The secular extremists, the left-wing academics, the legacy media, the lavender lobby and professional anti-Christian activists might want to keep this in mind:
Chinese Christians outnumber members of the Communist Party
During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong’s China turned on itself, torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of people. But the seeds were sown for an unexpected upsurge in Christianity.
In a social revolution that has prompted a heavy-handed response from the Government, religion is spreading through town and countryside and Chinese communities abroad.
Protestantism and Catholicism are among the approved faiths, the others being Buddhism, Taoism and Islam.
Buddhism and Taoism claim most worshippers but the state-sanctioned churches count up to 35 million followers. More significant are the underground or “house” churches, which are believed to have up to 100 million members, many more than are members of the Communist Party.
I’ve met any number of Christian workers here in China and the crop is indeed bountiful. One man is a Chinese American who returns each year on a mission trip, and believe me the man is fruitful. Others come here as English teachers and quietly preach the word.
Nero couldn’t do it. Julian the Apostate couldn’t do it. Diocletian couldn’t do it. Lenin and his Soviet successors couldn’t do it. Mao and his Chinese Communists couldn’t do it. As Jesus Christ said nearly two millenia ago, all the gates of Hell will not prevail against his church.
It is the temptations offered by the good things of the world that weaken one’s soul. Evil and oppression, on the other hand, serve to strengthen one’s convictions to cling to the rock of salvation. What could be more terrible than the rise and rule of the Antichrist? And what could offer a greater testimony to the timeless truth of the Word than witnessing that, except the Second Coming itself?