More Arrests

20 more Shouwang Church members were arrested on the 5th of this month, according to this article from asianews.it.

The leader of the church has also been under house arrest for a little more than nine weeks at this point, starting shortly after authorities directed the church members to stop meeting in the building they had rented as mentioned in a previous article.

As I come to the end of this project, one thing that strikes me the most about this whole situation is the consistency of the articles I have come across. The more quotes of numbers and analysis of the Chinese government’s reasons for the arrests I read, the more I saw that there must be a decent amount of information information in the public sphere about these events. For so many different sources, both biased and unbiased, to come to such similar conclusions, and to build such a consistent overall picture, it is clear that China’s usual attempts to cover up a situation of social unrest (though a relatively minor one this time) has not been particularly successful.

This article also mentioned that some of the recent arrests might have been part of an attempt by the Chinese government to preempt protests related to the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square incident. In my personal experience with my friends who are citizens of China, this event does not have the same narrative as it does to people from other countries, but China’s government, at least, seems to worry that there are at least some who know more about it’s bloody details. Perhaps the Communist Party’s mask is beginning to slip.

Some More Details

So here I’ve got an article from Time (in collaboration with Worldchurch) that gives a bit of a more detailed description of the situation with the Shouwang Church.

One of the things I found most interesting is the article’s description of the church members as part of the “bourgeoisie.” I’m really just nitpicking semantics here, because this and every other article I’ve looked at do point to the members of these “home” churches being more commonly from the educated upper-class (making this work choice fair) but I find it to be interesting nonetheless. It’s a fairly loaded word, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was exactly the kind of label that the Chinese government is trying to place on the church.

There are also a lot of additional details of the the organization of the Shouwang Church, including that they they had planned to sent delagates from all around the country to an evangelical conference in South Africa, similar or perhaps the same as I blogged about previously. It also details some of the struggles the church has gone though in the past, such as the planned attendees to that conference being detained within the country, or having a planned purchase of a place to meet in cancelled under pressure from the authorities.

But, once again, this article quotes members of the church saying that they are not trying to work against the government, but also standing firm against the idea of abandoning their own religious views for “so-called ministers who are bureaucrats in reality and who follow the orders of the Communist Party’s athiests” which they consider the leadership of the state-run schools to be.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Like a post from the Family Research Council‘s blog. For those of you unfamiliar with the organization, they’re pretty much the quintessence of “pro-family” politics in America today. Anti-homosexuality, anti-abortion, pro-prayer-in-schools, etc. So what do these fine folks have to say about China?

Well, quite a bit actually. And while they come across with pretty much the exact message one would expect them to be carrying (referring to the “brave original signatories” of the letter to the government, the “repression” (my quotes) of “unofficial” churches (their quotes), etc.) they also hit the nail pretty squarely on the head with describing the actual problem that is causing the conflict between the Chinese government and these unofficial churches.

The Chinese Communist Party is nervous about anything to which people might swear an allegiance above their allegiance to the party. Whether they will indeed have to face a conflict between Christians as their nation’s “finest citizens” and their allegiance to a higher power is more debatable.

The more political concerns, however, are more obvious. The article quotes a US Representative who describes members of the “unofficial” churches, which are not protected by the Chinese constitution’s right to freedom of religion, as being vulnerable to “human rights abuses.” This is a take on the situation that the Chinese government would certainly not like to be the one that the world at large takes, but also is not far off from the general consensus of all the articles I have been looking at.

They Need Books!

This article is a bit of a follow-up on the idea of Christian publishing in China. Specifically, it’s looking at an international organization which is raising money to help book publishers in China. Contrary to my last article, this presents a rather bleak look at the Christian publishing in China, claiming that publishers are struggling to maintain business while pricing their books at a rate their customers can afford. Of course, it’s quite possible that this could be true, and not conflict with the previous article about one particular publisher that is doing well. Smaller publishers, like smaller churches, might be having a hard time competing with Chinese government-backed publishers, especially if any of these smaller publishers have an interest in expanding the current government list of approved Christian literature. The author of this article mentions quotes one of the main members of the effort to fund the publishing as saying that he believes Chinese Christians are seeking for new literature to help them know God, so this may not be that far-fetched of a theory.

One of the key differences I noticed in this article, as compared to most of the others I have looked at, was that this publishing effort looks a lot further into the future for its results than the groups involved in the recent upheaval. The results of more expansive publishing of Christian literature would have taken years to really show, but it seems like China’s Christian population may have grown tired of waiting for these slow and less disruptive efforts.

Well, it’s an Article

Ugh, and here it is. This one’s from ABC. Not much in the way of new information here, and not exactly what I would call stellar reporting, especially considering all of the snark toward the end of the article that is largely invalidated by the retraction they had to issue (scroll down to the end of the page).

It does bring up some interesting points about how Chinese non-Christians are interacting with the growth of Christianity though. The main focus of this article is on bible-printing, but I have a strong suspicion that isn’t the only business sector benefiting from Christian patronage. First of all, if the single company that is licensed to print bibles in China is making a killing currently, it’s only going to be better for them, especially if they have the foresight to expand into the market of other Christian-interest books aside from the bible. Secondly, if America is any indication there is a pretty broad market for Christian paraphernalia such as crucifixes, statuettes of Jesus, cross necklaces, and suchlike, and considering that most of what Americans Christians buy of that ilk is probably all made in China anyway, it could probably be sold locally by Chinese manufacturers to Chinese Christians for a much quicker and more profitable turnaround.

Given China’s economic drive, it seems likely that however the government reacts to the recent upheaval the business sector will react in the manner most profitable to itself, and that will probably be a strong influence on the outcome of this whole situation. As I’ve said earlier, the Shouwang church and related “home churches” have stirred up the Chinese government in a way that it probably won’t like, but at the same time, they may already have stirred up the Chinese economy in a way that is much more favorable to them.

More Details from The Guardian

I found a nice article over at guardian.co.uk with some more details about the Shouwang Church.

First of all, it gives a little more detail about what sets Shouwang apart from other churches. Shouwang is what is known as a “house church” which means that it operates outside of the government established and recognized Protestant and Catholic churches. These “house churches” have more Evangelical leanings, and meet in their own spaces (or whatever spaces they can find that are available), homes, conference rooms, etc. According to the Guardian article, one of the main draws of these over the mainstream churches is their independence from politics, which are apparently major part of the state-run churches. No surprise there.

These two distinct categories of church also explain the disparity between official estimations of the number of Christians in China and independent ones. Official estimates are, of course, based on the official churches, whereas the independent estimates try to take into account all of those who call themselves Christians, including members of these house churches.

The article also clarifies that it was leaders from these house churches who signed the petition to the Chinese government, and goes on to say that this is the first time that these groups have really stood up for themselves. Unsurprisingly, this has some of them worried. The leaders of these small organizations have been taking measures for years to make sure they do not strongly offend the government, even though their meetings are technically illegal, and even in the petition, the leaders made sure to reassure the government that they are still loyal Chinese citizens, just ones with an interest in perusing their religion on their own terms.

The Kenya Connection

This article from the Daily Nation provides another interesting perspective on Christianity in China, slightly aside from the main story I’ve been following. Despite the current unrest around the Shouwang Church, China’s government is apparently reaching out to Kenya to seek inspiration for how to grow Christianity. As the article points out, Christianity is one of the smallest of China’s five main religions, but apparently the public stance of the Chinese government is that they are moving to make Chinese Christians more welcome into mainstream Chinese society, instead of treading them “like foreigners.”

An interesting tidbit from this article is the apparent disparity between the estimate of Christians in China by the State Religious Affairs minister Wang Zuoan (about 23 million) and estimates given by outside sources (up to 40 million). One of the reasons the article cites for this disparity is that some Chinese Christians may not be openly practicing their religion for fear of persecution.

I’ll have to do some more investigation, but it doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me that this article was published the day BEFORE the one I posted about originally. China may have to backtrack on some of its recent public statements to save face, though which side they will backtrack on is yet to be seen.

Founding Document

So I found an interesting Washington Post Opinion article regarding Christian churches in China. One of the things I found most interesting about this take on the situation is the information that the Shouwang Church (the organization that prompted the reaction I mentioned in my first post about this) was apparently founded as a Bible study group for university students. An anonymous source described the membership of Shouwang as “intellectuals and professionals” to the author of the article. What is interesting about this is the implication that other Christian groups in China are not comprised of that same group of people. Whether that is just the opinion of the “anonymous source” or if it has more factual backing is unclear to me, but if it is correct it might clarify some of the thought process of the Chinese government. “Intellectuals and professionals” as a group have a lot more potential to influence culture than people who fall outside of that group.

This article also acknowledges that this kind of crackdown on churches is a new phenomenon, ascribing it to the geographical and social differences in this group’s membership from many of the smaller church-groups, and points out that the exact motivations of the Chinese government are unclear. But what is not unclear is the message this sends, whether it is intended or not, to other church-groups. “Stay home, and stay quiet.”

Where I feel the author goes a little off the reservation is in saying the petition to the Chinese government has the potential to be “one of the founding documents of a new China” (hence my post title). While I suppose he has sufficiently couched his opinion by adding the word “potential” I still feel that this statement is a little strong. Even if this particular incident has a wide influence in the development of Christianity and Christian churches in China, I doubt this document will (either literally or figuratively) become a foundational one.

Who Ever Thought…

That what would eventually get me to actually post content on this blog would be a project for school? Certainly not me. Maybe this will give me the kick-start I need to actually start writing things here.

So, a brief introduction: This blog was originally started as a political dissent project, but I never posted anything that I didn’t delete soon after, since I was trying to write radical things and I kept changing my radical point of view. Flash forward to Summer 2012, and I have an assignment to pick a news topic related to religion and write blog entries following it for the next few weeks.

And that brings me to China, or, more specifically, Christian churches in China. Apparently some pastors in China have started calling out the government for its (unsurprising) lack of tolerance for established Christian churches. Said pastors have signed a petition to the government, thus putting pressure on a political body not known for taking well to having pressure put on it.

I’m a little excited to follow a story like this, but I have a feeling that it will only serve to dissuade me from my potential future plans of going to China to teach.