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Chinese Bishop Has Mixed Feelings toward Rapid Rise of Religious Adherents
The Chinese religious population has witnessed a sharp increase over the years, but Michael Fu Tieshan, bishop of the Chinese Catholic Council, still said here Tuesday that he has mixed feelings, because the ill-educated are always prone to fall pray to cults and heresies.
Fu, chairman of the visiting Chinese delegation of religious leaders, made the remark at a forum held at the University of California at Los Angeles, attended by 100 local religious leaders and scholars.
He didn't provide an exact overall numbers of how fast the increase of religious followers in China is, but cited the case of Protestant churches saying that it has followers 10 times more than in 1949.
"In the mere view of religion, the increase of adherents is truly encouraging, but it also poses as a major challenge for us when the educational background of the followers are considered," Fu said.
A considerable amount of the religious believers are women, seniors and people ill-educated, who hardly have any chance to distinguish religion from heretic teachings, he said.
The increased followers are more than the existing Chinese clergymen can handle, because there own proficiency level also needs to be updated and improved, according to the bishop.
The diversified economic and cultural developments inside China and influences from the outside world are also affecting the legitimate religions, some spiritual polluters like cults are highly probable to invade the virgin land of this country.
According to Fu, all the religions in China, Buddhism, Taoism,Islamism, Protestantism and Catholicism, are busying re-editing their theology to better adapt to the society and training more their young clergymen.
He also proposed that all religions in China as well as across the world guard against heresies and cults for the healthy development of legitimate religions.
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