News reports out of Beijing in the lead-up to the Olympics have revealed a government crackdown on Christians with arrests, raids on house churches and an internet surveillance campaign. Yet Chinese Christian journalist Promise Hsu is hopeful the spread of the gospel will bring freedom to his homeland.
As Promise Hsu visited Sydney in late May for the Access All Areas conference, house churches in his home city of Beijing were being raided, with Bibles stolen and some Christians ordered to stop meeting.
Earlier that month, his own church had been raided in what has appeared to be a government crackdown on Christians in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. Chinese Christians live with this potential threat every day, he says. "It came as no surprise… The authorities could come at any time."
Yet despite the hardship, "the worship has kept on," says Promise. "Some say this is a very negative situation, but on the other hand, the government in many cases just lets the church exist."
Promise's house church is several rented rooms in a downtown office building, with three services and several hundred members and attendees.
Officially, people of faith are to meet only in state-sanctioned religious activities. Yet obtaining registration is no easy task.
"The church is open to the government but the government is not open to the church because some churches have applied for registration, but the government refused to recognise them," Promise says.
"It's still a long way for China to go before freedom and the rule of law gain ground."
Olympics countdown brings hope and heartache
Promise’s comments mirror the sweet and sour stories that have come out of Beijing in recent months, stories which have told both of the persecution and permission of Christian activity.
According to the Christian Post, the Chinese government has granted an American author and evangelist permission to distribute a Christian book to athletes and coaches during the Beijing Olympics.
Renowned evangelist Luis Palau will personally hand out copies of his book, A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian, which contains a conversation between Mr Palau and an atheist Chinese diplomat and scientist, Zhao Qizheng in the Athletes’ Village.
The dialogue covers philosophy, the Bible, history, science, creation and culture, and is reported to give a ‘unique’ perspective on Christianity and philosophy of religion as seen from Chinese culture and beliefs.
The approval for the distribution of Mr Palau's evangelistic resource comes only a month after the Chinese government gave permission for the distribution of 50,000 Chinese-English gospel booklets, 30,000 Chinese-English New Testaments and 10,000 Chinese-English complete Bibles for the Olympics.
However, news of the Chinese authorities’ apparent increased warmth towards Christianity follows contrasting reports of the rising persecution of house church leaders.
A Christian Post report in July revealed that the chairman of the Federation House Church, Pastor Bike Zhang and his wife were forced to live on the streets after Chinese authorities repeatedly ejected them from shelters.
In related examples, a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer and house church Protestant, Li Baiguang was imprisoned over a fortnight ago, ahead of his scheduled meeting with members of the US Congress.
Earlier this year, Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan was rearrested for printing Bibles and Christian literature to distribute to unauthorised house churches.
Incidents like these have prompted calls for President of the United States, George Bush to boycott the Olympic Games.
However Mr Bush will fly to Beijing later this week, and has reportedly planned to encourage Chinese President Hu Jintao to broaden religious freedom and freedom of expression, planning to speak publicly on the issue after he attends a church service in Beijing.
How God brought Promise to fulfilment
When Promise Hsu first became convicted by the need for freedom in his homeland, he was not a Christian. In his third year studying international journalism at what is now the Communication University of China, he became interested in the history of freedom in the West, with hopes that the same freedom could one day be established in China.
Promise quit his job some three years ago as a journalist at China's state-run CCTV (China Central Television) in order to devote time to his "liberty project', an exercise aimed at exploring and encouraging the achievement of freedom in China. His research has seen him consulting political philosophers, historians, theologians, legal experts, journalists, economists and natural scientists, some of them Nobel Laureates.
He declared to the 2007 annual conference of the American Political Science Association that the "single most important thing" his research has shown is this: "The faith in God as the Lord is the beginning of freedom".
He explains further. "The more I knew about the growth of freedom in the West, the more I was captivated by the role of faith in God as the Lord in the making of a free and responsible civilisation."
However Promise stresses that this finding went much deeper: "For the first time in my life, I began to become clearly conscious of the existence of God and of his personal relationship with me."
While he admits that in his university years he "still did not believe the Holy Bible was the answer", later study of the Old and New Testaments proved to be "a great comfort to me" and "an eye-opener that shows how God communicated with his people".
Belonging to a house church further strengthened his journey to faith, until his "moment of truth" came on December 16, 2006, when he was baptised along with his fiancée.
Promise has been encouraged by the pastor who baptised him, who is leading a growing church despite economic, political and psychological pressure.
"His church is continuing to grow despite many difficulties. And it is only one of perhaps hundreds of house churches… in Beijing," he says. "Across China, the spirit of faith that descended from Abraham to Moses to Paul to Augustine to American founders… might have been spreading far beyond what we could imagine."
As the Games in Beijing begin, Promise's passion for the realisation of freedom in China continues.
He likens his part in the picture to helping to build a “shining city on a hill” in Chinese media, referring to Matthew 5:14-16.
"One step for me to build that city is to let the Chinese audience know more about the spiritual foundation of a free society by writing and publishing stories on how a biblical worldview has helped shape the better and crucial part of the modern civilisation of politics and business," he says.
Whatever comes of his dream, Promise asserts the future of freedom in China is in hands greater than the regime ruling it today. "In short, unless the Lord builds the city, its builders labour in vain."
