Chinese police and officials from the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) have tried to ban a conference of pastors in Shanghai, warning that it would be banned ”˜with coercive measures’.
According to the China Aid Association, on the morning of February 10, 2009, six Chinese police officers and visited the chief pastor Cui Quan of Wanbang Missionary Church of Shanghai and ordered him to cancel the fourth Seminar of Chinese Urban House Church Pastors Fellowship.
Pastor Cui Quan argued and claimed that the church has its rights. He also pointed out that as the authorities tried to ban the conference at the last moment when most attendants to the seminar had already arrived and checked into hotels, it was really impossible to cancel the conference by that time.
The attitude of the Chinese continues to be schizophrenic. Early last year I visited the former Anglican Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai that is being painstakingly restored to its impressive pre-revolutionary state including expensive, detailed recarving of the woodwork. And all of this is (theoretically) to be returned to the local (official) Protestant authorities who have already been allowed to revamp the old diocesan offices and the cathedral school into an impressive and functional facility for religious work. Bibles and other religious publications were certainly available for sale there and in other church sites in the country. Then one hears stories like this and wonders if even the authorities understand what they’re doing. Yes, there’s persecution. But Christ is risen in China, nonetheless.
I’m betting that Trinity Cathedral is being put under the state-supported Three-self Church (like a united church) while the other meeting would be of the non-government controlled underground churches which are now surfacing in certain places.
Someday China will be different, but different in what way and when only God knows. Until that time it is probably a good idea not to get so focused on the trappings of Western culture we see on television that lead us to think that the PRC is as open a society as God has blessedly given to us.