China pastor on trial over Bibles

[Amelia]

China pastor on trial over Bibles

Thursday, 7 July, 2005

BBC News

The leader of an underground Chinese church appeared in a Beijing court on Thursday, accused of illegally printing more than 200,000 Bibles.

Cai Zhuohua, along with his wife and two other church members, has been charged with "illegal business practices", his lawyers have said.

The Protestant pastor has already been in detention for 10 months.

Although Bibles are not illegal in China, only one firm is permitted by the state to print them.

The country's Christians are also only allowed to worship in state-approved churches, although many people prefer to attend underground or "house" churches such as Pastor Cai's.

The case was adjourned without a verdict.

Mr Cai's lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, conceded that he was not optimistic about the verdict for the three detainees.

"It is impossible for them to be found innocent, but I have confidence to strive for lighter sentences," Mr Gao told the French news agency AFP.

"The books in no way were going to enter the market, they were to be given away free of charge to the church members," he added.

"The court should not be used to oppress religion and religious freedoms, but the authorities are always using economics as a pretext to deal with religious and political issues."

Bob Fu, president of the US-based China Aid Association (CAA), said the trial would be "a true litmus test for the Beijing government's religious freedom claims".

"Given the fact that 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing, the international community has an obligation to demand the Beijing government show the true spirit of the rule of law and respect of religious freedom for ordinary citizens like Pastor Cai," he said.

[Michelle]

Quote:

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"The court should not be used to oppress religion and religious freedoms, but the authorities are always using economics as a pretext to deal with religious and political issues."

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This is EXACTLY why China can state that they have freedom of religion. They will claim that there are NO religious prisoners in their system--all the "religious" prisoners are actually political prisoners.

Prayers for a light sentence.

M

[Gregory Matthews]

Re: "The books in no way were going to enter the market, they were to be given away free of charge to the church members," he added."

Are we to beleive:

a) That he pastored a local church of 200,000 members. I do not think so.

Are we to beleive that a printing of 200,000 Bibles was financed without money from foriegn sources.

NOTE: The issue of foriegn finacial support has been a major issue in China since the Communist revolution. It is on that basis that a major part of Chinese law in regard to religion, is that local religion have freedom only as long as they are locally self-supporting and do not recieve financing from sources outside the country. It is out of this background that some leaders in the admitedly struggling Christin churches tell us that those Christian groups who attempt to smuggle funds and Bibles into the country actually hurt the Christian community.

[Michelle]

Gregory--if you're interested, you should read Jesus in Beijing (I know, I keep mentioning it, but it's an incredible book). There is a lot more going on in the "underground" churches than a lot of people know about. Many of the underground churches have no connections with the outside churches, though there are many that do. Also, it doesn't say where this man was publishing the Bibles, but there is one particular province that is known as an economic miracle in China--and this particular province also just happens to have a huge percentage of the population being Christian. The government has to deal with them differently because there are so many powerful people in the province who are Christians. Could have very easily been funded from within the community without outside funds.

It's a tricky and delicate balance. On the one hand, you have the "official" church (Three Self Patriotic Movement, TSPM) saying that all churches must be registered with the government and having no outside influences. Okay, except that leadership of TSPM is communist. Which is why many churches refuse to become a part of TSPM.

On the other hand, you have the outside Christian community wanting to help both the official and the non-official churches and doing so for quite some time. Yes, that makes the communists mad. Should outsiders not interfere? Hard to say. I've talked to so many people on both sides of the argument that I don't know what is the "right" approach.

M

[Gregory Matthews]

Michelle, I understand what you are saying. It is complex and hard to understand.

[Sammy Lee]

Are we to beleive:

a) That he pastored a local church of 200,000 members. I do not think so.

Are we to beleive that a printing of 200,000 Bibles was financed without money from foriegn sources.

My answer:

a. No. There is no church with that kind of membership in China.

b. The printing cost in China is incredibly cheap. There are rich Christians in China now who can afford to support that printing project. Even with only the ordinary members chipping in a little each, it is not impossible.

I worked in China for seven years until the end of 1999, and I know what I am saying. With estimated between 50 to 75 million Christians in China now, 200,000 copies (if that can go thorough) is just a little trickle to the demand of Bibles there.

Keep on praying and supporting as much as you can.

God bless.

[Michelle]

I don't think the article claims that he had a church with 200,000 members. The quote that is throwing people off, apparently, is ""The books in no way were going to enter the market, they were to be given away free of charge to the church members," he added. " I think the use of the article "the" before church members implies that there is one church. However, I read it to mean church members in general.

The difficulty in getting a Bible in China is that one can ONLY buy one from a registered church and in most cases must register his/her name/address/etc in order to buy one. Anyone who is curious but not willing to give all that information is deterred by this process. You can't just walk into a book store and buy a Bible.

Giving Bibles away unofficially would be a big Red Flag (pun not intended, but I'll let it stay) to the government.

When I taught in China, I brought English Bibles in for my Bible as Literature class I taught to English majors. This was a huge logistical problem, as it is not legal. There were a lot of miracles in bringing in the 350 Bibles that we did, but I can't go into that on a public forum. We asked why it was so difficult, as people could buy a Chinese Bible at the church. They told us the government is really afraid of English Bibles because the people might actually read them (at least 10 years ago, students were very interested in anything in English and would devour anything they could get their hands on--so much different than Hong Kong!!!).

M