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Christmas and Christians in China

Many of you may have heard or read a lot of horrible stories about how the Chinese Government has suppressed the religion groups and how miserable they are as Christians in China. Don't fall into the trap of the propaganda, which has been carried on for centuries.

Christmas and New Year is not only for Christians to celebrate in China today. It has become an occasion that many non-Christians, especially in the younger generation, celebrate since it has become very commercialized just like anywhere else.

Christians still go to carry out the western ceremony and traditions such as midnight mass, Santa and gifts, etc. Electronic Christmas cards are being used. Christmas Eve is big thing in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where non-Christians will hold parties and young lovers will spend their evening to enjoy their big Christmas dinner. Not like the West, all restaurants, hotels and nightclubs will open for business, just like New Year Eve.

You can find Christmas decoration everywhere in the big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei. Actually most of the decorations you use at home are made from China.

In Short, Christmas is getting popular in China, not because of its religious significance, but resulted from commercial promotion and as courtesy to foreigners. Here is a story from a family how they spent one Christmas in China.

If you want to dig deep into the subject matter, we have to go back to history and build some background information for you to understand.

Basically China is a non-religious country. There is no state religion in any time in the past history. China is always open to any religion and Chinese enjoys freedom of religions even since the history started (except Tibet, the only region in China that rejected other religious group before 1954). Here is the information about the background information of Chinese philosophy and religions

Today 10% of the population is religionist, among which most of them are Buddhist or Taoist, Muslim 2% and Christians 1%.

The number of Catholics in China is four million, and there are about 4,000 clergymen and over 4,000 churches. Catholic Church belongs to the China Catholic Patriotic Association. This association is not a communion of Roman Catholic since Roman Catholic still maintains its connection with Taiwan.

China now has nearly ten million Protestants, 10 times more than the figure in 1949 when the current government came into power. There are more than 12,000 churches and 25,000 other places of worship built by missionaries.

The religious freedom is fully protected by the current constitutions (Article 36), in which it states:

"Citizens of the People' s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against any citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens, or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination."

The "Regulations on the Management of Religious Activities of Foreigners within the territories of the People's Republic of China"

It explicitly states that "the People's Republic of China respects the freedom of religious belief of foreigners staying in China, and protects them in their friendly contacts and cultural and academic exchanges with Chinese religious groups."

The "Rules on the Management of Places of Worship"

It stipulates that "the management of a place of worship is maintained by the concerned department of the place itself, and its legitimate rights and normal religious activities carried out there are protected by the law, and no organization or person are entitled to infringing upon or interfering with them."

Christian is not very successful in penetrating into China since its continuous attempt for over one thousand years. The reason is not because of the Chinese government's interference. It is because Christian religion has very basic conflict with Chinese philosophy and religious believing, which are the roots of Chinese culture for thousand of years.

The combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism has governed Chinese thinking since their perception. Confucianism and Taoism originated in China and Buddhism was introduced into China from India. They have co-existed for thousand of years because they complement each other and have very fundamental similarities.

Emphasis on person, not on God
Promote harmony, not confrontation
Social order and self restrain

Christian and the West have very different concept:

God creates the world and human.
Continuous fighting between the devil and the goodness
God can spare your crime if you "believe" in God
Our God is the only God and our truth is the only truth

When the West came to China, they brought in opium, war and western imperialism. At the same time, Christian came into China and mixed religion with politics. Christian promotes exclusiveness, not co-existing among different religions and thinking. All these make Christian difficult to be widely accepted by Chinese. Even so, Christian, just like Muslim, can still co-exit in China. Buddhism becomes the largest foreign introduced religion in China because it does not reject other religions and it confirms to Chinese culture and thinking

It is not difficult to understand that why Chinese strongly rejects American style of "freedom of speech" and "Democracy" because Chinese culture does not allow to put "individual right" above the "common good of the society". All Chinese have been brought up to behave, self restrain and bear obligation to the society, the family, friends and any other people. Chinese are taught to live in harmony with people and the nature. "Confrontation" is never part of Chinese culture.

We hope, when people have better understanding of Chinese culture, they may be able to comprehend and analyze the intention behind the propaganda against China. Western philosophy and religion are welcome even in the past, as long as they do not promote "confrontation" and "instability" into Chinese society.

MARXISM AND CHRISTIANITY WITHIN THE GREAT WALL

Boxer Rebellion

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Don't force upon China. We, Chinese, definitely know what is good and what is bad to us. We know what to change and when to change.

The following is one of the chapters in "Tao De Jin", a work in 600 B.C.

Embracing Tao, you become embraced.

 Supple, breathing gently, you become reborn.

 Clearing your vision, you become clear.

 Nurturing your beloved, you become impartial.

 Opening your heart, you become accepted.

 Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.

 Bearing and nurturing,

 Creating but not owning,

 Giving without demanding,

 Controlling without authority,

 This is love.

Some Cuttings

The first evidence of the community's habituation to its all-encompassing Chinese environment may be gleaned from the text inscribed on the synagogue monument of 1489, where an attempt is made to demonstrate that the ethical principles upon which both Judaism and Confucianism are based are very much the same.

No summary of the history of the Jews of Kaifeng can ignore the great fervor and widespread religious speculations that were evoked in the West by the news of their "discovery" in 1605 by Matteo Ricci, particularly throughout Catholic theological circles.

In 1628, Father Francois Sambiasi established the first of the several Jesuit mission houses that functioned intermittently in Kaifeng. From statements made by the Kaifeng Jews in the early 1720s we know that at least two of his successors, Fathers Rodriguez de Figueiredo and Christiano Enriquez, were received as guests in the synagogue some decades before that time

Church in connection with its evangelical campaign in China was to decide how much of their old Confucian thoughts and ways of life presumptive candidates for baptism should be permitted to take with them if and when they actually embraced the Catholic faith. And if they were permitted to carry over certain of these Confucian tendencies, what, if anything, should later be done to counteract and eradicate these troublesome proclivities? This was by no means a new problem for the Church, for it had faced very much the same predicament in its dealings with forcibly converted Jews in Europe and in its missionary endeavors in India, Africa, the Americas, and elsewhere.

A missioner, Wilhelmina (Minnie) Vautrin from Illinois family, became a heroin to thousands of Chinese people in December 1937 when Japanese soldiers slaughtered 300,000 Chinese in Nanjing Massacre.

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