In the above photo, the women dressed as helpers of Santa Claus represent the new generation of Chinese. Unlike the previous generation, the new generation enjoy the festivities of Western holidays. The most popular holiday is Christmas. On December 25, many Chinese exchange gifts and gather with their families and friends to eat dinner at a restaurant. Most Chinese do not know the religious meaning of Christmas: it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. For most Chinese, Christmas is just a time to relax and to enjoy the season.
The government in Beijing opposes this secular celebration because it, someday, might become a religious celebration of Christmas. If such a transformation occurred, then the full power of Western justice (which is partially based on Christian notions of morality) would overthrow the existing Chinese government.
To understand the threat that Christianity poses to the Chinese government is to understand the difference between Christian behavior and traditional Chinese behavior. Consider how Christianity might have changed history on 1989 June 4.
On that day, hundreds of thousands of people assembled in Tiananmen Square and were protesting against the government in favor of human rights and democracy. Beijing ordered its soldiers to hunt down and kill the protestors. Being typical Chinese, the soldiers dutifully obeyed the orders. They murdered several hundred protestors.
Now, suppose that those soldiers were not typical Chinese. Suppose that those soldiers where devout Christians. They would have disobeyed the orders of the politicians. Instead of killing innocent civilians, the soldiers would have seized the government buildings, taken control of the government, and begun the process for holding free and fair elections.
In other words, Frosty the Snowman in the photo below could be the catalyst
for changing the traditional Chinese mindset (illustrated in the following photo, which shows typical Chinese helping the government to hinder the celebration of Christmas) into the Western mindset.
Interestingly, China has approximately 100 million Christians but only approximately 85 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Consequently, according to a recent report by "The New York Times", some Chinese in the CCP believe that "the growing prevalence of Christmas is a tinsel-draped Trojan horse that aims to subvert traditional Chinese culture". Is a social and, possibly, a military revolution around the corner?
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