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Deep thinkers in the U. S. of A. have all concluded that
religion is a scourge. They want to replace it with atheism. By the light of
their reason, believing in nothing is more humane than believing in something.
Yesterday, just in time for Easter, the Daily Telegraph
reported that religion is alive and well and expanding… in China.
A nation that has known state-imposed atheism is now
enjoying a measure of religious freedom. The result: Christian congregations
are growing rapidly in China, to the point that the nation is fast becoming one
of the largest Christian nations on the planet.
The Telegraph reports:
Officially,
the People's Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast
as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that
neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied.
Christian
congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening
when Chairman Mao's death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Less
than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just
the world's number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.
Purdue sociology professor Fenggang Yang offers this opinion:
"Mao
thought he could eliminate religion. He thought he had accomplished this,"
Prof Yang said. "It's ironic – they didn't. They actually failed
completely."
As might be expected, party leaders are somewhat wary of the
development. True enough, the 1982 constitution guarantees the right to engage
in “normal religious activities.” Yet, churches that want to function openly
are obliged to submit to Communist party oversight. Authorities want to be sure that preachers are not fomenting sedition.
As religion declines in the West, it is growing in
China. Could it be a portent?
From
Yunnan province in China's balmy southwest to Liaoning in its industrial
northeast, congregations are booming and more Chinese are thought to attend
Sunday services each week than do Christians across the whole of Europe.
Surely, it is more than passing strange. A nation that is still ruled by the Communist Party seems to have fostered free enterprise and Christian worship. It is happening while so-called free nations have been running away from free enterprise and from religion.
'Tis a puzzlement.
2 comments:
I wonder what Tom Friedman thinks of this, surely he must be aghast, feeling that the Communist Chinese missed an important detail in their efficient, superior model of nation-building, economic centralization, mercantalism and social hegemony. Perhaps they also efficiently concluded that man's search for meaning was beyond their powers of control, different from the "commanding heights" of the economy.
I can just see our buddy Tom, when asked about this on his next appearance on Charlie Rose: "Well, they may be taking a step backward with irrational social ideas like religion, Charlie, but I assure you the smart people at the top -- the Chinese elites, who send their children to American and European universities -- won't ever succumb. They're too smart for that, Charlie. We're in good hands."
It will be interesting to see how Pope Francis navigates the political minefield of appointing Chinese Catholic bishops and cardinals. The Communist Chinese get very squirrelly about this issue, like many other perceived threats to internal security in their pluto-oligarchical regime. I suspect Pope Francis will do very well in this regard. Perhaps he can channel Pope John Paull II, becoming a visible leader in growing the Christian mission in the Far East. I certainly pray for his success.
Happy Easter,
Tip
Extremal form of Marxism, after this extremal form of capitalism, and maybe extremal form of christianity. They really have a copy-paste-supersize mode.
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