he in-depth study of concerns and practices throughout past and present times. My goal is that through reading this, you will gain understanding of basic beliefs, but more importantly gain an understanding of difficulties faced due to faith practices within a different culture than our own. We live in a country where we are free to worship as we choose and often times we take that for granted. We don’t even consider the fact that eighty percent of the world has to worship in private just to avoid persecution. Regardless of their religious beliefs, this is a terrible fact. It is true that myself, and most others directly around me are Christian, but this fact goes for all religions. In fact, I am more impressed with a devout Muslim than I am with a lukewarm Christian. The Bible tells us to be either hot or cold, but under no circumstance should we be lukewarm and settle for complacency. My heart goes out to those attempting to worship in China, while having to do so in private. Let’s find out more about this issue that is very prevalent among the Chinese. I realize that our goal was to study a religion that is different from our own, but in order to accurately express the whole problem of religion in China, I want to first talk about Christianity in China. It is true that Christianity is only practiced by 1% of people in China, but when taken into account the very dense population, that one percent turns into quite a large number of people. It is estimated to be as many as fifteen million. Unfortunately that is quite small compared to the twenty five million Muslims and one hundred million Buddhists though . In many ways the Christian faith is completely different from our own view of Christianity. Not so much in the ways that they interpret the Bible, or doctrine, but rather in the ways that they are allowed to worship. Basically Christianity is a practice that is forbidden in China. All religions must register with the Religious Affairs Bureau and gain approval to allow public worship. Since many sects of Christianity are not approved, numerous worship gatherings called “house churches” and “underground churches” have been established. (Rodenbough 1) Some of these unfortunately are more of cults than Christian gathering places, but many of them are of the uplifting nature. In order to accurately show the turmoil and difficulties faced by Christians, I want to list some recent headlines about Christian issues in China. * China Church Leaders Sentenced * House Churches - A Family In Hiding... * Some Christians Resisting China's Crackdown On Religion….. * 70 Christians Have Disappeared Or Been Secretly Arrested….. * China House Church Leaders Shaken by Cult Kidnappings… (Mandate) Just looking over these few headlines gives quite an impression of what faith in China is like. It isn’t something to be taken for granted or practiced freely. In fact, recent Chinese elections have put new faces into positions of power over the Christian organizations in the country, but they don’t seem to be wise people to have in office. Rev. Chao Shengjie is now the president of the China Christian Council, but soon after her inauguration she made a very disturbing statement in my eyes. She said, “We will never support the evangelization of China. Because if we do not pay attention to the welfare of the Chinese people but go about preaching the gospel on a great scale, we will not only politically fall into the camp of the enemy forces but we will harm the church itself” (Mandate 2). Correct me if I am wrong, but that statement is terrible to be coming from a newly elected leader of Christianity in China. Granted, evangelizing is not an easy task in a nation where Christianity is not freely accepted, but it is still needed. I also must disagree with Rev. Chao where she says that it will harm the church if preaching the gospel occurs. It may be true that they will face some more persecution, but harming the church is not the

Some topics in this essay:
Han Chinese, Buddhists Muslims, China Try, China Backgrounder, Christian Council, Buddhism Buddha, Rev Chao, Mustafa Masoud, Taoism Buddhism, Shintoism Animalism, chinese culture, islam 3, buddhism accepted, buddha 1, religious freedom, faith china, preaching gospel, islamic faith, muslims china, chinese people, china christian council,