I recently read this Foreign Policy article about religion in China.  I encourage you to read it as it is an interesting article about the Chinese Communist Party’s burgeoning interest in harnessing the power of religion to serve its own political ends.  While the process of rehabilitating Confucius has been underway for some time, the article focuses on Christianity.

The benefit to the CCP of bringing Christianity into the mainstream is evident: it would encourage believers to be more open about their faith, giving the Party a more accurate picture of their numbers.  If it can continue to exert control upon religion as it seeks to do by, for example, insisting upon its right to appoint Catholic bishops in the face of fierce opposition from the Vatican, it may be able to channel religion in a direction which serves its desired ends.

Having recently spent some time reading Taiwanese and South Korean history, however, I have been struck by the key role that Christians played in these states’ respective democratic transitions.  Might not the same scenario develop in China?  Will believers be content to have the limits of their religious conscience circumscribed or will a kind of Christianity with Chinese characteristics continue to evolve?  Perhaps the treatment of Falun Gong members will dissuade Christians from organising and pushing against limits imposed upon them by the authorities.

As with so many aspects of modern China, no one knows how religiosity will evolve in the Middle Kingdom.  While communist policy makers will doubtless place an emphasis on rendering unto the CCP the things which are the CCP’s, they will also be aware of the later impact of Christianity upon the Roman Empire.  Some estimates suggest that up to 10% of Chinese are Christians.  Might Christianity one day be adopted as a state religion?  This may seem fanciful, but Romans may have thought the same of the Empire before Constantine and Theodosius.