Current Ideological Trends in China How Should The Church Respond? (March 27, 2013, Lausanne Global Conversation)
In discussion of the social and political status of Christianity in China, the relationship of the churches and the government naturally takes centre stage. Nonetheless, how the faith and its growing influence are viewed in China is caught up in a confusing cauldron of competing political and moral ideologies that vie for Chinas future. As Chinas driving market economy and growing liberalization have rendered the old shibboleths of Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought uncouth, Neo-liberalism, Neo-leftism, and Neo-Confucianism have sought to fill the ideological vacuum. Each has its own view on whether the rise of Christianity in China is bane or blessing.
Taylor Gorman
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April 4, 2013
PRI has produced an Easter video for use in the ESL classroom.
Taylor Gorman
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March 29, 2013
Pastor Jin on the Church and Social Responsibility (March 22, 2013, Chinese Church Voices)
The revival of the Korean Church is widely known and its influence cannot be ignored. After WWII, in the course of only a few decades, a small, poor nation became todays second largest missionary sending country. In recent decades Christianity in China has also experienced rapid growth and as one of Koreas neighboring countries, there is much to emulate and many lessons to be learned from the passion and experience of the Korean Church.
Taylor Gorman
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March 28, 2013
For Many in China, the One Child Policy is Already Irrelevant (March 19, 2013, China File)
Before getting pregnant with her second child, Lu Qingmin went to the family-planning office to apply for a birth permit. Officials in her husbands Hunan village where she was living turned her down, but she had the baby anyway. She may eventually be fined $1,600about what she makes in two months in her purchasing job at a Guangdong paint factory. Everyone told me to hide so the family-planning people wouldnt find me, but I went around everywhere, she told me. In the past, that place had very strict family planning, but now the policy has loosened. The cadres worry that there are too many only children here. I asked her if government policy had factored into her decision to have a second child. It was never a consideration, she said.
Taylor Gorman
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March 21, 2013
The balinghou (aeonmagazine.com)
Food metaphors are telling older Chinese want to know: Why do they have it so easy, when we had it so hard? The main target of this slating has been what the Chinese call the balinghou young people who were born after 1980, who never knew food rationing and were raised after Chinas reform and opening began. Im talking here of the urban middle class, who dominate Chinese media both as purchasers and consumers. The raft of criticisms being levelled has very little to do with the actual failings of the young, but is a symptom of the yawning, and unprecedented gulf between young urban Chinese and their parents.
Taylor Gorman
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March 14, 2013
What does the future hold for China? (March 5, 2013, BBC)
China's moment of change has come. After a decade in power, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are stepping aside. Xi Jinping and a new generation are taking over. Already elevated to the post of general secretary of the Communist Party last November, Xi Jinping will be confirmed as China's new head of state by the National People's Congress now meeting in Beijing. So, naturally, the question everyone is asking is, what does the future hold for China? How will Xi Jinping govern this huge, complex and increasingly powerful nation?
Taylor Gorman
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March 8, 2013
Theres a void called the countryside visions of dying village life (February 28, 2013, Danwei)
Migrant workers tend to be presented as an anonymous mass, and thought of either as a problem for Chinese cities and infrastructures, or an example of inequalities and discrimination in contemporary China. This weeks post invites us to look at rural-urban migrations from a different angle, by focusing on the relationships and continuity between cities and country towns. Zhang Zejias Theres a void called the countryside and Li Tianqis These old people back home who got old both explore this ongoing attachment to the rural hometown. Through the vision of a dying rural world, they also reveal the complexities of personal attachment to rural memories, the strength of family networks, and the significance of yearly return journeys to the rural hometown for city dwellers.
Taylor Gorman
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February 28, 2013
Is China Persecuting More Christians for their Faith? (February 22, 2013, ChinaSource)
According to the latest statistics from China Aid, 13.8% more Christians in China were persecuted last year as compared with 2011, continuing a trend of increasing persecution that goes back to at least 2007. On their face these numbers appear to be cause for serious alarm, and the China Aid report has in fact spawned headlines decrying the beginning of the end of the house church in China. However, upon closer examination these statistics do not support China Aid's assertion of a nationwide government-sponsored campaign against Christianity in China. Without a doubt, Christians in China face many obstacles as they live out their faith in an often hostile environment. But Christians are not persecuted simply for being Christians, nor are house churches targeted for attack simply for being house churches. If this were the case one would expect to see hundreds of house churches being closed down each week. (Beijing, which had the highest number of persecution cases in 2012, reportedly has more than 3,000 house churches, yet the China Aid report mentions only two cases involving Beijing house churches for the entire year.)
Taylor Gorman
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February 21, 2013
Province by Province, a Portrait of China (February 11, 2013, The New York Times)
The resulting series, China, is a historical document of a country as its villages turn into cities; its cities into megacities. Shot before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the portraits present a diverse nation through its people: yak farmers, gynecologists, television personalities, village chiefs, singing gondoliers, prostitutes, aging revolutionaries, circus stars, bank employees, beggars and trash collectors.
Taylor Gorman
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February 14, 2013
Is Xi Jinping a Reformer? Wrong Question. (February 1, 2013, China Real Times)
Better questions are needed in order to produce more useful analyses and forecasts of Chinas political development. Such analyses should start by recognizing two facts: First, the new leaderships various initiatives and pronouncements after taking office indicate that it fully accepts the need for change. Second to quote the American political scientist Samuel Huntington, the leadership is clearly aiming at some change but not total change, gradual change but not convulsive change. In short, the leadership wants controlled reform, not revolution or regime change.
Taylor Gorman
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February 7, 2013
China's ethnic Manchus rediscovering their roots (January 30, 2013, The Los Angeles Times)
Descended from a horse-riding nomadic people of northeastern China, the Manchus were the last imperial rulers of the country, establishing the Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912. After the abdication of the last emperor, Pu Yi, his clan changed its name to Jin. The Yehenalas, related to Cixi, the empress dowager who was de facto ruler in the late 19th century, became Ye or Na. A century later, ethnic Manchus are rediscovering their roots.
Taylor Gorman
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January 31, 2013
In China, Widening Discontent Among the Communist Party Faithful (January 19, 2013, The New York Times)
For years, many China observers have asserted that the partys authoritarian system endures because ordinary Chinese buy into a grand bargain: the party guarantees economic growth, and in exchange the people do not question the way the party rules. Now, many whose lives improved under the boom are reneging on their end of the deal, and in ways more vocal than ever before. Their ranks include billionaires and students, movie stars and homemakers.
Taylor Gorman
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January 24, 2013