We in the West are so accustomed to Christian beliefs and iconography that we often fail to even recognize their ubiquity. We use phrases like “falling from grace” and “ashes to ashes” without considering the complex theological roots of such terms. When we hear that someone has “found religion,” we presume they have become (re)oriented toward Jesus, not to Allah or astrology. The English writer G.K. Chesterton, keenly gazing from across the pond, famously quipped that America is a “nation with the soul of a church.” And while it may seem like society has become less nominally Christian, in many ways we are still deeply rooted in Christian morality, which the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (paraphrasing Nietzsche) referred to as the great “transvaluation of values.” Even today’s seemingly anti-Christian social justice movement, with its demands for ideological purity and its culture of cancellation, can be linked to Protestant moral ethics and demands for public confession.
Yet this is not the case in the Far East, where Christianity is seen as a foreign Western influence. In China, where my ancestors are from, Christian expression is directly limited by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While it is technically legal to be a Christian, worship is controlled within the confines of the CCP, and state-sanctioned churches must only preach sermons approved by the regime. This is an issue, of course, for the Christians that want to hear the Gospel undiluted by atheist apparatchiks, those ready to censor any expression of Christian faith that may threaten the CCP’s iron grip on society. Unlike the West, where all faiths are expected to bend the knee to the principles of liberalism (which is really just a non-theistic framing of Protestant views on the rights of the individual), all faiths in China must live under the principles of Sinicization, where any religious belief must also be explicitly subordinate to the demands of the government. In addition, Christians (and adherents to other faiths as well) are not allowed to be members of the CCP, thus shutting down the chance that Chinese Christians could reform the system from the inside.
Thus, the status of how open the CCP is to the West is directly linked to the status of Christians in China. In times of good relations between the CCP and Western governments, Chinese Christians have been able to practice their faith more freely. But when relations sour, the Chinese government cracks down on them. My maternal great-grandfather converted to Christianity in the late 1800s, when Anglican and Methodist missionaries traversed the areas near port cities spreading the Good News. Since then, my family of Christians have been through times of relative freedom to practice their faith, as well as times of great tumult to say the least.
When the CCP took power in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong, non-Chinese proselytizers were forced to leave the country, although Chinese Christians could still practice their faith as long as their teachings did not threaten the government’s power. But the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) drove all Christians underground, and my own family had to hide their Bibles and hymnals for fear of persecution. It was not until after the Revolution that Christianity was permitted again, as was acceptance of some market reforms as China again re-established ties with the West under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. But in recent years, under the leadership of Xi Jinping, the government has banned online evangelization, arrested and jailed prominent pastors that refused toe the party line, and removed crosses from churches across the nation, all in an era where China is adopting a more nationalist stance.
One thing is clear from the history of Christianity in China: Chinese Christians are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the CCP’s attitudes toward the Western world. When the CCP feels unthreatened by the West, Christianity can be practiced more openly; when tensions between Beijing and the West are high, Christians are perceived as a potential fifth column that must be dealt with. Yet, the CCP’s view of Christianity as a Western religion notwithstanding, the truth is that Christianity is a universal (catholic) faith that may have started in what is now known as the Middle East, but was always destined to spread across the world. Jesus told His disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28:19a), not just in what we today think of as the West. While there are powerful forces out there that may be able to hinder the Gospel, there is no force on Earth that can stop the Good News from opening hearts and minds in all nations. My Chinese Christian great-grandfather was seen by others as someone who had accepted a belief system invented by strangers, but in reality, he and the missionaries were no strangers, but family, for they were already brothers in Christ.