[A result of the Turning Point?]
Because of their ambivalence about the West, Chinese bureaucrats face a constant dilemma: whether to crack down on or encourage the growth of Christianity in China.
Is faith in God good or bad for society?
Sometimes they launch campaigns against the Chinese church and sometimes they openly tolerate it.
Chinese leaders know that the top 15 countries ranked on a respected Prosperity Index have a Christian heritage.
Indexes that rank nations by corruption and economic freedom show exactly the same trend. Even die-hard atheists have to recognize that religious faith can have positive affects on society.
...a statement from a Chinese scientist indoctrinated in Maoism who had carefully studied the west:
"One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.
"We studied everything we could from the historical, political. economic and cultural perspective.
"At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system.
"But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful.
"The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt about this."
*From the Communist Party's perspective, it can have a dangerous effect, too. In 2009, the human rights organization Freedom Watch certified 89 countries as "free;" 81 of them were predominantly or historically Christian.
--From What Good is God? by Philip Yancy
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