Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
China: The Economics of Religious Freedom
China: The Economics of Religious Freedom
Feb 26, 2026 6:25 PM

Here’s a summary of a piece over at Forum 18:

Economics has a large effect on China’s religious freedom, Forum 18 News Service notes. Factors such as the need of munities for non-state e, significant regional wealth disparities, conflicts over economic interests, and artificially-induced dependence on the state e all provide the state with alternative ways of exercising control over munities. Examples where economics has a noticeable effect on religious freedom include, to Forum 18’s knowledge, the Buddhist Shaolin Temple’s business enterprises, clashes between Buddhist temple personnel and the tourism industry, the demolition of a Protestant church in Zhejiang Province, the expropriation of Catholic properties in Xian and Tianjin mercial development, the dependence of senior state-sanctioned religious leaders on the state for personal e, petition between and amongst registered and unregistered religious groups. Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of economic clashes is the state, which can use both control of e and also favouritism in economic conflicts to restrict religious freedom.

The Voice of the Martyrs News & Prayer Update also passed this along from the China Aid Association:

A pastor in the Three-Self Church in Pinglu County, Shanxi Province was prohibited from preaching and forced to leave the church by the Religious Affairs Bureau. The Pinglu Church invited a Hong Kong-based American pastor, Dennis be (Chinese name Bao Dening), to visit the church. The evening of July 9th, the head of the Pinglu Religious Affairs Bureau, Zhang Lianjie, came to the church and tried to dismiss the Bible classes and forbid the children to listen to Bible stories. He returned the next day with more officials, forcing the elders to retract their invitation to Pastor Bao Dening. In spite of immense pressure, church activities continued. On July 24th, Zhang came again and announced that a meeting would be held the next day to “discuss” Pastor Hu Qinghua’s leaving Pinlu. All the members of TSPM (Three-Self-Patriotic Movement) and CCC (Chinese Christianity Council) were to be at the meeting. The meeting began at 6 p.m. and the elders enumerated the achievements of Pastor Hu since taking charge of the church. The meeting continued till 11 p.m., but no matter how hard the elders insisted, Zhang Lianjie declared that Pastor Hu Qinghua had to leave Pinglu Church immediately. Pastor Hu Qinghua has left Pinglu, but he still tries fort and encourage the brothers and sisters in Linglu Church, by phone, to stand firm in the truth.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
National healthcare can’t fail if there are no goals
As the Brexit debacle monopolizes UK news, the government quietly released a consequential announcement: The National Health Service (NHS) is considering repealing requirements that emergency rooms in England treat or release patients within four hours. The new guidelines vindicate critics of single-payer health care, who say the government inevitably rations care, downgrades its own standards, and then declares victory. The UK’s goal of a four-hour wait in accident and emergency rooms (A&Es) is roughly twice as long as patients wait...
Is higher education ripe for creative destruction?
The recent revelations of a nationwide college admissions and testing bribery scheme have met with a variety of reactions. There have been conversations about fairness and privilege in admissions practices. There have been expressions of lack of surprise, cynicism, or “that’s just how the world works.” And there are already the beginnings of a class-action lawsuit by students who claim their college degrees have been devalued by the rigged admissions system. There are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic...
Samuel Gregg on the French church after Cardinal Barbarin
Earlier this month a French court convicted Cardinal Philippe Barbarin for failing to report alleged sexual abuse by a priest of his archdiocese. This has further fueled the sense that the Church faces one of its most serious crises since the Reformation, says Samuel Gregg in a new article for the Catholic Herald: Barbarin himself has been a larger-than-life figure in French Catholicism. Gifted in languages, an engaging public speaker, a missionary in Madagascar, and a marathon runner, he publicly...
The EU’s self-defeating digital tax
In today’s global economy, pany that provides a successful product or service can earn billions of dollars a year. Governments steal a greedy glance and ask how they can get their “fair share” of this money. The latest example is the EU attempting to create “tax harmonization” among its members as it imposes a digital tax on “Big Tech” firms. The proposal is currently stalled, as more fiscally responsible nations like Ireland object to the EU’s plan to tax tech...
China rewrites the Bible
It’s no secret that as the Chinese economy enters a slowdown, the Chinese government has been taking an ever-more authoritarian approach towards virtually every aspect of life in the People’s Republic. In this regard, few areas have received more attention than religion. This ranges from the imprisonment of anywhere between 800,000 and 2 million Uighur Muslims (something explored at length by leading Islam and liberty scholar Mustafa Akyol) to the burning and demolition of Protestant and Catholic churches. Things are,...
Finding common grace in a Ugandan refugee camp
Every day we receive innumerable blessings from God. We receive these blessings apart from our individual standing before God or our membership in any munity. These blessings are rooted in God’s creation itself. They are a form of what the Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper called ‘Common Grace’: The divine covenant in the Mediator in turn has its background in the work of original creation, in the existence of the world, and in the life of our human race. As individuals...
Game of Theories: Real business cycle
Note: This is post #115 in a weekly video series on basic economics. The “real” part of the real business cycle (RBC) refers to real shocks to an economy, specifically to supply shocks. As Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution University says, RBC is useful for plex supply shock, such as a sudden rise in oil prices. But it can also explain many of the economic downturns throughout human history. For instance, in ancient times when economies relied primarily on agriculture,...
Russ Roberts on Adam Smith and the limits of economics
Russ Roberts — economist and host of the excellent EconTalk podcast — wrote a penetrating essay on what we can learn from Adam Smith’s first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. According to Roberts, [N]ot everything that is important can be quantified. I worry that as economists, we too often are like the drunk at 1 am looking for his keys under the glare of a streetlight. You go over to help and when you fail to find the keys...
Economists agree: Don’t raise the minimum wage to $15
When es to policy choices, professional economists are famous for being overly circumspect. President Harry Truman plained, “Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, ‘on one hand . . . on the other.’” There are some areas, though, where basic economic theory is so obvious that it’s not hard to find a majority of economists to agree. A prime example is the popular, but misguided, proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15. A recent survey of 197...
What did the Christchurch mosque shooter believe? Inside the mind of a collectivist killer
As Muslims gathered for Friday prayers, a shooter livestreamed himself entering the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and killing 41 people with a semiautomatic weapon. He then drove to the Masjid mosque in nearby Linwood, where seven more have died. (An additional victim died off the premises, bringing the death toll to 49 as of this writing.) Police also found several improvised explosive devices on vehicles in the area. Authorities have arrested four people – three men...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved