Freedom of belief

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Politics

27 June 2023

5 min read

Understanding authority from Rome to Beijing

As geo-political tensions between China and the West rise, K.K. Yeo explores authority and religion in China, finding complex questions and nuanced answers.

K.K. Yeo

K.-K. Yeo, a diaspora Chinese, lectures widely in majority world including China on cross-cultural understanding of civilization and religion.

Haidian Christian Church

Is the West Christian and China Confucianist? Or is the West secular and China communist? Binary understanding of our world in conventional terms, such as East versus West, or the sacred-secular divide, is superficial and confusing. Given the biases, divisiveness and, at times, toxic geopolitical reality today, the topic of government and Christianity in China today is more complex than meets the eye. A much better option is a meaningful cross-cultural perspective that enables constructive conversation, while honoring different contexts and nuanced understandings.

Does it surprise you that, an atheist, and at times anti-religion, ‘party-state’ China is the world’s largest Bible printer? Christianity in China has existed since the seventh century when the Syrian Church of the East had rigorous cultural, religious, and commercial exchanges with many nations as far as those in East Asia. Recently the regime in China has become concerned about the growth of the Christian population that might be outnumbering the Party’s members. There has been the suppression of believers, burning of crosses, and demolition of churches across the country. The Communist Party eliminated the State Administration for Religious Affairs in 2018, and the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party now has direct control on all religions.

Does it surprise you that, an atheist, and at times anti-religion, ‘party-state’ China is the world’s largest Bible printer?

Churches in China exist in a harsh reality similar to that of first century Roman Empire, so they inevitably find the teaching of St. Paul in the Bible to be of great interest. Chinese Christians have long had nuanced responses to their government. The house church remains committed to love Christ only - rendering to God the things that are God’s, and only then would they render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. This ‘separation of religion and government’ position (preservation of religious freedom from government intrusion) is considered to be politically subversive to the authoritarian rule of the Party. Therefore, the house churches have long distanced themselves from politics, while acknowledging that their Christian behaviour, such as loving their neighbor as a religious duty, is ‘the best politics’ for nation building.

By contrast, the Three-Self Patriotic churches—and also the current Vatican-China agreement on the appointment of Chinese bishops—do not find a serious discrepancy in loving Christ and the communist state. They seek to work with the government primarily in the matter of social welfare but have range of mixed views on the scope of combining patriotism with Christian belief. To maintain no or minimum separation of government and religion is becoming more and more challenging as the government centralises its control of all aspects of national and personal lives.

Christians in China are asking harder questions than those in churches outside China.

Can a Christian church adopt a state ideology or become a member of the Communist Party to support Christian identity and social harmony in China?

Are church attendance and participating in church activities politically subversive?

And what does it mean to say that ‘Jesus is Lord’ in that land?

I remember teaching at Peking University and seeing the students debate a scenario in the Bible in which the Thessalonian crowd was charging the apostle Paul and his colleague Silas for contradicting the decree of Caesar, for ‘saying that there is another king named Jesus’. Paul was surely preaching neither about insurrection nor subversion of the Roman Empire. However, Roman audiences then, and Chinese crowd or government today, are more likely to have perceived the belief in ‘Jesus as Lord’ as a political threat.

A case in point concerns Wang Yi, the pastor of the Early Rain Church in the city of Chendu, who preached Jesus as the Lord of lords - thus implying that the current political ruler is subsumed under Jesus Christ. Yi was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2018 ‘for inciting subversion of state power’. Cardinal Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old Catholic bishop in Hong Kong, was arrested in 2022 for criticizing the Vatican’s unwise deal with China, and for being an advocate of democracy in Hong Kong.

Christians in Hong Kong are treading similar water regarding their religious faith clashing with the politicized perception of such faith as treason, such as in the Umbrella Movement or the Occupy Central with Love and Peace that protest the will of the Chinese Communist rule in Hong Kong.

Can a Christian church adopt a state ideology or become a member of the Communist Party to support Christian identity and social harmony in China?

Using the teaching of St Paul in his letter to early Christians in Rome as a resource, the Chinese argue that he encourages these Roman Christians to critically reflect on government power so as to bring all nations to obedience of God’s justice. The popular reading of Paul as asking Roman Christians to ‘be subjected to the governing authorities’ for the reason that ‘for there is no authority except from God’ is a weak English translation. To the Chinese church, Paul admonishes Roman Christians to ‘subject themselves to the governing authorities’, and that is not a passive submission but a voluntary involvement as good citizens in the process of bringing about change to their government. The Chinese church sees that Paul challenges government politics, first by stating the principle that, ‘it is not an authority if not from God’, i.e., ‘unless from God’. In other words, there may be some governing authorities that are not appointed by God, thus begging the question: how does one know if governing authorities are from God and those not from God?

It seems that Paul is not concerned about whether a government or the head of state is Christian or not. What matters to Paul is not what the government says but the way the government or the head of state acts in accordance to the following principles:

Rulers are not to terrorize good conducts and good citizens; the rule of law is meant to approve the good-doers and punish the evil-doers;
Rulers are ‘ministers’ of God for the common good of the people, even though Roman Empire has its mythic origin from Jupiter, a Roman god;
Rulers are ‘worship leaders’ of God as they administer collected taxes not for their own concentration of power, but for the dignity and flourishing of the citizens, thus realizing God’s compassionate justice on earth, promoting the welfare of the city.

Churches outside China read Paul on government politics based on their assumed cultural context of Christian values. Yet, the Chinese church’s courage and humility to ask hard questions for themselves is an enlightening conversation. For those outside China, a cross-cultural and global understanding of government and religion can shed light on the promotion of a robust public life.

Reading is the perfect act of rebellion in our screen society

A fortunate meeting with the right text works an unfathomable, transformative magic.

Rachel Luckett

Rachel is a reader and writer, a coach, and an educator.

A young boy pores over a book tracing the lines with a finger.

Michael Parzuchowksi on Unsplash.

Every year out of the 22 years that I have been teaching, there has been at least one child, increasingly several, who lay down the gauntlet in September. They steady their feet and ball their fists before sizing up to inform me that they hate reading, they always will, no matter what I do, so there!

I likely raise an eyebrow and one side of my mouth; I don’t rub my hands together but the flame inside me leaps as I accept this familiar challenge. I’ve faced it so many times before and have almost always emerged the victor come July.

The secret is knowing great books, knowing the individual reader and knowing how to make that perfect match.

To read or not to read? That is the perplexing and troublesome question bothering many a teacher and (in my opinion) not enough parents in the present day. Need convincing? Though numerous research studies have evidenced significant benefits to cognitive function, brain health, physical longevity, mental health, stress relief, empathy, intelligence and sleep patterns, the National Literacy Trust's 2024 survey of over 76,000 children found that reading for pleasure saw an 8.8 per cent drop in just one year from 43.4 per cent to a worryingly low 34.6 per cent. This represents the lowest percentage since records began in 2005. Furthermore, trends are much the same throughout the adult population. It’s perhaps not hard to work out why picking up a book has declined in popularity. In our high-speed world of fleeting concentration, where bright, moving images flicker and fade, the monochrome, demanding, inanimate pages of a book can seem dull by comparison.

But a little effort can be hugely rewarding. Indeed, imaginatively creating, rather than consuming digital images, is the perfect act of rebellion in an utterly conformist, screen-based society. It is counter-cultural and subversive to sit awhile and demand that you bring your undivided attention to an effortful activity. To switch off devices and work your way into the unexplored possibilities of your own mind through the pages of a good book.

Teaching this to children has been my mission through 22 years of teaching English. I consider myself one of the stalwart guardians of the flame. The responsibility weighs heavy, urgent, and terrifying as resistance increases year on year. I obsess over it, feeling rationally afraid that if I stop breathing onto those embers for even one moment, the opportunity for revival will be lost…forever.

So, what of these books? What are we guarding? What is this paper-based treasure?

Imagine, for a moment, the sensational day when some tech billionaire creates a functioning portal or time machine, facilitating transportation back to the Tudors or the Trenches at the touch of a button.

Consider the mindless jostling to board a new rocket destined for a dystopian future not too distant or dissimilar from the present. Picture the frantic rush to buy personal transportation devices to enable visits to the rainforests of Guatemala, the Arctic glaciers or tropical island shores at a moment’s notice.

Imagine the insatiable sales of holograms masquerading as friends next to whom we could sink into an armchair creating free access to the minds of the rich and famous.

There would be jostling, posturing and frantic networking to get in on the action. That billionaire could set his price. Millions would be hastily spent to gain access.

But when that experience can be easily bought for somewhere in the region of £7.99 and comes in a 20x13cm rectangular paper format with monochrome printed pages, the levels of sensation and desirability dramatically drop through the floor.

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits.

We fail to see that our books are indeed those time machines, transportation devices and conversations with wise giants. We were gifted such possibilities at the time of the printing press. A well-chosen book should never leave you the same at its last word as you were when encountering the first. Between those two covers was a moment in time when you were profoundly and fundamentally changed for eternity. You acquired new knowledge, encountered new people and places, travelled through time, experienced ranging emotions and developed thoughts and ideas in conversation with the greats. Something within you was transformed for good or for ill with your choice of book. If nothing happened, you need help choosing.

Content matters also. We should feed our minds as carefully as we should feed our bodies.

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits. Where loneliness and depression devour, explorations of good character and relationship will nourish. Where fame and power corrupt, examples of service and humility will heal.

Good books will always nourish the soul.

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy – we should think on such things. This is why running our eyes over good words and filling our ears with exemplary voices is essential.

It is nothing short of a miracle that I can consult the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, the brave imagination of Katherine Rundell, the compassion of Maya Angelou and the teaching of Tom Wright in the silent space surrounding my armchair. I can equally learn from those who knew Frederick Douglass and those who knew Jesus not as figures in history but as a friend and teacher, a person of flesh and bone, in their literal time and space. They saw his face, they heard his voice, they felt the warmth of his hands on their skin, and I can know about it from their contemporary writings. I can consult equally with the writer of those ancient songs of wisdom that are the Psalms and the writer to the citizens of Philippi and know that between the words on those pages lies a moment when I am profoundly and fundamentally changed for all eternity.

Wise words are powerful, and they endure. They outlive a lifetime. They are miraculous and accessible. The world needs them.

So, to read or not read? The question is significant. It defines humanity. We guardians know that those last glowing embers must never be allowed to die. To read is a gift. It is noble work. It is a powerful and necessary act of rebellion in a world so out of touch with the Word.

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