Persecution

Yes, there's a religion story behind those statistics about China's shrinking population

Yes, there's a religion story behind those statistics about China's shrinking population

China made the news again last week for an odd reason — its demographics.

Only 12 million babies were born last year in China, the lowest number since 1961. You can think of 35 years of forced abortions and mandatory IUD devices for that. Oh, and going after the offspring of Uyghur Muslims, house-church Christians, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners figure into that number, as well.

But the details of that important religion angle didn’t make it into the stories I read. In the New York Times:

Figures from a census released on Tuesday show that China faces a demographic crisis that could stunt growth in the country, the world’s second-largest economy. China has long relied on an expanding and ambitious work force to run its factories and achieve Beijing’s dreams of building a global superpower and industrial giant. An aging, slow-growing population — one that could even begin to shrink in the coming years — threatens that dynamic.

Now listen to how the next paragraph explains how this happened.

While most developed countries in the West and Asia are also getting older, China’s demographic problems are largely self-inflicted. China imposed a one-child policy in 1980 to tamp down population growth. Local officials enforced that policy with sometimes draconian measures. It may have prevented 400 million births, according to the government, but it also shrank the number of women of childbearing age.

“Sometimes draconian” measures? Forcibly aborting a woman’s second child is, by definition, draconian.

Beijing is now under greater pressure to abandon its family planning policies, which are among the world’s most intrusive; overhaul an economic model that has long relied on a huge population and a growing pool of workers; and plug yawning gaps in health care and pensions.

Well, yes, when local cadres monitor the exact timing of women’s periods to make sure they’re not pregnant, that’s pretty intrusive.


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Trends that influence news: Where in the world is Christianity still growing?

Trends that influence news: Where in the world is Christianity still growing?

THE QUESTION:

Where in the world is Christianity still growing, and why?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

This page often addresses topics that have been in the air for months, even years. But this one is raised by a brand-new article this week at Christianity Today and a more academic version posted by the journal Sociology of Religion. There's further timeliness in the Gallup Poll's March bombshell that less than half of Americans now claim religious affiliations, the lowest mark since it began asking about this 84 years ago.

The CT article, headlined "Proof That Political Privilege Is Harmful for Christianity," is found here. The academic article is headlined "Paradoxes of Pluralism, Privilege and Persecution: Explaining Christian Growth and Decline Worldwide," and available for purchase.

So: Bad times for Christians are good times for Christianity?

That contention is a modern update on Tertullian's 2nd Century maxim during an era of outright persecution, "semen est sanguis Christianorum" — "blood is the seed of Christians." If you persecute us, we grow even more. And so it was.

The scholars proposing a 21st Century version of this are Nilay Saiya (writing solo in C.T.) and study partner Stuti Manchanda, both at the public policy department of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. This team analyzed data on churches' rise and decline in 166 countries from 2010 to 2020, found impressive expansion, and examined causal factors.

Looking back, Asia began the last century with only one Christianized nation, the Philippines, but more recently the faith "has grown at twice the rate of the population." Africa in 1900 had only pockets of Christians, mostly in coastal locations but today is "the world's most Christian continent in terms of population."

Now, all of that is familiar to missionary strategists and historians of the modern church. What's new here is the team's fresh look at explanations. They conclude "the most important determinant of Christian vitality is the extent to which governments give official support to Christianity." It's often said that the American founders' pioneering separation of church and state energized Christianity across two centuries.


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ISIS executes another Coptic Christian: Once again, this appears to be 'conservative' news

ISIS executes another Coptic Christian: Once again, this appears to be 'conservative' news

Let’s spend a moment examining a basic (you would think) file produced by a Google News search for this name — “Nabil Habashi Salama.”

Who is this man in the news? Simply stated, he is the latest Coptic Orthodox Christian killed by ISIS.

Does his death matter? Alas, this appears to be a political question, one that shapes basic journalism decisions about what stories are worthy of mainstream coverage.

First things first: Here is the overture of a report about his death published at Christianity Today. The headline: “ISIS Executes Christian Businessman Kidnapped in Egypt’s Sinai.”

The Islamic State has claimed another Christian victim. And Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church has won another martyr.

“We are telling our kids that their grandfather is now a saint in the highest places of heaven,” stated Peter Salama of his 62-year-old father, Nabil Habashi Salama, executed by the ISIS affiliate in north Sinai.

“We are so joyful for him.”

The Salamas are known as one of the oldest Coptic families in Bir al-Abd on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai Peninsula. Nabil was a jeweler, owning also mobile phone and clothing shops in the area. Peter said ISIS targeted his father for his share in building the city’s St. Mary Church.

In a newly released 13-minute propaganda video entitled The Makers of Slaughter (or Epic Battles), a militant quotes the Quran to demand the humiliation of Christians and their willing payment of jizya — a tax to ensure their protection.

Now, what is Christianity Today?


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Ponder this news question: What happens to Afghan religious minorities post-USA?

Ponder this news question: What happens to Afghan religious minorities post-USA?

First things first. There is no question that, if and when U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, the biggest security issue will be protecting women who have taken modest steps to move into public life in recent decades.

Thus, it is totally appropriate that information about women’s rights received the lion’s share of attention in the recent New York Times report on the sobering behind-the-scenes realities in that troubled land. You can see that right in the headline: “Afghans Wonder ‘What About Us?’ as U.S. Troops Prepare to Withdraw,” with its subhead mentioning fears that the “country will be unable to preserve its modest gains toward democracy and women’s rights.”

Again, this news hook is totally valid. However, I think that this story needed some information — at least a paragraph of two — acknowledging the serious concerns of members of minority religious groups in Afghanistan. These range from Islamic minorities (and more moderate forms of that faith) as well as small, but historic, communities of Baha’is, Sikhs, Jews and Christians. And then there are the reports about growing underground networks of secret Christian converts.

This is, literally, a life-and-death situation for thousands of people. Might this human-rights issue be worth a sentence or two?

Hold that thought. First, here is the overture in this otherwise fine feature:

KABUL, Afghanistan — A female high school student in Kabul, Afghanistan’s war-scarred capital, is worried that she won’t be allowed to graduate. A pomegranate farmer in Kandahar wonders if his orchards will ever be clear of Taliban land mines. A government soldier in Ghazni fears he will never stop fighting.

Three Afghans from disparate walks of life, now each asking the same question: What will become of me when the Americans leave?

President Biden on Wednesday vowed to withdraw all American troops by Sept. 11, 20 years after the first Americans arrived to drive out Al Qaeda following the 2001 terrorist attacks. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” he said, speaking from the White House.

The American withdrawal would end the longest war in United States history, but it is also likely to be the start of another difficult chapter for Afghanistan’s people.


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Despite China's vast religious and political repression, 2022 Olympic boycott still unlikely

Despite China's vast religious and political repression, 2022 Olympic boycott still unlikely

We’re rapidly approaching the inflection point on whether China will get to stage the 2022 Winter Olympics without some sort of concurrent international protest — such as a major boycott — prompted by Beijing’s often outrageous treatment of its Muslim Uighur, Tibetan Buddhist and underground Christian religious minorities, as well as its secular pro-democracy movement.

The question for me is: Will the international community — and in particular the United States and other democracy-espousing nations — punk out as it did with the Nazi-run 1936 Berlin Olympics. Or will the International community find some righteous backbone and either boycott the 2022 winter games, or make its opposition to Beijing’s policies known in another significant and unmistakable manner?

China, of course, has threatened retaliation against any nation that dares to challenge it by linking the Olympics and human rights.

When I last posted about the possibility of an international boycott of the upcoming China Games, — back in 2019 — I wrote off any boycott possibility as an extreme long shot.

As of this writing, I think a widespread boycott is still highly unlikely. But it’s no longer a completely dismissible long shot, I believe, because of changed circumstances — not the least of which is the ongoing coronavirus crisis and China’s oblique explanations of the pandemic’s Wuhan region origins.

Why still unlikely? Ironically, for the very same reason a protest is now slightly more conceivable, the coronavirus.

The U.S., without which no boycott can succeed, as well as its major pro-Western democratic allies, are all still deeply engaged in trying to halt the coronavirus.

We don’t know how much longer this fight will go on or what surprises are ahead. Regardless, the effort has left them economically vulnerable and politically drained. I’d say they lack the necessary additional emotional and intellectual bandwidth to take on another international crisis. Certainly not one they can avoid without triggering immediate dire consequences for their own citizens.

Forget the morality of the situation. Moral avoidance is a well-honed government strategy with a global heritage.


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Prayers and bloodshed during Lent: Catholic bishops cry out for help in Nigeria

Prayers and bloodshed during Lent: Catholic bishops cry out for help in Nigeria

Another day, with yet another funeral.

Catholics in Nigeria had buried many priests and believers killed in their country's brutal wars over land, cattle, honor and religion. But this was the first time Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese had preached at the funeral of a seminarian.

A suspect in the crime said 18-year-old Michael Nnadi died urging his attackers to repent and forsake their evil ways.

"We are being told that this situation has nothing to do with religion," said Kukah, in remarks distributed across Nigeria in 2020. "Really? … Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills Muslims too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to convert or die?"

The bishop was referring to fierce debates -- in Nigeria and worldwide -- about attacks by Muslim Fulani herders on Christian and Muslim farmers in northern and central Nigeria. The question is whether these gangs have been cooperating with Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The conflict has claimed Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostal Christians and many others, including Muslims opposed to the violence. Prominent Muslim leaders have condemned Boko Haram and church leaders have condemned counterattacks by Christians. In recent years it has become next to impossible to keep track of the number of victims, including mass kidnappings of school children and the murders of clergy and laypeople, including beheadings.

"Religion is not the only driver of the mass atrocities," said Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, in December testimony before members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Not all 40 million members of the Fulani ethnic group in the region are Islamic extremists. However, there is evidence that some fraction of the Fulani have an explicit jihadist agenda. …

"A mounting number of attacks in this region also evidence deep religious hatred, an implacable intolerance of Christians, and an intent to eradicate their presence by violently driving them out, killing them or forcing them to convert."

In a sobering Feb. 23 statement (.pdf here), the Catholic Bishop's Conference of Nigeria warned that the "nation is falling apart."


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Papal splash: Persecuted Iraqi Christians get long-awaited spotlight with Francis visit

Papal splash: Persecuted Iraqi Christians get long-awaited spotlight with Francis visit

By the time this runs, the pope will have flown home from Iraq after a historic trip that apparently went without a hitch. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both wanted to go to Iraq; Francis actually went and did it.

There were so many reasons not to go: The pandemic, the security situation and the potential for misunderstanding or disaster. But Iraq put on an impressive show, keeping the pope safe, creating venues at which he spoke (the tableau in Mosul was particularly dramatic) and accommodating a press corps of several dozen reporters.

Which leads to mentioning how difficult covering a papal trip really is. I’ve covered two U.S. papal trips (John Paul II in 1987 and Benedict XVI in 2008); one papal election in Rome (Benedict, 2005) and spent plus two weeks in northern Iraq (July 2004), so I have a feel for the conditions. Covering a pope is a succession of 18-20-hour days spent getting checked over by security, traveling to the event, covering it and then filing your story and doing the research for the next day’s story.

Even the timing was tricky. The pope had to dodge major religious holidays along with national ones such as Nowruz, the Persian new year that’s also observed in Iraq and is on the first days of spring. He also had to avoid coming much past April as that part of the world is scorching for half of the year. (When I was there in July, it was 111 degrees).

Listen here to CNN’s Vatican correspondent Delia Gallagher as she talks about waiting in Rome for the papal plane with 75 other journalists, all of whom, she said, were vaccinated. Notice the band playing the hymn “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” when the pontiff came down the stairs to the tarmac. I’m sure that tune was a new one for the Baghdad airport.

I also caught this NBC report about reporters taking an Iraqi military plane to get to Ur. I hope to hear more about what it was like to report from Iraq.

News outlets with Baghdad and Rome bureaus understandably had the best ringside seats to the visit and it was the foreign correspondents, not these outlets’ religion beat reporters, who got to cover the trip.

Even Religion News Service’s and the Associated Press’ Vatican reporters had to cover the event from Rome, so I am very curious as to who these 75 journalists were who actually got on the plane.

Putting on such a trip was quite the production, according to a detailed 25-minute special report by alJazeera, which informed us that Iraq employed 10,000 members of its security forces to make sure nothing went wrong.

I’ll open with the Washington Post’s account of the pope’s arrival.


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Reader asks: How can news consumers decide if Ethiopian massacre reports are true?

Reader asks: How can news consumers decide if Ethiopian massacre reports are true?

While Americans focused on the dramatic conclusion of 2020 White House race, reports began circulating in the overseas press claiming that a sickening massacre had taken place in a famous church — a pilgrimage site for the Ethiopian Orthodox.

How famous? For centuries, church officials have claimed that the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum contains the Ark of the Covenant.

This was, from the start, a journalism horror story — since Ethiopian officials were preventing foreign journalists from reaching the site of the alleged massacre. At the same time, activists on both sides of the stunningly complex conflict appeared to be working hard to shape the coverage that was taking place.

The other day, a frustrated reader sent me this note, after seeing materials posted online attempting to undercut claims that this massacre of 700-plus believers took place. “I’ve trusted you and your sources for about five years now so I’m hoping you can help get to the bottom of this,” the reader said.

I told the reader that, to me, it appeared that this was a case in which — at this point — certainty was impossible. A careful reader would note that some journalists were saying that claims about the massacre could not be verified — either way. “Human rights activists on left and right are concerned about the report and believe the attack COULD have taken place. But there has been no verification that has been locked down certain,” I said.

If you want to see what we’re talking about, check out these early reports from Catholic News Agency (“Hundreds reportedly dead after massacre at Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia”) and The Church Times (“Massacre ‘of 750’ reported in Aksum church complex, Tigray, Ethiopia”).

This is, of course, an argument about the attribution of truth claims. When journalists cannot (for a variety of reasons) do on-site reporting to seek evidence, they frequently are forced to seek the best sources that are available to them (often via telephone or other forms of technology) and report what they can. Here is the crucial point: Journalists have to clearly identify the identity of the sources and let readers know what kind of access they would or would not have to the information.

This leads us to a recent Associated Press story with a headline stating, “ ‘Horrible’: Witnesses recall massacre in Ethiopian holy city.

The key word is, of course, “witnesses.”


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UK ready to welcome waves of Hong Kong residents (Yes, BBC ignored religion angles)

UK ready to welcome waves of Hong Kong residents (Yes, BBC ignored religion angles)

On the night of the Hong Kong handover to China, I walked through that great city’s old airport — noting the many residents who sat, passports in hand, preparing to leave. I was leaving after a small international gathering of journalists and academics focused, naturally, on religion and the news.

I talked to a few of the solemn people I saw that night in 1997. Some said they were leaving for good. Others said they were going abroad to explore the legal and economic hurdles they would need to clear if or when they decided to leave. I didn’t hear a single optimistic voice.

Like the people I interviewed for the two “On Religion” columns I researched during that stey, they said that they expected that, in a few years, the Chinese authorities would crack down on dissent, free speech and, yes, some mentioned freedom of religion. Here are those columns: “Silence and tension in Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong II: There’s more to life than $.”

I bring this up because of an important story that is unfolding, in slow motion, in the United Kingdom. Here is the top of a long BBC website story with this headline: “The Hong Kong migrants fleeing to start new lives in the UK.

The UK will introduce a new visa at the end of January that will give 5.4 million Hong Kong residents — a staggering 70% of the territory's population — the right to come and live in the UK, and eventually become citizens.

It is making this "generous" offer to residents of its former colony because it believes China is undermining Hong Kong's rights and freedoms.

Not everyone will come. Some of those eligible to leave have expressed their determination to stay and continue the fight for democracy.

In the end, Britain estimates that about 300,000 will take up the visa offer over the next five years.

As you would expect, the story introduces a family that is already in the UK, exploring their reasons for making the leap. Any signs of religion here?

Readers are told that Andy Li and his wife Teri Wong moved to York in October, just after the announcement of plans for this policy change. They said, no surprise, that they were thinking about their children, daughter Gudelia, 14, and son Paul, 11.

"We feel that the things we treasure about Hong Kong — our core values — are fading over time," said Mr Li. "So we decided we needed to provide a better opportunity for our children, not only for their education, but also for their futures."


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