Posted on 02/10/2018 3:49:52 PM PST by Faith Presses On
Nearly half a century after Mao Tse-Tung banned religion in China, the country is home to an estimated 72 percent of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people. Yet if Christianity continues to grow at its current rate there, in a few years there will be more Christians in China than in any other country in the world.
By claiming just a sliver of China’s population of 700 million religiously unaffiliated people, religious groups can drastically change their size and influence. As Christian religions lose ground across much of the Western world, China is one of the few countries where Christianity is experiencing stunning growth—from approximately 3.8 million adherents in 1956 to an estimated 87 million today.
Knowing this, Christian leaders are participating in a kind of gold rush for Chinese faith. And the Protestants are winning.
That the vast majority of new Chinese converts are Protestants, not Catholics, represents an important reversal in a country where Catholic missionaries have historically had the most success converting the Chinese to a Christian religion. In 1956, there were roughly three Chinese Catholics for every Protestant. Today, there are between six and 10 Protestants for every Catholic. Those numbers don’t look good to the Vatican—which may help explain why, over the last few months, Pope Francis has started to make a series of major concessions to the Chinese government. (Protestants don’t hold the pope to be the head of their Church.)
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The Atlantic sure has a odd view of the gospel.
Like it was a fast food chain or something.
I know what you mean. But it actually presents some possibilities which I haven’t heard brought up on why Francis is on the verge of selling out the Catholic underground church in China. For instance, it mentions that the religious displays of Catholic worship likely remind the Chinese of Buddhist religious ceremonies. So it might not just be about Francis’ Marxism or that China is blackmailing the Vatican.
Interesting that The Atlantic feels it necessary to inform their readership with parenthetical statement: “Protestants don’t hold the pope to be the head of their Church.”
Christianity really is a bizarre alien culture to the authors and readers of this magazine.
“Catholics Have a Messaging Problem in China”
They have a Somali messaging problem in Minnesota too.
They actually brought the Somalis to Maine.
In flat-out surrendering and selling out to the Chinese Communist Party "Catholic Patriotic Association," the Catholic Church has nothing to gain and everything to lose. I mean, it's not even in the most crass kind of institutional self-interest, let alone something that could give honor to Christ.
Somebody compared it to turning over Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph to King Herod in hopes of "starting a dialogue".
And reading Cdl. Sorondo's imbecilic comments on "China the Embodiment of Catholic Social Justice" makes me wonder if he has been demonically possessed by the spirit of Walter Duranty.
(Real) Chinese Catholics have had their houses bulldozed and their churches dynamited, have been imprisoned, tortured and killed to uphold the principles Pope Francis is poised to throw away.
In flat-out surrendering and selling out to the Chinese Communist Party "Catholic Patriotic Association," the Catholic Church has nothing to gain and everything to lose. I mean, it's not even in the most crass kind of institutional self-interest, let alone something that could give honor to Christ.
Somebody compared it to turning over Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph to King Herod in hopes of "starting a dialogue".
And reading Cdl. Sorondo's imbecilic comments on "China the Embodiment of Catholic Social Justice" makes me wonder if he has been demonically possessed by the spirit of Walter Duranty.
(Real) Chinese Catholics have had their houses bulldozed and their churches dynamited, have been imprisoned, tortured and killed to uphold the principles Pope Francis is poised to throw away.
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