Jan Harvey
Jan Harvey is a Vancouver educator who works to build bridges between faith and cultural communities.
Bio last updated April 30th, 2018.
Articles by Jan Harvey
The Torment of China's Religious Believers
By Jan Harvey and David Kilgour
October 18, 2011
Freedom of belief is essential to any open society. It is difficult for anyone who has not lived under a totalitarian regime of one stripe or another to understand the ways of the Party-state in China, especially on the matter of religion. The world's attention is drawn to the tribulations of believers in the world's most populous nation by recent headlines such as, "Dalai Lama calls Chinese insistence on picking his religious successor 'a disgrace'," "China calls Vatican 'unreasonable' in bishop spat," and "Leading pastor in China's underground Protestant c hurch sentenced to two years in labor camp." And since 1999, shocking photos have emerged of Christians being beaten and dragged, weeping as their house-churches were bulldozed..
By remaining obedient to the Pope and by not registering with the Chinese government, the Roman Catholic Church is outlawed in China and is known as the 'underground,' 'loyal' or 'clandestine' church Purporting to control the church so that foreign interests cannot use religion as a political tool against socialist China, the State claims that reports of persecution are "stories created to deceive overseas Christians" ("China refutes distortions about Christianity," www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/zjwy/t36493.htm) It is "the tensest standoff over religious freedom since the brutal crackdown on Falun Gong adherents after they made similar calls for official acceptance" (Brian Spegele, "China's Growing Protestant Force," UCA News, July 28, 2011) on a moral collision course with a government that [seems] soulless" (Ursula Gauthier, "Why Do Groups in China Put Authorities on Red Alert?" TIME, June 2, 2011) By late 2010, any thought of co-operation between the Vatican and the People's Republic of China collapsed as the CCPA began forcibly gathering bishops for an assembly to elect a new national president of the Patriotic Association and president of the Council of Chinese Bishops