Falun Gong Adherent meditating in Tieneman Square By ClearWisdom.net While a religiously tolerant Europe slowly slips away from religious belief and observance, the government of China treats religion not as recognition of mankind’s spiritual nature, but as a threat to society, to law and order and to state control. Ironically, China could soon become home to the world’s largest population of Christians , and the Chinese Communist Party is determined to put its own stamp on Christianity and other religions, and has put belief under the thumb of the State Administration for Religious Affairs. China has had a long and troubled relationship with religious belief. When Mao Zedong created the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the country’s resentment of longstanding foreign interference combined with dogmatic Marxist atheism resulted in government suppression of organized religion. Missionaries were driven out , and monks were jailed. Traditional Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and ancestor worship were prohibited from open practice, and “foreign” Christianity and Islam suppressed. Since the workers were in charge of the country – as the official line went – “the opiate of the people,” was no longer needed. Massive propaganda campaigns denigrated religions, religious festivals, even folk storytelling. Only […]
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