{"id":21374,"date":"2008-06-30T09:55:17","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T16:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=21374"},"modified":"2008-06-30T09:58:57","modified_gmt":"2008-06-30T16:58:57","slug":"christianity-is-flourishing-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/06\/christianity-is-flourishing-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity is Flourishing in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/world\/la-fg-jesus29-2008jun29,0,1845504.story?track=rss\">Chicago Tribune (via the LA Times) reports<\/a> on the growth of Christianity in China today, and looks at the <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/06\/video-jusus-in-china\/\">recent Frontline\/World documentary<\/a> on the topic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSome Chinese Christians say their faith is actually a boon for the party, because it shores up the economic foundation that is central to sustaining communist rule.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With economic development, morality and ethics in China are degenerating quickly,&#8221; prayer leader Zhang Wei told the crowd at Jin&#8217;s church as worshipers bowed their heads. &#8220;Holy Father, please save the Chinese people&#8217;s soul.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Christianity is driving citizens to be more politically assertive, emboldening them to push for more freedoms and testing the party&#8217;s willingness to adapt. For decades, most of China&#8217;s Christians worshiped in secret churches, known as &#8220;house churches,&#8221; that shunned attention for fear of arrest on charges such as &#8220;disturbing public order.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But in a sign of Christianity&#8217;s growing prominence, in scores of interviews for a joint project of the Tribune and PBS&#8217; &#8220;Frontline\/World,&#8221; clerical leaders and worshipers from coastal boomtowns to inland villages publicly detailed their religious lives for the first time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Tribune (via the LA Times) reports on the growth of Christianity in China today, and looks at the recent Frontline\/World documentary on the topic: Some Chinese Christians say their faith is actually a boon for the party, because it shores up the economic foundation that is central to sustaining communist rule. &#8220;With economic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5905],"class_list":["post-21374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-christianity","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christianity is Flourishing in China<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/06\/christianity-is-flourishing-in-china\/\" \/>\n<meta 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