In some parts of the world, this is a bad time to belong to an organized Christian church. However, in all parts of the world, this is a bad time to have a gospel message restricted to what takes place within an organized church. It’s always a bad time to have a gospel message cloaked in specific branding with theology and terminology that belongs to an identity that can be targeted, but churches are under attack all over the world right now.
Very few governments are openly hostile to the gospel message, although China is in this case. Even then, it’s probably secondary to a much more practical matter of control. It’s not about the gospel, but the influence churches have over human behavior. Because “the church” in China borrows entirely too much from the culture and social biases of Western churches, it becomes a target for controls that fight those biases. It’s entirely possible to have a biblical worldview and offer very little provocation to just about any government that exists.
The power of the gospel to accomplish God’s glory cannot be confined to a creed or sectarian identity. It doesn’t belong to any human agency any more than God Himself does. The mythology that imagines religious organizations as somehow exempt from human political foibles is an especially serious hindrance to the gospel message. This would be a really good time for Chinese Christians to build a faith and practice that is not tied to something their government can target.
This is a really good time to develop all the habits and expectations of an underground church. That’s not precisely the purpose of Radix Fidem, but it is certainly native to our heart-led way. We aren’t building a sectarian identity, but a method and means of building your own religion that resists the intrusion of government control. Not in the sense of fighting back, but we resist in the sense that we focus on a way of faith that leaves nothing the government can seize and control.
Granted, there is a place for followers of Christ to resist a bad government, but not for any of the reasons commonly asserted. The means and methods should arise from one’s divine calling, not some kind of sectarian identity. We aren’t defending a team as if we compete with human government. The issue is defending the dominion God granted you to keep. Your convictions know how to do that as a means of shining divine glory into a dark world.
Don’t think the tribulations of Chinese Christians can’t happen in the West.
