam and, Buddhists etc. as well.
Thank you for looking at the bigger picture - I have experienced first-hand, the persecution complex from a lot of Christians. They're not bothered by other religions being targeted but when Christianity is the last one being culled, they suddenly make it all about their beliefs.
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what is "borderline terrorism"? the churches in the article were targeted for criticizing corrupt officials, in china
Why is the church indulging in criticism? Who are they? What right do they have to do that? How do they know that the officials are corrupt? How do you know that is the only thing the church did, if they even did that? How do YOU know for a fact that the official was corrupt? Too many questions & you seem to be naive enough to take everything at face value. Again, why does the church interfere in such things? Isn't t…
From my part of the world, a damn human right.
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On the contrary. I think our leaders should spend more time together. Maybe they should even vacation together. The US severed economic ties with Cuba in the 60s and look what happened (only recently celebrating Christmas became legal, and property that belonged to the church was returned). There are countless examples like that.
What exactly happened after the U.S. severed ties with Cuba? You make it sound like we lost something. They are still stuck in the 1960s, their economy is absolute garbage and the people are dirt poor, they lost multiple generations of opportunity. Have you been to Cuba? It’s like going back in time 70 years.. the country itself is beautiful if they had taken a different path they could be incredibly propsorous. A sm…
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>Finally someone has the balls to call out what is a total & unequivocal anti-mankind force. That would be nice, but it's not the case of China. As the article mentions, the crackdown merely affects independent churches.
IMO — There is no such thing as "independent" churches. It's a very big ecosystem, an ecosystem that has forced us to invent the word "Secularism". Not sure if you have forgotten...
If not, can you state exactly what you mean, and whether you believe it's good for China to crack down on non-state-approved churches while also having state-approved churches?
I'm not supporting China here, but the ideology "accepting all faith" is strange and, maybe, dangerous. Bible contains some cruel stories. But Christianity has a leader, which is Pope, who has ties with modern world and updates/rejects the stories from Bible, so it works decently enough with modern world. Other religions don't have that kinds of checks and balances. some religions just interpret whatever ancient book…
People need to be open to the idea that they're wrong, even atheists. Monocultures where other people are forced to accept your values create stagnation and dangers long term. There have been plenty of evil committed in the name of enforcing that which is righteous: communism, religions of all types, even democracy. It's better to let people have the freedom to make their own choices. You can choose to learn from the…
My point is that "accepting all faiths" has gone too far.
> It's better to let people have the freedom to make their own choices.
But accepting the people's choices without examining the content is strange. Don't you think?
Would you accept anything that you don't understand?
I understand there must be some balance. And we might be biased to accepting a faith. But, at least, we should exercise some common sense before accepting it.
And I know. The problem becomes: whose common sense is right?
This is why we need to sever economic ties with China. The more we support this the worse this type of thing will intensify, including beyond China's borders....and it won't stop at just Christianity, they have targeted Islam and, Buddhists etc. as well.
> This is why we need to sever economic ties with China Then someone else will step in. What needs to be done is clever diplomacy. A carrot and stick policy and long-term thinking.