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February saw a record number of reports on religious happenings in China. Even the secular mass media reported on a U.S. religious delegation's visit, trying to find it's meaning.
Last October, China's President Jiang Zemin visited the U.S. and offered to allow a delegation of U.S. religious leaders to visit China and Tibet. Those chosen to go, with financing from private sources, were Rabbi Arthur Schneier, spiritual leader of a New York synagogue and founder-president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation; Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark, New Jersey, who is Chairman of the International Policy Committee of the U.S. Catholic (Bishops') Conference; and Donald Argue, an Assemblies of God minister and President of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
It was interesting to note that the biggest ecumenical organization in the United States, the National Council of Churches (NCC), sharply protested it's exclusion from the delegation visiting China from February 9th to March 1st to "discuss" religious freedom.
Dr. Wenzao Han, President of the China Christian Council, which represents most of the country's Protestants, told Ecumenical News International (ENI) that he deeply regretted that the NCC's general secretary, Joan Brown Campbell, had not been included in the delegation to China. He said that President Jiang Zemin had extended a general invitation, and the National Security Council, which is part of White House operations, had selected the individuals.
Ironically, ENI reported that despite it's exclusion from the delegation, the NCC has generally supported the Clinton administration's reluctance to get involved in the issue of religious rights in China, arguing that although problems of religious freedom exist in China, they are not as severe as those groups talking about "persecution" would have everyone believe. In any case, ENI reported that the NCC and it's supporters confrontational claims will not help the Chinese churches.
The question of religious freedom in China has become a highly controversial issue in American political life, particularly since early 1996 when the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals and other religious groups launched a campaign claiming that the U.S. government was not doing enough to stop the persecution of Christians abroad.
On the other hand, China as usual released a prominent house church leader, Gao Feng, from a labor camp one day before the U.S. delegation arrived.
One leading Asian English magazine, "Far Eastern Economic Review," talked about the U.S. delegates' visit in it's March 5 Editorial. The magazine criticized the all-or-nothing Washington approach and some advocacy groups' attitude in the U.S. which suggest the delegation would be nothing more than a "propaganda" tour. They wrote, "if they say that there are only small problems, they will be no better than the legions of Western acolytes who raved about Mao's new society....We would like to hear what they have to say."
The visit by the three U.S. religious leaders to China overlapped with the visit of two Chinese delegations to the United States - one consisting of church leaders and the other of officials of the government's Religious Affairs Bureau, which oversees religious practices in China. They began their visit to the United States on February 5, and met with President Clinton at the Washington prayer breakfast the following day. The delegation was led by an avowed atheist, Mr. Ye Xiaowen, the most powerful Communist Party official in charge of religion in China, and not a religious leader per say.
On March 5, after coming back from China, Roman Catholic Archbishop Theodore McCarrick said he and the others who took part in the visit to China had expressed concerns about religious rights and about limits as to what the delegation was allowed to see. Delegation members also stressed that they had not been on a "fact-finding" mission but had been promoting dialogue.
He stated that the 4 million Catholics in the "open church", the state-sanctioned Patriotic Association of Catholics (PAC), probably represented only a third of all Chinese Catholics. The others were probably members of the "underground or unofficial church." The Archbishop also said the biggest obstacle to growth remains the fact that Beijing requires all churches to register with the state and be subject to a degree of state control.
The delegation had "nearly fifty substantive meetings" in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Lhasa (Tibet) and Hong Kong.
In Tibet - a region where, according to many critics of China, the communist authorities are guilty of gross infringements of religious and other rights - the delegation visited a Buddhist monastery and a prison, and saw two Buddhist nuns who had been imprisoned for their religious activities.
(See ENI-98-0071, ENI-98-0113, and COMPASS DIRECT-February for more information.)
India is experiencing political upheaval again and possibly a swing towards fundamentalism. But how does that affect the Christian population in a country who's constitution guarantees that the government will protect the freedom of all religions, and no one religion can be declared the state religion, as it is said in Article 25.
There are approximately 18 to 25 million Christians in India, or 2 to 3% of the 900 million total population. 80% are said to be Hindu. Christianity challenges the traditional Hindu caste system by reaching out to all, especially the Dalit caste, called "untouchables". The Dalits are denied drinking water, medical facilities and must fight for jobs and education. Powerful political parties react with fear towards Christian acts of love to the Dalits. One Hindu extremist group even called Mother Teresa an exploiter of the poor just two days before she received a full state funeral. Dalit Christians have issued a statement that "systematic campaigns of misinformation against minorities were being used to create an environment of intolerance and communal fundamentalism". They called for security from the government. However, with increasing frequency the World Hindu council, which is part of India's largest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), promotes discrimination against Indian Christians.
The BJP and other supporting parties have reintroduced the "Freedom of Religion Bill" which prohibits religious conversion. Mere accusations of attempted conversion could invoke jail terms and fines up to 5000 Rupees (US $139, compare to annual income of approximately US $350). Some of India's 25 states have passed similar bills already.
There is not one particular area of India where attacks on Christians are prevalent, but rather in the whole of India. In Northeast India the BJP has called for a ban on both Christian missionaries and fundamentalist Muslim groups, but Christian leaders say no missionaries enter without special government permission. In the Northwestern State of Rajasthan, also governed by the BJP, a delegation of Christians called for their fundamental right of religious freedom in a letter to the President. The letter also detailed assaults, beatings and death threats to Christians. In the Southeast State of Andhra Pradesh, Muslim youths attacked and beat up the principal and staff. The youths claimed there were derogatory remarks against Mohammed in a textbook. In Madya Pradesh a Catholic Sister working among the poor to help them form small cooperatives, was stabbed to death in public after being dragged off a bus. Nuns have also been raped.
With such documentation of violence against Christians, it is difficult not to believe that religious intolerance is on the rise. Reverend Dr. Alan De Lastic, Archbishop of Delhi, talked about religious intolerance "appearing" to be increasing in an interview for Compass Direct. But De Lastic also noted that "Christians must follow the path of peace and justice. Without justice there is no peace. We have to be the conscience of this nation, not because we are special, but because we have the gospel. It's going to be a very difficult role to play." Answering the accusation by Hindus that Christians force conversions, De Lastic said, "A forced conversion is a contradiction in terms. It's a free personal act-it cannot be forced. The law forbids it too."
De Lastic made this comment regarding the rise of Hindu militancy. "It stems from a wrong principle, that only the indigenous religion is the true religion. It has been stated that India has given birth to four great religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. The insinuation is that the others are foreign. This is mixed in with nationalism to suggest that what is foreign should not be accepted. But I do not know how many people are really radical fanatics in mind and heart."
Masaru Hayami will become the Bank of Japan's leader in April replacing the governor who is resigning in the wake of a widening corruption scandal. The bribery scandal has stunned Japan's powerful bureaucracy. Bank of Japan Governor, Yasuo Matsushita, offered to step down after a senior bank official's arrest on influence-peddling charges.
According to the media, 72 year-old Hayami meets two key criteria for taking over as governor. He has both "outsider" credentials as a business leader and "insider" knowledge of financial markets gained during an earlier career at the central bank.
Hayami gave the keynote address for the Japan Lutheran College and Seminary when it had a new naming ceremony on April 27, 1996. He emphasized the need for reform of the Japanese University system, insisting on molding the personality of young into one uniform pattern. He presented five college reform plans at the address. (See the Asia Lutheran, pp.12-13, May, 1996)
Hayami belongs to the largest Protestant group in Japan, the United Church of Christ, or Kyodan. Christians in Japan are a minority group. Even adding Catholics and Protestants together, they account for less than one percent of the total population. Many Christians in Japan expect Hayami's leadership to follow his strict financial and administrial morals.
Hayami was a former financial leader of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). Earlier, Hayami served for 34 years at the Bank of Japan, where he rose to become executive director until his departure in 1981.
The Bank of Japan will make a fresh start under the revised Bank of Japan Law, which gives it increased independence from the Finance Ministry in April.
The conversion of a Malay Muslim woman to Christianity and her desire to marry a Catholic have created an uproar in multi-cultural Malaysia. The controversy started after Nor'aishah Bokhari, a 25-year-old Malay and former Muslim, filed a 20-page complaint on January 16 with the High Court. She accused her family of keeping her captive for 41 days, with the help of the police, to prevent her from marrying Joseph Lee, a Catholic.
In her complaint, Bokhari claims she was driven to her aunt's house in the southern state of Johore, where the family made her listen to sermons by Islamic teachers every day and forced her to undergo rituals by witch doctors. Bokhari said she escaped on December 30 and fled with Lee, who was waiting outside in a car.
Both Bokhari and Lee are now in hiding, despite appeals by her family to come out and embrace Islam again. Lee faces kidnapping charges filed by Bokhari's family.
While marriages between different ethnic groups are common in Malaysia, non-Muslims marrying Muslims are required to convert to Islam. Although it is not illegal, the renunciation of Islam is almost unheard of. Ms. Bokhari said she became a Catholic in October 1997 of her own free will.
At the end of January, Hamid Othman, minister in charge of religious affairs in the Prime Minister's department said, "The issue of a Muslim abandoning his faith is sensitive, and unless it is wisely dealt with, will jeopardize the stability of racial and religious harmony in the country."
North Korea, will soon begin building churches and expanding an official church in an attempt to attract more Western aid and investment, according to reliable sources in Seoul, South Korea.
Signs that a new attitude towards religion was developing became clear in 1991, when the constitution was amended to allow believers to have their own churches as long as they supported the principle of "Juche" (the philosophy of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung) and the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Until then one was not allowed the freedom to profess any religious belief. In 1994 hostile definitions of religion were suddenly removed from official dictionaries. The current famine has also seen the North Korean government allow many Christian relief organizations into the country.
Sources say that North Korean officials have been carefully studying the formation of China's official church, the Three Self Patriotic Movement, for guidance on how to use the institution to attract Western dignitaries and further aid, especially economic aid. Some warn that a split similar to China's will occur between Christians who join the official church and those who stay in house churches. Few know for certain how many Christians exist inside North Korea, but 100,000 remained at the end of the Korean War.
Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the Philippines have reacted angrily to attempts to remove leading church officials from a national organization which monitors elections.
The issue is particularly sensitive because Filipinos will go to the polls on May 11 to elect a president, vice-president and members of the Senate. Elections here are generally dogged by allegations of corruption and electoral fraud.
On March 10 the government body overseeing the elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec), accredited the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) as a recognized citizens organization with the right to oversee the vote counting , May 11.
Catholic, Protestant and ecumenical organizations are key supporters of Namfrel, which played an important role in the 1986 revolution that brought the corrupt Marcos regime to an end. But Comelec declared that Namfrel was accredited on condition that it "divest itself of officers and trustees who are either government officials or members of the clergy". This was necessary to ensure the separation of church and state, Comelec said.
Among those affected are Namfrel's honorary chairman and the leader of the nation's Catholics, Cardinal Jaime Sin, and Namfrel's co-chairman, Fernando Capalla, Catholic Archbishop of Davao. Jose Concepcion, Namfrel's chairman and a prominent Catholic lay leader, is also banned. Other Namfrel officers affected are Bishop Roman Tiples Jr. of the Philippine Independent Church and general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), and Bishop Hilario Gomez Jr., general secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines. 
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