Chinese Christians are the Canary in the Coal Mine

Yet this is not the case in the Far East, where Christianity is seen as a foreign Western influence. In China, where my ancestors are from, Christian expression is directly limited by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While it is technically legal to be a Christian, worship is controlled within the confines of the CCP, and state-sanctioned churches must only preach sermons approved by the regime. This is an issue, of course, for the Christians that want to hear the Gospel undiluted by atheist apparatchiks, those ready to censor any expression of Christian faith that may threaten the CCP’s iron grip on society. Unlike the West, where all faiths are expected to bend the knee to the principles of liberalism (which is really just a non-theistic framing of Protestant views on the rights of the individual), all faiths in China must live under the principles of Sinicization, where any religious belief must also be explicitly subordinate to the demands of the government. In addition, Christians (and adherents to other faiths as well) are not allowed to be members of the CCP, thus shutting down the chance that Chinese Christians could reform the system from the inside. Read Full Article »