AND THERE'S THAT SPARE 23 MILLION YOUNG MALES...:

Converts inspired by democracy protests and western values (Richard Spencer, 30/07/2005, Daily Telegraph)

Among China's Christian converts are some of the most prominent figures from the 1989 Tian-an-men Square democracy protests - now mostly in exile.

Two, Zhang Boli and Xiong Yan - both on the list of "21 Most Wanted" student leaders published shortly after the Bei-jing massacre 16 years ago - have been ordained as priests.

Han Dong-fang, who was on a separate "wanted" list of workers' leaders, was converted through the US Chinese church movement.

He arrived in America in 1993 after being released from prison on medical grounds. He contracted tuberculosis in a Chinese jail and nearly died.

"I think human beings need something at a spiritual level," he said in Hong Kong, where he now broadcasts on labour issues for Radio Free Asia. "We don't want to believe we are coming from nowhere; going nowhere." [...]

The present-day revival is not the first attempt to convert China. The Nestorians, an heretical sect, arrived in the seventh century, and Jesuit priests travelled to the Qing dynasty court in the 17th century.

In the 19th century, a wave of missionaries arrived with China's forced opening-up to foreign trade after the opium wars.

One unforeseen consequence was the Taiping Rebellion, an uprising by followers of a man who claimed he was the brother of Christ. The conflict led to 20 million deaths, and is said by many to have fatally weakened the last dynasty.

The Taipings and the association with colonialism are enough to damn Christianity in many leaders' eyes. But for others, the religion has become associated with prosperity and openness in the West.

Mr Han said: "When I went to the church in America, I got a different feeling from what I used to experience in China - a feeling of people being together, of sharing their feelings and experiences and difficulties of life. This kind of feeling was really new to me."

Heck, a not insignificant portion of the population might even welcome another period of Heavenly Peace if it destabilized the regime.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 2, 2005 8:37 PM