Vatican Excommunicates new Chinese bishops

[Zarn]

And what exactly was wrong with these bishops? If there are Catholics in China, should they not have bishops to tend to them?

The Vatican (as it always does) and PRC (because it wants 'domestic control') both think they should choose the bishops. The PRC ones aren't exactly bishop worthy.

 

[Dann]

I also find it funny that China adopted a 'foreign' economic system, but it won't allow a 'foreign' religion that only contains a small percentage of its population.

Capitalism is not a foreign idea at all. China has been mercantilist for millenia. It is the short flirtation with communism that is the experiment with a foreign economic system.

I somehow doubt that though. Europeans generally don't like immigration.

Nah. We're different. Unlike others, our people are low key, just work in silence and pay taxes. And we adapt, not demand that the host country bend over backwards to make concessions for us.

And we (Chinese immigrants) have no political opinion too. That's a big plus. We do however, have a notorious cultural loyalty that refuses to disappear even after multiple generations...

 

[Uiler]

It depends. If you ask my Western side, I'd say of course it's not a threat. If you ask my Chinese side, I'd say it is a threat, not because it is Catholic specifically but simply because of what it is and Chinese history gives groups like the Catholic church a pretty bad reputation in terms of political stability. The question is, are Catholics "special" in that they break the pattern that every other religious group in China has shown at some point i.e. the focal point of political dissent? I don't think so. There's nothing special about Catholicism that I can see that will result in it breaking the pattern. Of course this is not necessarily a *bad* thing - political dissent that is, sometimes governments need to be brought down - but from the POV of the PRC it is a threat to their existence. You know that many of the 20th century Chinese revolutionaries were Christian? Sun Yat-Sen was Christian. Democracy in S. Korea was in large part driven by Christians.

It also depends on whether people are emphasising the whole Catholics must obey the Vatican thing or whether they are emphasising freedom of religion. When people do that like you do it gives the impression that Catholics are slaves to the Vatican. It just makes things worse I'd like to point out. It's the reason why Protestants were suspicious of Catholics until around the mid-20th century.

The Vatican has of course changed. Not because it wanted to but because the increasing secularisation of its former strong holds forced it to. The Vatican however still retains the urge to interfere. It can't help it. It is a consequence of what it is - a hierarchal structure that insists that to be a "true" Catholic you must obey the Vatican. It cannot help but try to interfere. It is the nature of the beast. The reason why it is not a power in America now is not to do with the Vatican changing but Catholics in America refusing to listen to the Vatican. If it has truely renounced the urge why hasn't it renounced papal infallibility? Why hasn't it renounced its status as an independent country? Even recent history shows that when it has the opportunity to interfere it does. See the USSR for example. The Vatican is no more a neutral actor than China is. Once again interference is not necessarily *bad* esp. if the Communist Party becomes even more corrupt. However it is a threat to the Communist Party.

Here's another point. In the developed world the Vatican is extremely weakened because of secularisation, that is true. However in the developing world the Vatican is still quite strong. Whether I see the Vatican as a threat to the PRC depends on the character and nature of Chinese Catholics. Are they more like the Western Catholics or the ones in the developing world? That I am not entirely sure about.

Basically my answer is from the Western POV knowing little about China and Chinese history I'd say no. However, knowing about China and Chinese history and what Chinese are like as well as what the Vatican is like I'd say yes, they are a threat to the Communist Party, maybe not right now, but they will be in the future. Which is not necessarily a bad thing for the people of China, but definitely a bad thing for the Communist Party.

The Chinese are not introducing a foreign economic system really. Communism is the anomaly in Chinese history. Right now it's just reverting back to old Chinese way. Except for very few times in history, Chinese were always free agents. They owned their own land and businesses, they could buy and sell whatever they wanted. The only difference now is instead of the main occupation being farming land it is business and merchandise. However, even back in the old days, farming was only a portion of the average family income. Most ran businesses like silk-weaving or mat-weaving (usually the women) as well. My grandparents would tell me about the old days of imperial China and borrowing money by pledging collateral, buying land, renting it out to tenants, paying back the loans, building up the family business etc. They were just ordinary farmers. Sounds pretty capitalist to me.

However the concept of allowing freedom of religion even if it is perceived to be destabilising has no precendent in Chinese history. It is something completely foreign. Control over religion is something that every Chinese government in the history of China has done. And religious groups have played major roles in bringing down practically every Chinese government in Chinese history.

 

[IglooDame]

As for the things about Americans only caring if the people are anti-American. Once again you are being extremely naive. Look, it's a simple thing. Why do you think rights groups are so careful about choosing a "sympathetic" victim. If Rosa Parkes was a 50 year old Negro druggie do you think she would got nearly the same public support? The issues may have been exactly the same but the emotional appeal which is extremely important in these sort of matters and in declaring war would be missing. Once again I point out, if it's not important why is Christianity always brought up? Why not Islam? Why not the folk religions that are being squished? Free the Muslims. Free the astrologers. Doesn't have the right ring to it in America. There is a big difference between what people say they believe in and what they do sometimes. Everyone likes to say that oh I don't play favourites, but people always do. The image that people have about religious oppression in China is the Christians with the lions or more recently the Polish Catholics in the Cold War.

Free the Muslims... Nope. Free the astrologers... Nah. Free Tibet... Hey, there we go, we've got a winner!!

 

[Zarn]

You do realize that infallibility only applies spiritually, right? No one is a slave to the Vatican. Would you trust another nation to have control over the Vatican? I certainly wouldn't want the Catholic Church under any one else's control. The Vatican cannot operate properly, if say Italy controls it. Italy had enough control of the Church over the years.

Reading your 5th paragraph, our view points do not look that much different. The only difference seems to be that you think the Vatican could become a real threat (rather than one just perceived by China) to the party, and I don't think it will. I don't think it even has the influence to do so.

When I said economic system, I was refering to experimenting with Communism in the past.

If a precedent is set to allow religious freedom, then there will be a significantly less of a chance of any overthrow being even remotely religious.

 

[Shaihulud]

The rcognition of papal authority in China's case is only a formality, most practioner of Catholicism is never really effected by what Rome has to say, by excommunicating the official Chinese bishops, the vatican may have isolated their Chinese constituents even worse.

 

[7ronin]

The rcognition of papal authority in China's case is only a formality, most practioner of Catholicism is never really effected by what Rome has to say, by excommunicating the official Chinese bishops, the vatican may have isolated their Chinese constituents even worse.

Sounds like a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

 

[Jeff Yu]

I know about the history of the Church very well (I would have not have made it to college otherwise). I know China thinks it is a threat, but that doesn't mean it should shut out the Vatican. The Vatican can only be a threat, if you are a threat to it. See Cuba. I'm also not naive. I just have been on the Vatican's side of these Beijing- Vatican issues for years now. I didn't find this topic on the board a few days ago and felt like entrenching right away.

Either way, The PRC is still wrong. I know it is trying to protect itself, but it really is not protecting itself against anything. I do know it is getting slighty better, but it is not good enough. It is way too slow. The Vatican is not going to settle for less, so don't expect it. Remember, it also had problems with political entities like China did with religious ones. Again, the JFK thing was not the majority of people. Also, America not being perfect (several decades ago and they still aren't like everyone else) wouldn't excuse China.

Now, I have a question. Do you personally think Vatican backed bishops are a threat to the Chinese government? I do find it funny that you think the Vatican has not changed at all. I also find it funny that China adopted a 'foreign' economic system, but it won't allow a 'foreign' religion that only contains a small percentage of its population.

Plarq: That is the whole point of being Catholic. Otherwise, you are some other form of Christian. Simply put, if you follow Catholicism, you follow the Vatican. It doesn't matter where you live. You wouldn't follow it like you would Beijing or even Washington, though. I think the government should give the people the best it can, even if it is not representative.

Do you really think the Catholic church would never interfere with the matters of the Chinese government? It's the Catholic-effing-church we're talking about here. The same one which the Vatican ordered to deny communion to Catholic politicians in the US if they supported pro-choice law. Letting Catholic preachers run amok preaching the evils of abortion and condom use all the while China is trying hard to maintain the one-child policy is a pretty major threat to social stability, I'd say, and that's just but one example.

And as for a religiously fomented mass-movement, there've been many in Chinese history. The majority have been unsuccessful, but the bad ones were bad. The Christian rebellion that Uiler mentioned, the Taiping rebellion, ended causing the deaths of over 30 million people, more than the American civil war and World War I combined.

The current communist government ironically started out as one of these small cults that gained the throne of heaven. Who too, would have thought that a bunch of workers unions and peasant collectives would last through a 15-year guerilla war to amass a 10 million man army and rule over the world's largest population? Anything's possible, and obviously they don't want to end up with the same fates as their predecessors and would take precauations against it, no matter how paranoid.

 

[Uiler]

Do you really think the Catholic church would never interfere with the matters of the Chinese government? It's the Catholic-effing-church we're talking about here. The same one which the Vatican ordered to deny communion to Catholic politicians in the US if they supported pro-choice law. Letting Catholic preachers run amok preaching the evils of abortion and condom use all the while China is trying hard to maintain the one-child policy is a pretty major threat to social stability, I'd say, and that's just but one example.

And as for a religiously fomented mass-movement, there've been many in Chinese history. The majority have been unsuccessful, but the bad ones were bad. The Christian rebellion that Uiler mentioned, the Taiping rebellion, ended causing the deaths of over 30 million people, more than the American civil war and World War I combined.

The current communist government ironically started out as one of these small cults that gained the throne of heaven. Who too, would have thought that a bunch of workers unions and peasant collectives would last through a 15-year guerilla war to amass a 10 million man army and rule over the world's largest population? Anything's possible, and obviously they don't want to end up with the same fates as their predecessors and would take precauations against it, no matter how paranoid.

Personally I'm predicting a Taiping Rebellion Mark 2 in the coming future. Just read these articles here about Christianity in China.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15762-2004Nov26.html

There's a tendency among some outside China to see the spread of religion as speeding political change and creating an ethical bond with the world beyond China's borders. "As cultural and social traditions evolve, Christianity is poised to provide new ethical and moral foundations for the emergence of a modern Civil Society and State," Sister Janet Carroll of the U.S. Catholic China Bureau told the Congressional Executive Commission on China in September.

But the fastest growing religious movements in China seem unlikely to provide salvation for the country. Though Catholicism, which in China comprises both a state-sanctioned church and underground churches loyal to the Vatican, is becoming more popular, the majority of new Chinese Christians are Protestants. And while the state-sanctioned Protestant church is growing, most Chinese Christians are joining underground "house" churches. These churches are generally found away from city centers, in outlying regions, hidden within communal areas and marked only by discreet signs of faith.

Many house church services are so passionate that they would surprise even the most committed American evangelicals. Many house churches hold prayer meetings, at which they recruit new members and affirm their relationship to God, that last for several days, even up to a week. The Crying School, a house church that reportedly has at least 500,000 members, holds three-day retreats at which adherents wail and cry en masse, repenting in anticipation of the apocalypse. Another underground movement known as the Shouters believes in screaming for hours on end, to attest to one's faith. The Shouters reportedly shriek out a shortened version of the Lord's Prayer while stamping their feet.

Beijing's harsh treatment of the popular house churches has enhanced their image abroad as bases of political dissent and harbingers of political change. Some scholars, such as David Aikman, author of the new book "Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power," believe that the rise of Christianity might lead average Chinese to accept liberal political values and to demand that their government do the same. Aikman even suggests that, as China becomes more Christian and thus more liberal, it could become more willing to cooperate with the United States on international issues.

Richard Madsen, a scholar of Chinese Christianity at the University of California at San Diego, recently told National Public Radio that Chinese Christians "have in mind what happened in Eastern Europe [in the 1980s] . . . where the rise of and energizing of a variety of religious groups did, in fact, help to weaken the socialist states."

Still, it is unlikely that Chinese house churches will play the role of Catholicism did Poland during the 1980s, when it provided believers, laid-off workers and other groups with a unifying, liberal political structure. Unlike many priests in Eastern Europe, some Chinese house church leaders are highly conservative, focused on nothing other than evangelism and taking little interest in politics. Usually they are willing to challenge the state only when pressed to the wall, such as when Beijing tried to ban Sunday school education in several provinces.

What's more, because Christianity was so harshly repressed in China, and because many Chinese seem to be looking for millenarian, miracle-producing faiths, many popular house church movements have developed into authoritarian fiefdoms themselves, with adherents following one charismatic leader, who often has little religious training. These underground leaders are hardly vehicles for liberal reform.

In some of these heretical movements, which mix elements of Christianity with folk religion, leaders announce that they are Jesus reincarnated or that they have direct links to the Lord. As the New York Times recently reported, one house church, Three Grades of Servants, is organized around its leader, Xu Shuangfu, who claims to speak with God. Three Grades now claims to have several million followers; Xu reportedly has ordered the killing of his religious enemies.

Three Grades's sworn enemy, another house church known as Eastern Lightning that claims a similar following, is just as intense. Eastern Lightning also believes that Jesus has returned to Earth, and has taken the form of a Chinese peasantwoman. Like Three Grades, Eastern Lightning tries to force other Christians to join its group, allegedly kidnapping other house church leaders and trying to brainwash them until they join Lightning.

Some house churches, such as the longer-established and more urban-oriented Little Flock, which has thrived in eastern China, are more liberal, holding youth group meetings for Bible discussion and other intellectual activities.

But in rural and poor areas, it is the more apocalyptic groups like Eastern Lightning that appear to be growing fastest. And as China becomes more open while simultaneously more economically stratified, groups like Lightning, which cater to the uneducated masses, are only going to grow in power. If Aikman proves correct, and China one day has hundreds of millions of Christians, groups like Eastern Lightning could have tens of millions of disciples. By then, these extreme groups could foment change -- but not the kind of change liberal reformers envision.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,181681,00.html

Sister Hong's brainwashing session began when her Bible class ended. Five peasant women had led the Catholic nun to a house in a distant village in Henan province two years ago so that she could teach the life of Jesus. Suddenly, the women vanished and a man entered. For the next five days he refused to let her leave and forced her to debate the Bible. He said the day of judgment is nigh. Jesus has returned. China—the Great Red Dragon from the Book of Revelations—faces destruction. By the end, "I was dizzy. I was confused. He knew the Bible so well," says Sister Hong. Her pleading, plus promises to return, finally won her release. Lightning had struck again.

A fast-spreading sect named Lightning from the East is alarming Christian communities across China by winning large numbers of converts to its unorthodox tenets, often by abducting potential believers. Its followers, who say they number 300,000 but whom observers measure in the tens of thousands, believe that Jesus has returned as a plain-looking, 30-year-old Chinese woman who lives in hiding and has never been photographed. They credit her with composing a third testament to the Bible, writing enough hymns to fill 10 CDs and teaching that Christians who join her will ascend to heaven in the coming apocalypse. They see signs of doom everywhere, from the perfidy of Communist Party propaganda to anthrax spores in the U.S. postal system. According to one of the group's Chinese leaders who uses the alias "Peter" and moved to New York City last year, "The judgment is ongoing in China and will expand through the world."

Fearful for their believers' souls and welfare, leaders of China's roughly 60 million Christians have mobilized. Last year a man claiming to be Lightning's coordinator for north China met secretly with a senior aide to a Catholic bishop in Hebei province to try to convert the Catholic leadership there. He failed, and the bishopric has warned clergies to remain vigilant against Lightning. In Henan, the main church in Dengfeng county called a meeting of 70 lay leaders for a two-day training session on Lightning's "heresies"—but since then five of the leaders have joined the sect. Lightning "is the greatest danger we face today," says a minister named Li who no longer allows strangers to worship in his church in Zhengzhou city, where the sect began a decade ago.

Lightning is the most aggressive Christian sect to emerge in China since the revolution, but it follows a beaten path. In the decades before the communists swept to power in 1949, a Chinese missionary known as Watchman Nee built his congregation, the Little Flock, to 300,000 followers in central China. The sect's emphasis on decentralized congregations launched a home-church movement that helped Christianity survive communist repression. Yet as Little Flock congregations became isolated, they splintered into separate groups. The Shouters, for instance, rewrote the Lord's Prayer to read simply, "Oh, Lord Jesus," and taught followers to holler the phrase while stamping their feet in unison. Other offshoots, like the Disciples, believe that the devil exists in all people—and can be beaten out of them.

Granny He's experience was a textbook piece of evangelism. The sect's most trusted members receive a 67-page missionary manual explaining the dos and don'ts of conversion. Do start slowly, lend money, convince converts that God's work is incomplete and, finally, that doomsday is coming and Jesus has arrived to complete that work. Don't tell them until they are firm believers that the new Jesus will destroy the Great Red Dragon, which in the Bible represents Satan but to Lightning represents China. And if anybody asks why the "all-powerful" new Jesus must hide from police, the answer is that "there's a time for secrecy and a time for openness, but she has her plan," says Joseph Yu, a believer who arrived in New York City two years ago.

Sometimes, the plan seems unfathomable. A 60-year-old woman from Zhengzhou says Lightning devotees invited her to teach the Bible in their homes last year. They drove her to an unfamiliar village and presented her with a screaming and trembling man. They instructed her to cast out his devil. She couldn't. Then a Lightning follower prayed and sure enough the devil vanished, proving the woman's God was false, they said. Frightened, she acknowledged that her God seemed less powerful. Still, they held her nine more days, until her minister tracked her down and sought the police. She is too afraid to be quoted by name. "The other day I dreamed that they piled onto my bed and wouldn't leave," she said in a phone interview.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/30/wchina30.xml

One woman told a gathering of hundreds at Kuanjie official protestant church in Beijing last Saturday: "My brother's daughter had a virus which doctors had never seen before.

"She was on a ventilator and everyone had lost hope. But I prayed for her, and she recovered. Now her family follow Christ too." The association of Christianity with healing powers may be embarrassing in the West, but in China it is one of conversion's driving forces, particularly in rural areas, which lack health services.

The woman, 33, came from Anhui, a poor province of central China. In her village, she said, the house church had grown from five or six people to 100 in five years. Religion - and superstition - took off as ideological fervour declined and materialism grew under Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms, which followed Mao.

The driving force for conversion seems to be healing miracles (anyone familiar with Chinese this should not be a surprise). I doubt many of them have even studied the Bible (also anyone familiar with Chinese history wouldn't find this surprising).

The descriptions in these articles of Christians in China will be eerily familiar to anyone with knowledge of Chinese history. These descriptions could be copied almost word for word of the group behind the Taiping Rebellion which practised a form of Christianity almost unrecognisable to the West (e.g. the leader thought he was the brother of Jesus; most adherents never even read the Bible). This resulted in the largest civil war in the history of humankind. I think it was 20-30 million dead. Some put it as high as 50 million dead. In comparison the USSR lost 23 million (both military and civilian) during WWII and China 10 million. So the Christian Taiping rebellion cost around the same if not more lives than both the Soviet Union and China lost (and together they form half of all casulties) in WWII and *without* modern weapons. That's how bloody it was.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/TAIPING.HTM

Hung Hsiu-ch'üan was the son of a poor farmer near Canton. He was a promising young student, but repeatedly failed the civil service examination in Canton. After one such failure, he overheard a Christian missionary speaking and brought home several Christian treatises. The next year he again failed the exam and, according to some historians, had a nervous breakdown. Whatever happened, Hung had several visions in which an old man told him that people had stopped worshipping him and were worshipping demons; in another, the man appointed him as a slayer of demons. Hung believed that the man in the visions was God the Father and that a younger, middle aged man that visited him in visions was Jesus Christ, his Elder Brother. He himself was the Younger Brother and had been sent by God to earth in order to eradicate demons and demon worship.

Hung, however, did nothing with these visions until seven years later when he began to study with Issachar J. Roberts, a Southern Baptist minister who taught him everything he would know about Christianity. With the Christianity of Roberts, Hung, some relatives, and some followers formed a new religious sect, the God Worshippers, that dedicated itself to the destruction of idols in the region around Canton.

The movement attracted followers for a variety of reasons. Western historians argue that the famines of the 1840's inspired the Chinese to join various movements that were successfully feeding and taking care of themselves. Chinese historians stress the anti-Manchu rhetoric of Hung's early movement. While the God Worshippers were dedicated to the destruction of idols and the stamping out of demon worship, it's clear that they felt that the Manchu rulers were the primary propagators of demon worship. In Hung's early philosophy, he seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the overthrow of the Manchus would help bring in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

The movement, however, did not become open revolt until the government started to harass the God Worshippers systematically. Combined with his belief that the Kingdom of Heaven would be established on the ruins of the Manchu government, the God Worshippers were also militantly organized to destroy and eliminate demon worship. In the late 1840's, Hung reorganized his movement into a military organization. He and other leaders systematically began to build up a treasury (all believers had to give their property to the movement), consolidate forces, and lay up a store of weapons. In December of 1850, Hung was attacked by government forces and, since he had spent so much time preparing for war, he successfuly turned back the attack. In 1851, Hung declared that a new kingdom had been established, the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace; he himself was the Heavenly King and the era of the Taiping, or "Great Peace," had begun.

The Kingdom of Heavenly Peace was a theocratic state with the Heavenly King as Absolute Ruler. Its objective, as implied by its name, was the achievement of peace and prosperity in China with all people worshipping the one and only one god. It consisted of a single hierarchy which undertook all administrative, religious, and military duties. The movement was founded on a radical economic reform program in which all wealth was equally distributed to all members of society. Taiping society itself would be a classless society with no distinctions between people; all members of Taiping society were "brothers" and "sisters" with all the attendant duties and obligations traditionally associated with those relationships in Chinese society. Women were the social and economic equal of men; many administrative posts in the new Kingdom were assigned to women This social and economic reform, combined with its passionate anti-Manchu nationalism, made the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace a magnet for all the Chinese suffering under the dislocations and disasters of the mid-century.

It is eerily similar to descriptions of the origins of the various Taoist/Buddhist rebel cults throughout history. Take the description of the Yellow Scarves in Romance of the Three Kingdoms which brought down the Han dynasty 2000 years ago:

At this time in the county of Julu was a certain Zhang family, of whom three brothers bore the name of Zhang Jue, Zhang Ba, and Zhang Lian, respectively. The eldest Zhang Jue was an unclassed graduate, who devoted himself to medicine. One day, while culling simples in the woods, Zhang Jue met a venerable old gentleman with very bright, emerald eyes and fresh complexion, who walked with an oak-wood staff. The old man beckoned Zhang Jue into a cave and there gave him three volumes of The Book of Heaven.

13 "This book," said the old gentleman, "is the Essential Arts of Peace. With the aid of these volumes, you can convert the world and rescue humankind. But you must be single-minded, or, rest assured, you will greatly suffer."

14 With a humble obeisance, Zhang Jue took the book and asked the name of his benefactor.

15 "I am Saint Hermit of the Southern Land," was the reply, as the old gentleman disappeared in thin air.
16 Zhang Jue studied the wonderful book eagerly and strove day and night to reduce its precepts to practice. Before long, he could summon the winds and command the rain, and he became known as the Mystic of the Way of Peace.

17 In the first month of the first year of Central Stability (AD 184), there was a terrible pestilence that ran throughout the land, whereupon Zhang Jue distributed charmed remedies to the afflicted. The godly medicines brought big successes, and soon he gained the tittle of the Wise and Worthy Master. He began to have a following of disciples whom he initiated into the mysteries and sent abroad throughout all the land. They, like their master, could write charms and recite formulas, and their fame increased his following.
18 Zhang Jue began to organize his disciples. He established thirty-six circuits, the larger with ten thousand or more members, the smaller with about half that number. Each circuit had its chief who took the military title of General. They talked wildly of the death of the blue heaven and the setting up of the golden one; they said a new cycle was beginning and would bring universal good fortune to all members; and they persuaded people to chalk the symbols for the first year of the new cycle on the main door of their dwellings.
19 With the growth of the number of his supporters grew also the ambition of Zhang Jue. The Wise and Worthy Master dreamed of empire. One of his partisans, Ma Yuanyi, was sent bearing gifts to gain the support of the eunuchs within the Palace.

20 To his brothers Zhang Jue said, "For schemes like ours always the most difficult part is to gain the popular favor. But that is already ours. Such an opportunity must not pass."

21 And they began to prepare. Many yellow flags and banners were made, and a day was chosen for the uprising. Then Zhang Jue wrote letters to Feng Xu and sent them by one of his followers, Tang Zhou, who alas! betrayed his trust and reported the plot to the court. The Emperor summoned the trusty Regent Marshal He Jin and bade him look to the issue. Ma Yuanyi was at once taken and beheaded. Feng Xu and many others were cast into prison.

22 The plot having thus become known, the Zhang brothers were forced at once to take the field. They took up grandiose titles: Zhang Jue the Lord of Heaven, Zhang Ba the Lord of Earth, and Zhang Lian the Lord of Human. And in these names they put forth this manifesto:
23 "The good fortune of the Han is exhausted, and the Wise and Worthy Man has appeared. Discern the will of Heaven, O ye people, and walk in the way of righteousness, whereby alone ye may attain to peace."
24 Support was not lacking. On every side people bound their heads with yellow scarves and joined the army of the rebel Zhang Jue, so that soon his strength was nearly half a million strong, and the official troops melted away at a whisper of his coming.

Dig out the descriptions of the other major Taoist cults during this time and it is very similar.

What's going on in China is not Christianity. It is simply the same old thing that has occurred so many times in the past. Jesus is just the equivalent of the sage that gave the holy book to the "prophet". People are driven to conversion by "miracles" of healing, which is exactly the same as every other similar religious movement in China's past.

Oh yeah, and I found out that the Catholics in China do tend to be concentrated in a few geographical areas.

Basically it comes down to the fact that everyone in China is playing the exact same roles they've repeated time and time again for the last 2000 years. Even the Communist Party are playing their roles perfectly.

What this means is the future is probably going to follow the same path:

1. The Vatican backed Catholics will probably lead to secret societies which oppose the Communist Party much like the Shaolin based secret societies in the Qing dynasty opposed the Manchurians. As before these will be the more educated liberal groups. These will fail and will later form into criminal groups. I doubt though they will be looked upon that favourably in later generations no matter how oppressive the Communists get unlike the failed Shaolin backed sects who have been so romanticised and glamourised you don't know what's real anymore. The Shaolin ones were native Han rebels against a foreign ruler, while these will be foreign backed rebels against a native Han ruler. Yes, this does matter a *lot*. The foreign backed thing will also curtail popular support in China. These groups will be the most popular in the West though.

2. The real damage that will kill 10s of millions of Chinese and that will mortally wound the Communist dynsaty will be one or more of these quasi-Christian peasant movements (90% of whom never even read the Bible) led by a charismatic leader who thinks he is either Jesus, related to Jesus or The Next Great Prophet With A Direct Line To Jesus sweeping out of control and trying to form a theocratic state. 10s of millions will die. Being a fully native Chinese rebellion (the fact that Christianity is foreign is not going to matter anymore than the fact that Buddhism is foreign) these will gain the most popular support. This will not destroy the Communists but will so weaken them that the country will factionalise, regional warlords will gain power and the country will enter civil war.

Everyone is playing their parts perfectly. The only way to stop this is if someone has the foresight to tear up the script. However they never have the last 2000 years.

On the bright side of things, since the Communist Party has control now this probably won't happen for quite a while yet. Groups like Lightning are nowhere near the level of the Yellow Scarves. We are probably still in the middle of the dynastic cycle and not near the end. As I said before I doubt the turning point will come until after Taiwan has been "eaten". Right now Taiwan is being used to divert attention from domestic troubles. Once Taiwan is no longer an issue things will start deteriorating, slowly or rapidly depending on the situation. Could take hundreds of years. The Han dynasty for example did last 400 years. Personally I find the predictions by the bright-eyed Americans that Christianity will transform China into a liberal bastion and ally of America:

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/aikman200312220001.asp

Aikman: The question to ask before answering that is: What would a non-Christian China be like if it became a superpower capable of rivaling the U.S.? Probably dangerous and unpredictable. A Christian China would be far more likely to view its role in the world as containing a global moral responsibility, an "Augustinian" national self-view, if you like. In practice, a Christianized China would be far more likely to see eye-to-eye with the U.S. on many international issues.

to be somewhat hilarious. This reminds me of another article about how Westerners who keep on saying that globalisation is making people around the world become more democratic, liberal, basically Western since the universal "civilisation" we refer to with globalisation is basically Western civilisation (I don't see Confucianism/Islam in it...) usually only talk to the upper classes in other countries. Those who speak English well, go to university, are well-off, diplomats, etc. They don't go out into the mean streets, the countryside with malaria, dysentry, etc. and speak to the commoners in their own language. The Western journalists who keep on talking about the liberalising effect of Christianity in China probably only talk to English speaking students, dissenters, exiles who come from the upper classes, are well-educated, and are extremely Westernised. The best joke is that yes a globalised society and universal civilisation has formed - of diplomats, thinktanks and journalists. This can lead to distorted views of foreign countries. The most infamous recent example is Iraq.

 

[Dann]

...Those who speak English well, go to university, are well-off, diplomats, etc. They don't go out into the mean streets, the countryside with malaria, dysentry, etc. and speak to the commoners in their own language. The Western journalists who keep on talking about the liberalising effect of Christianity in China probably only talk to English speaking students, dissenters, exiles who come from the upper classes, are well-educated, and are extremely Westernised. The best joke is that yes a globalised society and universal civilisation has formed - of diplomats, thinktanks and journalists. This can lead to distorted views of foreign countries...

We have a name for these people - Jia Yangguizi (Fake foreign ****s). In plain English - "banana Chinese".

I consider myself quite Westernized, and admit that the current political, governmental, economic and social setup in China all have major defects, but never will I agree that transforming it into a liberal democracy overnight and converting everyone to Christianity never mind the consequences is the answer.

I absolutely hate these people who fawn and bend over to please the Western world and make themselves look good while dismissing their countrymen as ignorant, backwards country bumpkins who know no better. Even in my design work I strive to take into account the user's living patterns and the surrounding environment, instead of imposing an alien design on them and then saying: "But this is the way we do it in the US/Europe etc..."

 

[Uiler]

I forgot. I'm not trying to bash Christianity in my last post. The Taiping style groups are at the very best pseudo-Christian. The dangerous features in those groups is more to do with them being Chinese then being Christian. If it was any other religion they'd be the same as can be seen when it was Taoism/Buddhism driving them in the past.

 

[Dann]

Don't worry. No one today will be confusing Christianity with what Hung Xiu Quan preached then. Jesus's younger brother! Yeah right.

Incidentally, becauses of this:

The movement was founded on a radical economic reform program in which all wealth was equally distributed to all members of society. Taiping society itself would be a classless society with no distinctions between people; all members of Taiping society were "brothers" and "sisters" with all the attendant duties and obligations traditionally associated with those relationships in Chinese society. Women were the social and economic equal of men; many administrative posts in the new Kingdom were assigned to women

The Taipings are actually held in a very favorable light by the communists. Only in the past few years has the villification of Zheng Guofan (the loyal official most responsible for crushing the rebellion) been stopped, and scholars are now evaluating the man and his achievements objectively.

 

[Squonk]

I thought this arrangement of Beijing is an insult to an atheist like me who values freedom of religion high. Although Chinese conservatives will argue that many uprising in China were inspired by religion, I would spit on the face of "stable regime" for its cruelty and possible crisis underflow of heavy oppression.

Edit: I was just inspired by some lights. Who the hell thinks a bishop assigned by Vatican is better than one by Beijing? Both are against the will of Catholic Christians without a vote!

uh, did You notice that by claiming to be catholic, they per se want bishops ordained by Rome? If they do not, they don't want to be catholic.

 

[Squonk]

Do you really think the Catholic church would never interfere with the matters of the Chinese government? It's the Catholic-effing-church we're talking about here. The same one which the Vatican ordered to deny communion to Catholic politicians in the US if they supported pro-choice law. .

Which is interfering in the matters of gouverment - how?

And what exactly was wrong with these bishops? If there are Catholics in China, should they not have bishops to tend to them?

if they want to be catholic beshops, they need to be, uh, catholic. Being chosen against the will of Rome and against the catholic canons means they are not catholic bishops.

I admit the situation of the Catholic Church here currently is a bit weird (to outsiders' eyes) but at least it's (1) able to exist in peace and (2) better than nothing. (Protestants have less problems here because they have no outside central authority to answer to.) We need to wait. Change comes very slowly here in China.

Oh and like you, I hate politics. What we need more is genuine statesmanship.

part of being catholic is being submissed to the bishop of Rome. China does not allow that, so, in fact, China bans catholicism and creates pseudo-catholic state of its own. Calling it catholic makes no sense - "catholic" means "universal", and not being part of the entire church connected in obedience to the pope, they are not part of the universal church.

The whole hoohah could have been avoided if there had been dialogue between the two parties, and thus suitable candidates acceptable to both could have been chosen. The Vatican however, is a political as well as a religious entity, and currently still recognizes the ROC in lieu of the PRC which is, of course, unacceptable to China. Thus no direct communication, thus we're back to square one.

which getys us to the point that persecuting RCC is just a way to make Vatican recognise communist China...

 

[warpus]

^^ Reminds me of the time when the Catholic Church had two popes - and each one claimed to be the "true" pope.

Chinese catholics can claim to be catholic all they want - only the Vatican will object. Chinese catholics will view themselves to be "true" catholics, and western catholics will think the same way about themselves.

As for everyone else in the world - we don't really care.