{"id":5833,"date":"2011-08-10T16:52:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/watchwomanonthewall\/?p=5833"},"modified":"2011-08-10T16:52:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T20:52:20","slug":"chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html","title":{"rendered":"China&#8217;s Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WRITTEN BY BRUCE WALKER<br \/>\nTUESDAY, 19 JULY 2011 10:26<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"275\" \/>Totalitarians cannot tolerate the free exercise of religion. As so many disillusioned communists in the last century observed, communism, to its disciples, is a religion and a god. One well known book, a collection of the writings of a number of former communists, is called simply The God That Failed. Anyone who has attempted to discuss a subject intelligently with a communist quickly grasps that he is talking to a follower of a secular religion.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes communism has entered into a truce with faith or has loosened the chains on religious people for tactical reasons. During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, for example, the churches opened again and allowed people to worship without duress. That limited freedom disappeared after the Nazis were defeated. The Soviets also pretended to respect the rights of Jews to worship, although in actual practice Judaism was suppressed (Hebrew, for example, was forbidden while Yiddish, a secular language, was encouraged).<\/p>\n<p>Why the fear of religion? As men such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew, faith in the living God reduces all the powers and principalities of man to dust. All things pass but God.<\/p>\n<p>What was true of communists is true of all totalitarians. The Nazis brutally crushed Christianity, sending ministers and priests to concentration camps, raping nuns, and pillaging churches, and cleverly introducing an anti-Christian form of Christianity: the \u201cGerman Christian\u201d movement. The Nazi plans failed, as only a small number of Germans embraced the new idea. Most of the people either remained the nominal Christians they had been before the Nazis came to power, or joined the overtly pagan movements closely associated with Nazi racial theories.<\/p>\n<p>In Poland, neither the Nazis nor the communists were able to crush the Catholic Church, as Pope John Paul II quietly led the Polish people in a passive resistance of their communist overlords.<\/p>\n<p>Christianity has worked quietly but persistently for centuries to convert China. Missionaries such as John Birch gave their lives to try to give the Chinese the hope of Christ and the model of Americanism. The obstacles to this work have always been formidable: Japanese imperialists hated Christianity just as much as did Chinese communists. Totalitarians grasped that faith in God is liberating (there is a reason why in Orwell\u2019s 1984 as well as in the writings of Nietzsche, God is dead).<\/p>\n<p>In China today, its communist leaders have copied the example of their totalitarian sibling, Nazi Germany, and created a statist, nominal form of Christianity. Pastors and priests are arrested and tortured. Genuine Chinese Christians worship secretly in &#8220;house&#8221; churches. But operating underground is nothing . . .<\/p>\n<p>Read more:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/history\/world\/8265-chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions\">http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/history\/world\/8265-chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WRITTEN BY BRUCE WALKER TUESDAY, 19 JULY 2011 10:26 Totalitarians cannot tolerate the free exercise of religion. As so many disillusioned communists in the last century observed, communism, to its disciples, is a religion and a god. One well known book, a collection of the writings of a number of former communists, is called simply&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1474,1361,1344,256,344,1925,555,252,1688,435,1367,1867,1121,503,1502,1498,168,1620,757,1430,251,565,1240,806],"tags":[1809,2170,2169,9372],"class_list":["post-5833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abuse-and-abusers","category-anti-christian-bias","category-attacks-from-the-left-on-the-righteous","category-brainwashing","category-bullying","category-character-assassination","category-china","category-christian","category-christian-martyrs-the-persecuted-church","category-communism","category-deceptions-and-lies","category-evil-plot","category-failed-policies","category-free-speech","category-godlessness","category-insanity","category-jesus-christ","category-moral-decline","category-new-world-order-globalism","category-news-2","category-persecution","category-terrorism-2","category-war-2","category-warning","tag-anti-christian","tag-hate-christianity","tag-hate-christians","tag-red-china"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>China&#039;s Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions - Watchwoman on the Wall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China&#039;s Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions - Watchwoman on the Wall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WRITTEN BY BRUCE WALKER TUESDAY, 19 JULY 2011 10:26 Totalitarians cannot tolerate the free exercise of religion. As so many disillusioned communists in the last century observed, communism, to its disciples, is a religion and a god. One well known book, a collection of the writings of a number of former communists, is called simply&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Watchwoman on the Wall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-10T20:52:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Calvin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"China's Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions - Watchwoman on the Wall","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"China's Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions - Watchwoman on the Wall","og_description":"WRITTEN BY BRUCE WALKER TUESDAY, 19 JULY 2011 10:26 Totalitarians cannot tolerate the free exercise of religion. As so many disillusioned communists in the last century observed, communism, to its disciples, is a religion and a god. One well known book, a collection of the writings of a number of former communists, is called simply&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html","og_site_name":"Watchwoman on the Wall","article_published_time":"2011-08-10T20:52:20+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg"}],"author":"Donna Calvin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html","name":"China's Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions - Watchwoman on the Wall","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg","datePublished":"2011-08-10T20:52:20+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-10T20:52:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#\/schema\/person\/1470e1ef6765f8a27f970307b0835df1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.thenewamerican.com\/images\/stories2011\/06aJuly\/fatherpro-t.001.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/08\/chinas-cold-war-on-christianity-perpetuates-historic-persecutions-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"China&#8217;s Cold War on Christianity Perpetuates Historic Persecutions"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/","name":"Watchwoman on the Wall","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Calvin","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#\/schema\/person\/1470e1ef6765f8a27f970307b0835df1","name":"Donna Calvin","description":"In sixth grade my teacher told us that we were going to be the first generation to see the year 2000 and all things would be different. He continued that God wasn't important, wasn't real, and our parents just used God to impose restrictions on us because they were inadequate to parent effectively. I knew then I was going to be involved in a war and that I would have to be in Jesus Christ's Army. Even then, I knew the United States of America would cease to exist without the vast majority of its citizens voluntarily submitting to the Perfect and Good Laws of the Holy Bible. I am a woman who loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I am tired of seeing our LORD denigrated from the school house to the White House. I search the Internet for items that ought to serve as a warning to Americans and Christians all through America, but the nation seems to be sleeping. Wake up America! You are losing your freedoms, your children and your country. Wake up and help stop it!","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/author\/dcalvin"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5833"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5838,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions\/5838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}