China’s Religious Problem--and Ours
While the Chinese justifiably celebrate their Olympian achievements, a story in today’s Globe & Mail puts a damper on the festivities. According to the article, Chinese churches have been barred from meeting during the Games, and their leaders have either been arrested or put in seclusion (this of course doesn’t apply to foreign missionaries). Yet the overall policy of suppressing religious freedom, which began in earnest with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, has not discouraged the growth of Christianity in the Middle Kingdom. According to the article, one million Bibles are printed per month in China and the number of Christians has exceeded the membership of the Communist Party (130 million to date).
Although I always celebrate the growth of Christianity anywhere around the world, and applaud the courageous efforts of Chinese believers, it also rankles me that western regimes scold China’s government while they are quite happy to impose draconian hate speech laws on their own populations (as Brendan has rightly pointed out). In my own nation some years ago, a judge in the province of Saskatchewan declared the Bible to be “hate literature” because of its teachings on homosexuality. As I have written on this site on a few occasions, Human Rights Commissions often punish Canadians for holding politically incorrect views on Moslems and gays. In another land of the free, the rise of same-sex marriage has been a veritable breeding ground of litigation, leading to legal actions against physicians, pastors, adoption services, and even wedding photographers (!) for choosing not to work with gay and lesbian couples (see Mark Hemingway’s “Gay Abandon,” in National Review July 14, 2008).
The Chinese have already astutely pointed out western hypocrisy in a few areas. At a recent press conference in Beijing on the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver-Whistler in 2010, the state media went after Gordon Campbell, the premier of British Columbia, for failing to deal with the problem of mass homelessness in Vancouver, a crisis of drug use and poverty worthy of a Third World nation. Campbell lamely answered that the government was working on the problem, and that it would be fixed in time for the Games. I would be fascinated to know how western governments might respond to the accusation that they hypocritically condemn China while they fully support the unchecked powers of human rights commissars. I fully encourage the Chinese media to make this argument, for the sake of religious freedom in western states!
It is also tempting for westerners to believe that only the benighted forces of the West will effect positive change in China. The unproven assumption is that the Chinese cannot do it on their own. I would think the jury is still out on this question. Much has been written on the “authoritarian” nature of Confucian tradition, which the Chinese regime now sees as a positive force for political stability, after a long period of distrust and neglect during the Maoist period. The Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington has even called Confucian democracy an “oxymoron,” since the Confucian insistence on strong family ties, strict virtuous conduct, and respect for one’s elders is too illiberal for a true democracy. Well, if these are the true pillars of Confucian democracy, then perhaps it is time for the decadent West to learn from the East! I certainly wouldn’t cry if Confucians shut down idiotic toxins like MTV.
Overemphasis on Confucian authoritarianism is arguably another example of western hypocrisy anyway. Like Christianity, Confucianism has a strict golden rule which applies to ruler and ruled (the doctrine of reciprocity known as shu). As well, the Confucian Analects stress that the people have every duty to hold their leaders responsible for lack of virtue in their statecraft. The Confucian philosopher Mencius even believed in a right of revolution against extreme vice in a regime. Judging from what I’ve read of Confucianism (I recommend the numerous studies by Wm. Theodore de Bary), it seems that this ancient tradition has its distinctive periods of authoritarianism and liberalism, much like western Christendom. In an age of empty soundbites and narcotizing video games, can anyone honestly claim that western electorates are more resistant to propaganda than any population of the East?
It is fascinating to watch both the pace and meaning of social change in China. Is it possible that the Middle Kingdom will gradually move towards freedom while the West turns away from it? May we live in interesting times, as the Chinese curse goes.
Comments
We must remember that ugly, oppressive phenomena like Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” sprang from the same worldview that so enfeebled China for so long. China can taunt the West with its recent, blinkered contradictions because the Middle Kingdom itself has begun the uncertain task of shrugging off the moldy slough of Marxism.
Already, China today can’t clinically be called “communist” (even with a small ‘c’) - no more than can any modern nation, except of course the belligerent, benighted hermit kingdom North Korea. China can call itself anything it wants - workers’ paradise or heavenly peacock nest - but the fact remains that it has become an economic player by embracing capitalism, not the musty musings of the boozy old streetcorner sage.
How China deals with conflicts and pressures sure to result from such rapid change and revolutionary growth is the issue - not whether it continues to prop up a faulty ideology long proven a failure.
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A disciple of Confucius approached him with the question, “Wise one, is it enough for me to aim to have all of the people of the village like me?”
“Nay,” replied Confucius, “that is not enough. You do not want everyone to like you because if the bad people like you, then you are not a good person. It is only when the good people like you and the bad people dislike you that you are good.”
My knowledge of modern Confucianism is lacking, but if the above principle is still applied at it should be, then practitioners might not be plagued with the universalism that sickens much of the Christian world today. The ability to discriminate against the bad and honor the good is what makes societies great. Unfortunately, Christianity has become an enabling force of the equalitarian One-Worlders who would have you treat all men as equal—regardless of race, culture, religion or national origin.
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The Bible is anti-gay? He must have read a modern revised version. It is certainly anti-adultery which would cause great alarms in political circles. Especially with McCain, Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and many others.
Thou Shalt Not have homosexual sexual relations Lev. 18:22
Thou Shalt Not have homosexual sexual relations with your father Lev. 18:7
Thou Shalt Not have homosexual sexual relations with your father’s brother Lev. 18:14
Cross dressing would get Rudy as well, Men must not wear women’s clothing Deut. 22:5 and women must not wear men’s clothing Deut. 22:5. There goes Hilary’s pant suits.
And capitalists and the courts all hate God’s law and commandment to release all loans during the seventh year Deut. 15:2, and not to pressure or claim from the borrower Deut. 15:2
Maybe the Judge is a Harry Potter fan, the court must not let the sorcerer live Ex. 22:17?
In the US Christians have thrown out the bits of the law of God they don’t like applied to themselves and made a virtue of whipping others for transgressions of the Law that didn’t apply to them. That seems more a problem with misapplication and not the Bibles fault.
Unless you are an Amalek or Canaanite. It can be pretty rough on them.
Destroy the seven Canaanite nations Deut. 20:17, do not let any of them remain alive Deut. 20:16. Wipe out the descendants of Amalek Deut. 25:19. Remember what Amalek did to the Jewish people Deut. 25:17. Do not forget Amalek’s atrocities and ambush on our journey from Egypt in the desert Deut. 25:19
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Dear Mike Gavin,
The idea that it is Christianity that enables One-World egalitarianism is one that often puzzles me. Actually I do not think it is bad to think of all men as equal (regardless of race, religion, etc.). I think the problem with egalitarianism is more that it forgets the idea of a personal God (which is also part of Christianity). In front of God we are all equal according to Christianity (and that is positive since it guarantees no advantages for the rich, the learned, etc.), but that only makes sense if God understands the details of our personal struggles. An egalitarianist ideology, aside from the fact that the men who practice it alwys end up playing God, is faulty since it lacks the idea of a personal God, so it becomes a at best one-size-fits-all system (boring, uniform, and unimaginative), in extreme cases a full-fledged dictatorship.
I find it interesting, how often the ideologies of modern times seem to be based in Christianity, but take ona aspect of it to the extreme.
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