China’s War Against Faith

The Chinese Communist Party has never quite known what to do with God. Mao Zedong tried to bury Him under the rubble of the Cultural Revolution; Deng Xiaoping tolerated Him so long as He stayed in His designated pew; Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao kept a wary eye on Him. Xi Jinping has decided the experiment is over. Under Xi, the party has launched the most systematic campaign against religious life in the world today — a campaign that, for all its bureaucratic euphemism, amounts to a war.