Maybe the constitution’s emphasizing on the freedom of each and every citizen to choose their own desired religion and belief in those western countries has to a certain degree determined that western countries will have fewer and looser restrictions toward the Chinese Christianity believers and clergies (Wu Annie. 2017). However, at present the number of professional clergies is still relatively small so that it can be hard to meet the growing demand for the great majority of the Chinese Christianity believers. Thus it can be predicted that more and more professional clergies need to be trained and cultivated in order to satisfy the increasingly large number of the Chinese Christianity believers in recent years. And it is hoped that the Chinese Christianity can sooner or later win the support and approval of other people that do not worship it. Or maybe I can put it in another way that it is human beings’ wish that all the human beings can completely eliminate their own bias on it one day even though they do not worship it. That is to say, the rationale why they do not worship does not mean that they hold bias on it but that they have their own freedom to choose the specific religion that they would like to follow.
b. Beliefs and Worship According to the Chinese Christianity teachings, it reads that the believers can only worship the God — the sole Lord — while they can not worship idols. So we can have a fair knowledge that it is to a great degree conflicting with various Chinese traditions with “to worship the ancestors” being taken as an example. As a matter of fact, Chinese tradition to worship the ancestors is aimed at expressing respect to the deceased parents and ancestors, which is not against the church’s faith at all in whatever way. Therefore the Chinese Christianity can then be worshipped by more and more people step by step around the whole country.
Currently among the provinces in mainland China, the provinces that are with a high proposition of the Chinese Christians mainly include the following ones: Anhui Province, Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Henan Province, Hebei Province, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, Yunan etc (G. Wright Doyle. 2017). These Chinese Christians will take part in the parties held at religious sites every Sunday that have been registered by the government to worship Christianity and they will in the meanwhile get together at some places that have not been registered legally as are held out by some believers themselves. It can be put in this way that the participation of those parties can be regarded as one of the common ways of worshipping Christianity and in the meantime it can be better for the affection contact among all the Christianity believers who can keep in close touch with each other through the mutual cooperation in those activities held on the get-togethers. It is easy to understand in that the active participation of those activities can motivate the great majority believer’s high spirit and their sense of belonging and sense of honor at the same time. By this way they can always remember that they are personally a Christian and they have to protect the interests of the Christianity at any time whenever human beings are objecting or despising it.
c. Criticism and Apologetics Every coin has two sides and this case fits for all things. So we can easily imagine that human beings will as well hold criticism and apologetics toward the Chinese Christianity on this aspect or that. Generally speaking, the criticism of it mainly focuses on the existence of god and the almighty power it is endowed with by the great majority of human beings. That is to say, these people who have criticized the Chinese Christianity hold that human beings should pay enough efforts to something that they desire to accomplish and they should try as hard as they can to successfully complete them. They think that only depending on the sole power of the god will make no sense and the almighty power of the god just makes no sense, leading to the result that human beings should be down-to-earth and practical so that they can better fulfill their own life goal.
As for the apologetics toward the Chinese Christianity, it majorly concentrates on that the existence of the god can make human beings hold a value in their life and they will never give up whenever they are confronted with whatever difficulties. The rationale why such phenomenon can be realized is that human beings will believe that they are under the blessing of god and all their present difficulties will be smoothly eliminated as long as they can stick to the last moment.
III. Chinese Muslim
a. History The history of the Chinese Muslim can also be understood as the history of the Hui nationality and the development of those two aforementioned terms are as well closely interrelated with each other. By the middle of the seventh century, a large number of Persian and Arabian merchants came to some Chinese coastal cities, such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou as well as other coastal cities, and mainland Changan, Kaifeng and other places by sea and land. Later they settled in those places and they gradually formed the Hui nationality, which is also right the point where the Chinese Muslim came into being (The Muslim Observer. 2017).
|
