From one extreme to the other: [-]The authorities have seized on the incident as an opportunity for venting against an old foe: “evil cults”. The Communist Party tolerates organised religion when its houses of worship are registered and its doctrines do not challenge the party’s authority. Its attitude toward unregistered congregations and foreign missionaries is much less tolerant, and has recently shown signs of hardening even further. Fenggang Yang of Purdue University says this reflects the rising influence of “militant atheists” in the party. A fear of religious sects is deeply ingrained in the party’s thinking. In the mid-19th century a popular sect known as the Taiping, whose leader claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, launched a bloody rebellion that nearly toppled the Qing dynasty (see picture). Mao tried to ban superstitions, disdainful of their hold on the popular imagination—if not of the Mao cult that arose in their place. More recently the emergence in the 1990s of the Falun Gong spiritual movement surprised the party leadership both with its popularity (its following of millions included officials and intellectuals) and its organisational skills. The party dispatched many adherents to labour camps and others to psychiatric wards to “cure” them of their sectarian obsessions. The movement withered.[-] economist/news/china/21614243-murder-mcdonalds-has-given-party-pretext-attacking-old-foe-no-cult-zone
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 15:05:54 +0000
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