This has gotta be one of the more insane headlines of the decade so far...
China will create own Christian belief system amid tensions with church, says official
New Chinese theology must suit Chinese culture and values, State Religious Affairs director says
China will construct a "Chinese Christian theology" suitable for the country, state media reported on Thursday, as both the number of believers and tensions with the authorities are on the rise.
China has between 23 million and 40 million Protestants, accounting for 1.7 to 2.9 per cent of the total population, the state-run China Daily said, citing figures given at a seminar in Shanghai.
About 500,000 people are baptised as Protestants every year, it added.
"Over the past decades, the Protestant churches in China have developed very quickly with the implementation of the country's religious policy," the paper quoted Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, as saying.
"The construction of Chinese Christian theology should adapt to China's national condition and integrate with Chinese culture."
China's ruling Communist Party is officially atheistic and keeps a tight grip on religion for fear it could challenge its grip on power. It requires believers to worship in places approved by the state and under government supervision.
Besides officially sanctioned churches, China also has "underground" or "house" churches which seek to exist outside government control and are occasionally raided and shut down.
In April, authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, known as China's Jerusalem, with more than a million Christians, demolished a church following government claims it was an illegal structure.
Though a registered church, state media reported that the building was far larger than originally approved.
"Over the past years, China's Protestantism has become one of the fastest growing universal churches," Gao Feng, president of the China Christian Council, was quoted as saying in the China Daily report.
It did not include a number for Catholics in China, who must also worship only in officially sanctioned churches which reject the Vatican's authority, though an "underground" church loyal to the Holy See also exists.
Experts estimate that there are as many as 12 million Catholics in China, split roughly evenly between the two churches.
As of the end of last year, China had published 65 million copies of the Bible, the report said, including minority-language editions.
The opening lede about "Chinese theology must suit Chinese culture and values" reminded me of something I read yesterday...
Via: https://medium.com/@DavidDWrites/you-pr ... 7422362422
There was a time when I was fed up with the idea of religion, Jesus and the way they’re both used to oppress seemingly as many people as they save.
I spent three months studying abroad in Ghana — in the villages and more impoverished areas of the country for the majority of that time — and I saw how so many “missionaries” were conflating “converting people to Christianity” with “convincing them that they’re uncivilized and need to be westernized.”
This all came with billboards of a blonde-haired blue-eyed Jesus. Churches where traditional African garb was replaced with suits and ties in 90-degree weather because that was somehow the proper way to worship.
I remember distinctly walking around with a White classmate of mine — he was blonde with a beard and sandals on — as he got stopped by a Ghanaian who couldn’t believe how much he looked like Jesus.
I spoke to one taxi driver who explained that Judas was the only Black person in the Bible. I saw firsthand the crippling mental oppression and inferiority that religion can bring. I didn’t want any part of it.
I don't just make this shit up 
