NYT,pg1: Violence Taints Religion's Solace for China's Poor

[DeepModem Mom]

THE GREAT DIVIDE | COMPETING FOR SOULS
Violence Taints Religion's Solace for China's Poor
By JOSEPH KAHN

Published: November 25, 2004


....China's growing material wealth has eluded the countryside, home to two-thirds of its population. But there is a bull market in sects and cults competing for souls. That has alarmed the authorities, who seem uncertain whether the spread of religion or its systematic repression does more to turn peasants against Communist rule.

The demise of Communist ideology has left a void, and it is being filled by religion. The country today has more church-going Protestants than Europe, according to several foreign estimates. Buddhism has become popular among the social elite. Beijing college students wait hours for a pew during Christmas services in the capital's 100 packed churches.

But it is the rural underclass that is most desperate for salvation. The rural economy has grown relatively slowly. Corruption and a collapse in state-sponsored medical care and social services are felt acutely. But government-sanctioned churches operate mainly in cities, where they can be closely monitored, and priests and ministers by law can preach only to those who come to them.

The authorities do not ban religious activity in the countryside. But they have made it so difficult for established churches to operate there that many rural Chinese have turned to underground, often heterodox religious movements.

Charismatic sect leaders denounce state-sanctioned churches. They promise healing in a part of the country where the state has all but abandoned responsibility for public health. They also promise deliverance from the coming apocalypse, and demand money, loyalty and strict secrecy from their members.

Three Grades of Servants, a banned Christian sect that claims several million followers, made inroads in Huaide and other northern towns beginning nearly a decade ago....But it also attracted competition from Eastern Lightning, its archrival....The two sects clashed violently. Both became targets of a police crackdown....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/international/asia/25china.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=

[progressivedancer]

1. Gee

Religion can be so shady.Religion is great but sometimes it just hinder rational and critical thinking. People start to think and say the truly absurd, like "apocalypse is coming" or "I talk to God."

China is a big ass place, I know i've been there. I think that in some ways people will always find a religion to cling on to, thus China's attempts at suppression is really futile. Being of Asian descent I personally think that Buddhism and other religious philosophies are better of in Asia than the western religions. I am just afraid that all of China may someday become the next Bible Belt AKA middle America.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Thanks for sharing your perspective, progressivedancer --

nt

[TahitiNut]

5. Confucian ideology was the power-broker 'religion' of its day.

History continues to inform the student. Chinese feudalism was enabled by Confucian belief systems. Taoists and Buddhists were regarded with enmity by the ruling elite.

[Hamlette]

3. you can see where state sponsored religion may have come from

This is so interesting. I always suspected it was true, that the government sponsored religion as a way to keep the people in line, another power structure. Here you see it happening. You get some crazy sects preying (no pun intended) on the uneducated population and Catholicism (or whatever) starts to look good. Another powerful structure to control the masses. So the state "enforces" it as better than the crazy ass sects they can't control.

The poor turn to religion, as with the slaves in America, because they need to dream of a better life after this one.

[area51]

4. "state has all but abandoned responsibility for public health"

That sounds like the U.S.

American universal healthcare: "pray you don't get sick."