Freedom of religion does not exist in China. Although organized religion is permitted as long as it is submissive to the goals of the state, any religion – Christian – Hindu – Moslem — must be formally approved by the state in order to build churches and worship publicly. For the Chinese Catholic Church, this government control has led to a formal break between the Vatican and the Chinese State. The Chinese government does not recognize the Vatican’s right, for example, to appoint bishops. It is the Chinese state that appoints bishops whether the Vatican approves of the appointment or not. This has led to two Catholic systems in China, one recognized by the state and a second, underground church. Of course, the Vatican in its turn does not recognize the official Chinese Catholic Church.
China has no embarrassment about defending its right to control religion. It routinely imprisons dissident pastors and closes their churches. Recently, when the government began a campaign of tearing down crosses fixed on churches, dissenting pastors were disciplined, detained and harassed. “Authorities have forcibly removed nearly 1,700 crosses from atop churches since 2014, mainly targeting official Protestant churches in the Three-Self church organization, which is sanctioned by the state.” (Christian Century, March 26, 2016, p.16.)
“Churches have been bulldozed across the country, allegedly as part of urban development plans, ” reports James Fellows in his recent article in Atlantic (December, 2016, p. 58)
Why are the authorities doing this? The communist government intends to remove crosses which powerfully symbolize church organizations that could be seen as acting independently of the state. It cannot be far from the truth, either, to say that the crosses represent a western influence which is not Chinese, and could be seen as diminishing devotion to country.
Human suffering is the real tale here. In 2017, we are still witnessing the imprisonment and torture of religious adherents. For one quarter of the world’s peoples, religious diversity and inclusion are virtues considered detrimental to the state and so it is a crime in China to witness to the person of Jesus Christ and His cross.
We should be ashamed of ourselves for not doing anything to make China respect freedom of religion for all its people..