Persecution in China: A party member's view

CHINA

The following interview was conducted last fall by Compass Direct, an international Christian news service, with a high ranking official in China. The official is a Christian whose job is to monitor religious activity. He granted the interview only on condition of anonymity.

I make a distinction between persecution and discrimination. There is very little persecution, but massive discrimination. When you become a known Christian in China, you automatically lose certain rights. It is harder to obtain a job, a good education, trips abroad, etc., because the society is run by the Communist Party for professing communists. That's discrimination. It happens to every Christian.

Then, if you are a Christian, you are not free to practise your faith as you choose. You are obliged to keep it private and practise it only in officially supervised settings. Chinese officials have made a silly mistake about religion. They equate it with public worship. They think if you can pray and sing in a church, then you are free. They have no concept of Christianity as a way of life. Again, that is highly discriminatory.

By persecution I think of Christians being thrown in jail, beaten, harassed, physically abused. There is very little of that relative to the size of the Christian population. I may be too far up the tree to know what's going on at the roots, but I would be very surprised if there were more than a couple of hundred people incarcerated for their Christian faith. The last two years have seen hundreds of arrests, but few have been sentenced, and most released. That is regrettable, and it is wrong to say there is no persecution, but it is minimal when you consider the Christian community may number more than 50 million. In China we are used to millions being persecuted, and that is an enormous improvement. Even of those jailed, in nine cases out of 10, the government has a very good reason.

Something foolish that virtually requires the government to take action. An example is Xu Yongze. He has been getting more and more unorthodox in recent years, as well as abusing his power within his own movement. Other house churches have called him a cult leader. There is evidence that some of his followers are total charlatans who have been hiding lights up their sleeves and then shining them in dark, crowded rooms as "the light of the Spirit".

But that can hardly be typical.

Maybe not. All I'm saying is that there was enough that was peculiar about the movement to attract government attention. Other more orthodox movements do not have so much to fear. Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending his arrest. I believe that if someone wants to teach that salvation is gained by performing a handstand over a bowl of bean curd, that still does not merit jailing. In a free society, we should laugh at them, not jail them. Xu I am sure is a Christian, but he is in jail partly because of his extremism.

Another case is the recently arrested Xu Gouquing. He is a Christian house church leader, but what attracted the government to him was that he was criticizing Chinese foreign policy, claiming that the government was wrong to give up sovereignty over Mongolia. He shouldn't be arrested for expressing silly political opinions, but it is partly his own doing.

You say there is actually positive news on persecution.

There is much more religious freedom today than 20 years ago, and all indicators suggest that there will be much more freedom in 20 years. China is committed to capitalism, which will continue to open the >

Does Chinese government policy involve stamping out the house churches?

No, I don't think that is a conscious intention in the minds of the top leadership. Religious policy is dependent upon whether the Party leadership feels politically secure or not. If the leaders feel insecure about their ability to govern China into the next century, they become more controlling, more defensive. This affects everything, from trade unions to house churches. This is a time of great insecurity, so anyone who meets together in unofficial groups is heading for trouble. That is why is it so hard for the house churches now, and probably will be for a few years more.

I don't want to present a totally negative scenario. The puzzlement, confusion and defensiveness that Party officials show toward religion now are actually an opportunity for the Western church. Party officials are open to advice as never before. Of course, this advice has to be given by people who have taken the time to make friends with these officials. Name-calling or denunciation from another country will not open the door, but for those who seek to befriend the leaders of this country, a golden opportunity exists.

In a certain province, a Party official hated religion. He used to take any opportunity to jail Christian leaders. But a foreign Christian came to the city and began to build a hospital. The two of them had to work together on administrative matters. For a time, the official persecuted the local Christians more, just to goad this foreign Christian. But as they worked together, a friendship slowly formed. The Party official was greatly impressed that this man would come to China and work for subsistence wages when he could be getting rich in his own country. It turned out that the official's wife had died of starvation in the 1960s, and some Christians had tried to resurrect the corpse. He had been bitter toward them ever since. After the encounter with this visitor, he began to ease off on the persecution, and even intervened when some of his officials persecuted other believers. The persecution in this case did not come from ideology, but a private hurt that was eased through friendship. This could be happening all over China if Western Christians would make friends first with these officials.

But there must be a place for firmness too? The persecuted must be named and their persecutors pressured?

Yes, I don't think one should stop all criticism. Western Christians must articulate the cry of the oppressed; otherwise, they would not be the true church of Christ. But one must be careful not to be so negative that one hates the persecutors. Some of the criticism levelled against China this year I believe was hate-based. Some Christian leaders are involved in religious persecution issues because they hate communists. I've met them. To them I would say: Keep the persecuted on the map by all means--that is your duty--but remember, there are no communists left, only Party members. Take the ideological sting out of your crusade. It's inappropriate. Mao is not still running this country, and if you realize that, you can have more influence than you dream. But you must become friends first.

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