A lot of times, through no fault of our own, we forget that there are other people in the world. Once we do that, we usually make the mistake of thinking that our experiences in America are replicated everywhere else. We often forget that there are countries that don’t have the same freedoms and blessings that we’re fortunate to have in America.
One of the benefits of keeping up with the news and reading well-written news stories is that they brIng my attention to many things that I would not know about. In 2008, the news brought my attention to the struggles of Iraqi Christians, which I wrote about (which can be found here). This week, TIME magazine took me to Communist China where it detailed the Chinese government’s efforts to squash the growth of “illegal” churches.
“Towering eight stories over wheat fields, the Golden Lamp Church was built to serve nearly 50,000 worshippers in the gritty heart of China’s coal country. [Ed. note: Willow Creek Church has ONLY 23,000 attendees – nearly HALF the size of this church!] But that was before hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on the mega-church, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries, members and activists say. Today, the church’s co-pastors are in jail. The gates to the church complex in the northern province of Shanxi are locked and a police armored personnel vehicle sits outside.
The closure of what may be China’s first mega-church is the most visible sign that the communist government is determined to rein in the rapid spread of Christianity, with a crackdown in recent months that church leaders call the harshest in years. … The congregations under attack are among the most successful in China’s growing “house church” movement, which rejects the state-controlled church in favor of liturgical independence and a more passionate, evangelical outlook.
While the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, Christians are required to worship in churches run by state-controlled organizations: The Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association for Roman Catholics.
But more and more Chinese are opting to choose their own churches, despite them being technically illegal and subject to police harassment. Christians worshipping in China’s independent churches are believed to number upwards of 60 million, compared to about 20 million who worship in the state church, according to numbers provided by scholars and church activists.
Their expansion and growing influence has deeply unsettled China’s rulers, always suspicious of any independent social group that could challenge communist authority. … The latest crackdown appears to specifically target the largest congregations. Authorities want to dismantle large churches “before they grow out of total control,” said Bob Fu, a former Communist Party researcher in Beijing who now heads the China Aid Association, a Texas-based church monitoring group.
Although Christians still account for a less than 10 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people, recent years have seen rapid growth in house churches in both cities and rural areas. Adding to official concerns about their numbers, house-church Christians also emphasize missionary work – illegal in China.
The full article goes into much more detail than I have room for here (I recommend you read it), but it was another stark reminder that it’s not just you and me living in America, a land that fortunately fights for true freedom of religion and the ability to worship and do missionary work out in the open. Most others are not as fortunate.
We need to remember that we have brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world whose faith are continually being tested in ways different than ours, ways that are much more serious and dangerous. Let us not forget them and their plight, but instead uplift them in prayer and whatever else we can do, especially during this season when we all look to the reason that we can hope, the reason that we can believe, the reason we can march on: the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
-Matt
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It’s Not Just You and Me in America, Part II
December 17, 2009
Calvary
Comments Off on It’s Not Just You and Me in America, Part II
Matt
A lot of times, through no fault of our own, we forget that there are other people in the world. Once we do that, we usually make the mistake of thinking that our experiences in America are replicated everywhere else. We often forget that there are countries that don’t have the same freedoms and blessings that we’re fortunate to have in America.
One of the benefits of keeping up with the news and reading well-written news stories is that they brIng my attention to many things that I would not know about. In 2008, the news brought my attention to the struggles of Iraqi Christians, which I wrote about (which can be found here). This week, TIME magazine took me to Communist China where it detailed the Chinese government’s efforts to squash the growth of “illegal” churches.
The full article goes into much more detail than I have room for here (I recommend you read it), but it was another stark reminder that it’s not just you and me living in America, a land that fortunately fights for true freedom of religion and the ability to worship and do missionary work out in the open. Most others are not as fortunate.
We need to remember that we have brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world whose faith are continually being tested in ways different than ours, ways that are much more serious and dangerous. Let us not forget them and their plight, but instead uplift them in prayer and whatever else we can do, especially during this season when we all look to the reason that we can hope, the reason that we can believe, the reason we can march on: the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
-Matt
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