China cracking down on Christian Churches

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by kazenatsu, Dec 12, 2018.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    China is cracking down on Christian Churches.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chi...eryone-loyal-to-communist-party-report-2018-9

    So much for China continually allowing more freedoms.

    Christians are welcome to join a church if it's a church run by the Chinese government, who decide which doctrine the church can teach. These government run churches have censored out the Book of Revelation from the Bible, and prohibit teaching that there will be a Second Coming of Christ. Apparently the government finds that too threatening. Many in the rogue Christian churches accuse that those running the Chinese government Christian church are not real believers.

    Also it's not just the central government pushing this. Many of the provincial governments are even more zealous about trying to prevent free churches from taking root.

    In China there are a huge number of laws that are not stringently enforced, because the government doesn't have the resources to enforce all of the laws, or doesn't really care that much about certain types of things (so it's a little more complicated than just "legal" or "illegal"), but in some cases a large amount of resources have been directed at trying to stop the formation of free churches.
     
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Skip to 8:25 in the video to hear about Chinese authorities keeping a close eye on foreign journalists coming to do an investigative documentary on Christianity in China. Almost like a Soviet-style police state.




    related thread: Chinese authorities blow up megachurch
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2018
  4. Hawkins

    Hawkins Active Member

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    That's not accurate. Chinese don't have a culture of obeying or respecting laws. Profits are always put above law. People as a base can only produce corrupted officials. They are unable to produce enough good officials to form a good government but at the same time having an anti-government tendency. Such a dilemma existed in the recent thousand years of Chinese history. Here and there, religions were used as a mean to go against the government. It is expected that some of the underground churches are filled with anti-government notions. It is never a pure religion situation. Governments are cautious and negative about all kinds of religions, but with the awareness that Chinese do need a positive religion to change the "bad" (say putting profits over law) culture. That's actually why FLG was once allowed to be widely spread till the point it went anti-government.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2018
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So these laws are on the books just to enable authorities to shut down a problematic church at a moment's notice, if they don't like what that particular church is saying?
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2018
  6. Hawkins

    Hawkins Active Member

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    **** happens in China due to selfishness. A church can be shut down for a couple of reasons. First if it has an anti-government notion, it will be shut down. It is a kind of national security measure. This happens in the western world as well. If a cult challenging the government with its authority, it will be shut down. It's rather a measure of national security instead of an issue of freedom of religion. The second is the value of the the land. A church, especially an old one built long time ago when lands were abundant, usually occupies a large land area which is valuable. The government officials will choose to shut it down simply because it makes profit for them. Again, who's to blame in this case. Government officials with their greed don't come from outer-space. All government officials are from the people of China. If only a small amount of them are corrupted then the root cause may not be the people of China themselves. However if over 90% of them are corrupted in one way or another, it's almost certainly that it's the people of China who are to blame. It's their culture of greed and selfishness and lawlessness which resulted in a government full of corrupted official, as it did in the past thousand years!
     

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