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PARTISAN REVIEW
Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye
that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep
now, for ye shall laugh. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have
received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall
hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn
and weep.
Arthur Waldron, writing in the Spring 1998 issue of
Orbis,
reports
the following information:
Numbers of Protestant Christians in China have climbed so dra–
matically that their officially sponsored organization has had to
scramble to accommodate even its own members. Thus, foreign
visitors who wished to join Protestant worship in Beijing in the
1970S were regularly taken to a lovely small chapel with an adjoin–
ing parsonage for the minister, who was always happy to meet
them. A decade later, however, the chapel was far too small, and
what looked to be a vast old octagonal revival hall on the campus
of a school was pressed into service. This is not to mention the
numerous house churches, where unofficial Christian groups gath–
ered, or the revival of indigenous Chinese Christian sects, such as
the True Jesus Church (which now has converts and churches in
foreign countries as well).
Roman Catholicism has shown similar vigor. Because of their loy–
alty to the Pope, Catholics were persecuted relentlessly during the
1950S and 1960s, foreign missionaries were expelled or impris–
oned, and Chinese clergy were murdered or sent to the gulag.
There is a large Catholic church in the heart of downtown Baoding.
In 1984, mass was still celebrated in Latin. We knew an elderly faculty
member at Hebei University who was a Catholic. He never went to that
church. I later found out the reason: the downtown church belonged to
the Patriotic Catholic Association, China's official pro-contraception,
pro-abortion Catholic Church. A devout Roman Catholic would not
go there.
We personally had no problems connected with religion in China. On
Purim, both in 1984 and 1989, we invited students and colleagues to
our apartment, where we all took turns reading from the Book of
Esther-in English. Our Chinese guests didn't know the story, and all of
them cheered at the end . There was another American family at Hebei
University in 1984, non-observant Presbyterians from Minnesota. They
