From Orlando Sentinel:
Christianity in China has come a long way since 1870. That was the year that violent Chinese mobs in the city of Tianjin, enraged by rumors that French missionaries were kidnapping babies, massacred every Christian they could get their hands on. In those days, China’s citizenry saw Christianity as a tentacle of Western imperialism, and as such viewed it as a threat to their country’s very existence.
But the role of Christianity in China today could hardly be more different from what it was then. While doing research on Chinese society in Beijing this summer, I met a surprisingly large number of recently converted Chinese Christians. And I wasn’t the only one aware of the rising tide of Christian conversions. When I visited the South Cathedral, Beijing’s oldest and most famous church, a young priest bragged to me that 300 young people would be baptized after the coming Sunday’s Mass. “That won’t happen in the U.S.,” he said. [Full Text]
Robert L. Moore is a professor of anthropology at Rollins College and director of international affairs at the college’s Holt School. David Aikman, former Beijing bureau chief for Time Magazine and author of Jesus in Beijing, gave a speech on “China, Christianity, and the Advent of Reason” at the Heritage Foundation on July 17, 2007. Click here to download or listen to audio of this event.
