authorities crackdown on house churches working in this field.
100 major church leaders from Henan and Anhui Province were reportedly detained in December at a believer’s house discussing how the house churches can effectively help a large group of peasants who had contracted AIDS. "We are trying to produce some holistic programs for these people who are addicted to drugs or are suffering from HIV/AIDS," said Church Leadership Development Director for Trans World Radio-Asia who uses the fake name Samuel Ying to avoid detection by authorities.
Although television and the Internet are increasingly used in metropolitan areas, he suggested that up to 80 percent of TWR’s Chinese listeners live in rural areas where the technological revolution is lacking behind. "They originally got the message of the Gospel through this short-wave [TWR] medium, and so we believe we still can reach these people there by short-wave."
In a statement to the BosNewsLife Asia Bureau in Manila Tuesday March 14, he said TWR teams have also organized concerts for people with HIV/AIDS in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province.
DIFFERENT PEOPLE
“It was through God’s grace that we were able to invite different people including the government officers and governors to come to the concert to know that this is a good thing for the Chinese people to know how to protect themselves," Samuel Ying said. It was not immediately clear whether the team had promoted the use of condoms as well, but TWR are known to promote the Christian message of having sex within marriage. "Ofcourse, we used some hymns and Gospel songs to show the people that only [God’s] love can make the people really bind together to protect themselves instead of their sins," he added.
"We are very thankful that a lot of people, including HIV/AIDS patients came and were able to listen to the testimonies and God’s love touched their hearts. They found how they could be better, especially spiritually, and the last part of the concert was when the people sang the Handel’s Messiah and especially enjoyed singing the Hallelujah Chorus," the TWR official claimed.
"All the people stood up to sing it, including the government officers. God’s love touched everybody on this occasion, so we are very thankful for these two concerts in Kunming."
TWR programs for HIV/AIDS sufferers come at a time when China along with Burma has been identified by the United Nations as having the worst epidemics in Asia. Both countries have been criticized by UNAids for allegedly being slow to acknowledge the scale of the problem.
"In the world’s most populous nation, China, the overwhelming majority of the population does not know how the virus is transmitted," said UNAIDS Executive Direct Peter Piot recently. UNAIDS and other organisations estimate that by 2010 there could be "a generalised epidemic" with up to twenty million Chinese suffering from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
CHALLENGE REMAINS
Broadcasting Christian AIDS programs to China remains a challenge in the Communist nation as the government is trying to control the Church through the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, Samuel Ying said. "The Three-Self Patriotic Movement dates back to 1952. Some church leaders in China at that time said, ‘Okay, we can have self-support by financially supporting our own church, and we can self-administrate our church. We can also self-preach the Gospel…’," he added.
"That meant they felt they didn’t need missionaries or mission organizations in China as they said they could do all of it by themselves. So they called it Three-Self which originally became the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. They tried to show their patriotic attitude to the government so that the Christian church in China would be seen as loyal to the government. That’s why they called it a Three-Self Patriotic Movement."
He suggested this has led to "a big debate" among the Christian church leaders or the pastors. "Some don’t agree with this Three-Self movement, so they have their own house churches. Up to now, it’s still a big controversy in China. Some people say, ‘I don’t want to the State-controlled church as the church does not belong to the government but to God’."
He stressed that TWR would continue to "broadcast Bible teaching as well as discipleship training programs" and "a theological study program for the leadership" of China. In addition TWR airs programs for kids and teenagers as well as youth programs for high school and college students, he said. The broadcaster also uses the short wave for programs aimed at women and minority people in China. TWR reaches millions of people in China and across Asia
through several transmitters and affiliates and has been broadcasting for over 50 years.
