China Seeks to ‘Liberate’ Christians from Religion

ICC Note:
China’s top official in its religious affairs office told the country’s state-run newspaper that the government is struggling to get religious believers to banish their superstitious beliefs and accept atheism. Because the government adheres to a Marxist ideology, China is known to crack down on religious minorities, especially Christians worshiping in underground churches. Does this announcement herald a new wave of persecution for Christians in China?                               
4/22/2013 China ( The Independent) – China is struggling to get its estimated 100 million religious believers to banish superstitious beliefs about things like sickness and death, the country’s top religious affairs official told a state-run newspaper.
Wang Zuoan, head of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, said there had been an explosion of religious belief in China along with the nation’s economic boom, which he attributed to a desire for reassurance in an increasingly complex world.
While religion could be a force for good in officially atheist China, it was important to ensure people were not mislead, he told the Study Times, a newspaper published by the Central Party School which trains rising officials.
“For a ruling party which follows Marxism, we need to help people establish a correct world view and to scientifically deal with birth, ageing, sickness and death, as well as fortune and misfortune, via popularising scientific knowledge,” he said, in rare public comments on the government’s religious policy.
“But we must realise that this is a long process and we need to be patient and work hard to achieve it,” Wang added in the latest issue of the Study Times, which reached subscribers on Sunday.
“Religion has been around for a very long time, and if we rush to try to push for results and want to immediately ‘liberate’ people from the influence of religion, then it will have the opposite effect and push people in the opposite direction.”
About half of China’s religious followers are Christians or Muslims, with the other half Buddhists or Daoists, he said, admitting the real total number of believers was probably much higher than the official estimate of 100 million.
Wang did not address specific issues, such as what happens after the exiled spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama dies, testy relations with the Vatican or controls on Muslims in the restive Xinjiang region in the west.
Rights groups say that despite a constitutional guarantee of freedom of belief, the government exercises tight control, especially over Tibetans, Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and Christians, many of whom worship in underground churches.
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