From the Brussels Journal:
At the beginning of the 21st century, Europe is being Islamized, while China is being Christianized. This proves that if God exists He must have a sense of humor. Buddhism and Taoism still claim most worshippers in China but the state-sanctioned churches count up to 35 million followers. The underground churches are estimated to have 80 million members or more, about 12 million of them Catholics, the rest Protestants.
In a Beijing beauty salon, convert Xun Jinzhen explains why Christianity has become so popular: “
We have very few people who believe in communism as a faith, so there’s an emptiness in their hearts.” Among the Chinese converts are some figures from the 1989 democracy protests. According to Han Dong-fang, “
I think human beings need something at a spiritual level. We don’t want to believe we are coming from nowhere; going nowhere. In China we have traditionally followed Buddhism. We had quite a deep religion. But communism destroyed everything. When communism became this corrupted thing which failed everybody, people still needed a belief. I think that’s the reason for Christianity in China.”
It is noteworthy that the capitalist economy of China and South Korea is booming at the same time as Christianity is spreading among Chinese and Koreans. Christianity is retreating in Europe, which is in serious economic decline. Korean and Chinese students of European classical music play Beethoven, Bach and Mozart while Western youth listen to Gangsta rap and enjoy Arabic music at Islamic cultural festivals. Will the dynamic of individualism bloom in China while it is suffocating in Europe where it was once championed?
The War For China's Soul---Time Magazine
After four failed attempts over a millennium and a half by foreign missionaries to gain a foothold in China, Christianity is finally taking root and evolving into a truly Chinese religion. Estimates vary, but some experts say Christians make up 5% of China's population, or 65 million believers. And thousands more are converting every day, the vast majority through unofficial "house" churches like the one that sparked the clash in Hangzhou. In Wenzhou, a city in coastal Zhejiang province known among Chinese Christians as "China's Jerusalem," 15% to 20% of the population is Christian, a fact that gives the church leaders much greater authority in confronting local party officials. In 2002, for example, a campaign of protests and appeals to Beijing led to the reversal of a city government decision to ban Sunday-school teaching.At officially sanctioned churches like St. Paul's in Nanjing, a near puritanical attention to order is maintained. There are rows of wooden pews, a pulpit from which the sermon is preached, even a signboard on which hymn numbers are posted. The pastor of St. Paul's, Kan Renping, 38, says his congregation has grown from a few hundred when he took over in 1994 to some 5,000 regular worshippers today. Many have to watch the proceedings on remote TV from four satellite chapels in a nearby building.Christian Vs Communist---The Telegraph
Richard Spencer reports today from Beijing that there may now be more practising Christians in China than there are members of the Communist Party. The precise figures cannot be known, in a country in which Christians are still persecuted. But the evidence suggests that there may be as many as 80 million or even 100 million members of underground Christian churches in China, unapproved by the state. The Chinese Communist Party, meanwhile, has only 70 million members. If those figures for worshippers are even roughly accurate, then we are looking at a very remarkable development in the history not only of Asia but of all mankind. Xun Jinzhen, a Christian convert who runs a beauty salon in Beijing, put it eloquently when he said: "We have very few people who believe in communism as a faith. So there's an emptiness in their hearts."Christianity is China's new social revolution---The Telegraph
Protestantism and Catholicism are among the approved faiths, the others being Budd-hism, Taoism and Islam. Buddhism and Taoism claim most worshippers but the state-sanctioned churches count up to 35 million followers. More significant are the underground or "house" churches, which are said to have 80 or even 100 million members. "City people have real problems, and mental pain, that they can't resolve on their own," said Mr Xun. "So it's easy for us to convert these people to Christianity."'Europe Will Be Islamic by the End of the Century'---Human Events
How quickly is Europe being Islamized? So quickly that even historian Bernard Lewis, who has continued throughout his honor-laden career to be strangely disingenuous about certain realities of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, told the German newspaper Die Welt forthrightly that "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."
Or maybe sooner. Consider some indicators from Scandinavia this past week:
1) The Nordgårdsskolen in Aarhus, Denmark, has become the first Dane-free Danish school. The students now come entirely from Denmark's fastest-growing constituency: Muslim immigrants.
2) Also in Denmark, the Qur'an is now required reading for all upper-secondary school students. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it is unlikely, given the current ascendancy of political correctness on the Continent, that critical perspectives will be included.Look out, Europe, they say---The EconomistEurope has become a “field of jihad”, and it may be the part of the world where America faces the greatest threat from Islamic extremism. So says Daniel Benjamin, a former White House adviser who is now a terrorism-watcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank. Mr Benjamin makes a demographic projection of a kind more often heard on American lips than European ones. The Muslim population of the European Union's existing 25 members may on present trends double from about 15m now to 30m by 2025. And that leaves out EU-applicant Turkey, with an almost entirely Muslim population of around 70m.
To be sure, it is by no means clear just how many Muslims there are in Europe. In France, whose secular authorities never ask a religious question on a census form, the number of people of Muslim heritage is generally given as 5m, or 8% of the population. But that is only an educated guess. Some studies, extrapolating from the difference in birth rates, say the figure might rise to 20% of the population by 2020. Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: I’m Dreaming of a Halal Christmas---The Brussels JournalYesterday the Brussels judiciary searched the offices of the Muslim Executive of Belgium (MEB). The MEB is an official organisation, whose 17 members are democratically elected by the Belgian Muslims. It acts as the official representative of the Belgian Muslims and distributes the government subsidies to support the Islamic religion. At least 33,000 euros have disappeared from the books of the MEB. Last week, the MEB offices were also searched after it was discovered that the MEB transferred money to the bank account of Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist who is serving a prison sentence of ten years for an attempt to bomb an American military base.
Topic: While China Turns Christian, Europe Turns Muslim (Read 6808 times)