Going to Church in China: Bush Pushes for Religious Freedom
President and Mrs. Bush greet fellow churchgoers. Photo source: the White House news story.
The President and First Lady attended church in Beijing on Sunday morning and pushed for greater religious freedom in China. YES. More, please! Faster, please!
Gateway Pundit has a good post with lots of links and photos. I need not remind you that there are a great many underground churches in China which the government regularly persecutes. The only churches which are legal in China are the "patriotic" state-sanctioned ones; the only state-sanctioned Catholic churches have their leaders appointed by Beijing and swear loyalty not to the Vatican, but to Beijing. (You think this is true religious freedom? I don't think so.)
Recall the State Department's recently published 2005 International Religious Freedom Report, which lists China as an abysmal example of religious suppression.
Reuters has a news story on China's Christians. Note this too:
| "I think we're at a turning point. In years past, family churches were mostly in the countryside, but more and more intellectuals are turning to Christianity," said Yu Jie, a writer who became a Christian in 2003. "Our belief is a personal thing, but we also believe that churches will play a role in China's democratisation." China has between 40 and 80 million active Christians, and their numbers are evenly divided between state-run and underground churches, according to expert estimates. Only a minority of China's free-thinking dissidents are Christian, but the number seems to be growing, many of them say . . . While many older Chinese Christians tend to avoid public controversy, fearful it will endanger their survival, younger activists are brandishing calls for religious freedom and political transformation. |
Go read the whole thing.
<Rant> Now I know very well that it is chic in Western "progressive" circles to bash Christians and Christianity. (Disgustingly hypocritical on the part of the "progressives," but true. Besides, I am a Christian and I do not like being bashed!) But I really think that all decent folks can agree that in general having religious freedom is better than not having it, and that the Chinese people should be allowed to peacefully practice whatever creed they choose without the constant monitoring of Beijing -- and that includes Christianity. It is chic now too to support the persecuted Falun Gong sect. But have a care for the persecuted Chinese Christians as well, please -- the news is full of stories of Vatican-loyal Catholic bishops getting arrested and Protestant churches getting raided by government forces. Religious freedom for EVERYBODY, please. </Rant>