Every Chinese leader since Chairman Mao has had a slogan (and accompanying campaign of some sort) that was meant to define their rule. President Xi Jinping's slogan is "The Chinese Dream." The organizing principle of his predecessor Hu Jintao's rule was "Harmonious Society."
A decade ago David Aikman wrote Jesus in Beijing, provocatively subtitled "How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Balance of World Power."
Mike Falkenstine, President of the China Resource Center, an organization that does Bible distribution in rural churches (registered), recently returned from a trip to China, in which he had the opportunity to seek help from his friends and partners in understanding some of the recent events in China, particularly the cross/church demolition campaigns in Zhejiang.
"This is crazy," I observed to my audience of parents and high school students in Beijing. "Why on earth would parents send their 14- or 15- or 16-year-olds to the other side of the world for schooling, especially when studies show some of the best schools in the world are in your own country?"
The piece translated below is from a post on the Weixin (WeChat) page of the Beijing Gospel Church, one of the citys more prominent house churches. The writer is sharing his thoughts on the nature of worship in the church.
笔者从前在北美， 并与当地的中国留学生一起工作, 他提出北美的中国教会应如何修改自己的策略，以达到这些学生的问题。他与后现代学生接触，并从他的经验来解释及引申有用的例子。
Our top picks this week are all on the lighter side. We hope you find them as interesting as we did.
毛泽东死后的中国，是意识型态的真空。认为凡事没有绝对价值的后现代主义，并没有成功填补这个空档。为了避免社会纷乱及政治动荡，人们登上寻索之旅，对宗教信仰产生强烈甚至迫切的渴求… …
Churches have been demolished in Wenzhou, Christian workers detained on the North Korean border, and a leading religious official proclaims that a "Chinese theology" is needed so that the church can serve socialism. These developments have featured prominently in the news in recent weeks, with more than a few commentators concluding that a crackdown on Christianity in China is underway or soon will be. However, a closer look at the events in question suggests otherwise.
篇者的话: 这篇文章的原文刊载于华源协作中文版夏号2014
I have done a lot of cross-cultural training over the years for people heading off to work in China, and one of the resources that I turn to again and again is Turning Bricks into Jade: Critical Incidents for Mutual Understanding among Chinese and Americans. Edited by Mary Wong and others, this book is a collection of "critical incidents" or stories of cross-cultural conflict and misunderstanding between Chinese and Americans.
Given the prevailing "persecution" narrative perpetuated in media reports about China, one could easily conclude a hostile, repressive regime poses the biggest threat to China's church. But is government persecution really what keeps believers awake at night? Or is the answer found within the church itself?