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  • Good afternoon, everyone.

  • Welcome to the interview dialogues of The Trumpet of Truth!

  • I'm your host Zhong Xin.

  • Today, we're honored to be able to invite Professor Massimo Introvigne again,

  • who is a renowned expert on new religious movements,

  • to discuss and analyze

  • the Chinese Communist Party's repression and persecution of Christians.

  • Professor Introvigne, good afternoon!

  • Good afternoon!

  • Professor Introvigne.

  • The governments of many democratic countries in the world

  • respect religious beliefs.

  • They impose no restrictions on religions.

  • But the CCP has always been persecuting Catholic and Protestant house churches,

  • among which The Church of Almighty God suffers particularly serious persecution.

  • The CCP has not only carried out national repression

  • against The Church of Almighty God

  • after discrediting and framing the Church,

  • but also found excuses to incite people's hatred toward it.

  • For instance,

  • the CCP passed judgment on Christians

  • who gave up their families and jobs to preach the gospel and witness for God

  • and smeared that they abandoned and destroyed families.

  • Professor Introvigne, you are also a person of faith.

  • What do you think about the CCP's judgments on Christians?

  • Sometimes there are members who decide to serve as full-time missionaries,

  • and leave their family,

  • but that's very common in Christianity.

  • Jesus Christ Himself has some words about it:

  • You should leave your father and mother (for God's kingdom).

  • There are tens of thousands,

  • indeed hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests and nuns

  • who leave their families to join the priesthood or religious orders.

  • Even in the Protestant world,

  • there is, I would say, even an increasing number of full-time missionaries.

  • Sometimes true in the Protestant world that families go to a mission,

  • but it's also the case that people go alone,

  • so they leave their families to be missionaries.

  • That also happens.

  • By the way,

  • we can say that it's typical of Christianity in general.

  • But I would say it's typical of religion.

  • And we find similar developments in Judaism, in Buddhism.

  • So it's typical of all religions

  • to have ordained or non-ordained communities of people

  • who decide to serve as missionaries full-time.

  • So it's not (only) typical of The Church of Almighty God,

  • it's typical of Christianity,

  • but it's also typical of religion in general.

  • Professor Introvigne, what you say is in line with the facts.

  • I remember that the Lord Jesus once said this:

  • The Church of Almighty God Christians leave their home and loved ones

  • in order to preach the kingdom gospel to those who long for God's appearance.

  • Meanwhile,

  • they have been at the risk of being arrested and persecuted by the CCP at any time.

  • They did the same thing as those

  • who martyred for their mission of spreading Jesus Christ's gospel.

  • Both their missions are deemed to be

  • cooperating with God's work of saving mankind on Earth

  • in accordance with the teachings of the Lord Jesus.

  • Scandalously,

  • the CCP speaks of

  • the Christians' forsaking their family or job to preach the kingdom gospel

  • as a negative thing that ruins the family,

  • even defining gospel preaching as a criminal act.

  • The CCP also has made a fuss about the fact

  • that some Church of Almighty God Christians have undergone divorce

  • and has claimed that The Church of Almighty God separates families

  • in order to incite people's hatred toward The Church of Almighty God.

  • Professor Introvigne,

  • what do you think about this matter?

  • The CCP is an atheistic party

  • that never believes the existence of God or reads the Bible.

  • What exactly does it want to achieve by doing this?

  • Well, as I said,

  • the position of the CCP singling out The Church of Almighty God

  • is a little bit strange.

  • One reason is that

  • leaving the families to preach if you feel this calling,

  • this is, as I said before, common in all religion.

  • If you become a Catholic priest,

  • you leave your family, you don't marry.

  • If you become a Catholic nun,

  • you leave your family, you don't marry.

  • That's also happening in Protestantism and other religions.

  • But perhaps it's even more interesting to remember

  • that in the early days of the CCP, and even in the Cultural Revolution,

  • there were many Chinese who were actually encouraged by the words of Chairman Mao

  • to leave their families to become propaganda agents of the CCP full-time.

  • So not only religions, but even in the CCP history,

  • we find people who left their family to devote to an ideology all their life.

  • So it's very common in human history.

  • I know also that CCP propaganda insists on the fact

  • that sometimes people divorce

  • when only one spouse joins or leaves The Church of Almighty God.

  • But in practice if you take seriously your religion

  • it's very difficult to be together

  • if only one of the spouses strongly believes in one religion

  • and the other doesn't.

  • That's a fact of life.

  • So I would say it's very much possible that

  • if somebody joins The Church of Almighty God, and the spouse doesn't want to join,

  • they divorce.

  • That's true for The Church of Almighty God,

  • for the Jehovah's Witnesses, for the Shouters,

  • but it's also true for the Catholic Church or Islam.

  • If I become a Muslim and my wife doesn't want to become a Muslim,

  • most probably there will be a divorce.

  • But if we are a Muslim couple and one spouse converts to Christianity,

  • and the other spouse doesn't want to convert to Christianity,

  • 99 percent of the cases there would be a divorce.

  • So I would say that divorce is a fact of life.

  • I don't know statistics in China and in Korea,

  • but in the West the majority of marriages end up in divorce.

  • Apart from this, when only one spouse has strong religious experience of conversion

  • and the other doesn't,

  • divorce is very frequent in all religions.

  • So what I see,

  • which I believe it's a certain bad faith in the CCP propaganda

  • that sometimes, or very often even,

  • they take features which are typical of all Christians, of all religions,

  • and they use them as weapons against The Church of Almighty God.

  • But these are not (only) features of The Church of Almighty God:

  • Having full-time missionaries,

  • (or that) sometimes people divorce because only one spouse converts.

  • These are features of Christianity in general and even of religion in general.

  • You're right, Professor Introvigne.

  • The CCP not only uses these features of religion in general

  • to attack and discredit The Church of Almighty God in China

  • with all possible propaganda tools,

  • saying that believing in God destroys people's families,

  • but also uses overseas media to manipulate public opinion favorable to them.

  • After Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang visited the UK in June 2014,

  • a report was published by the BBC,

  • in which it discredits The Church of Almighty God

  • by fabricating rumors that the Church is anti-family.

  • It's really questionable why the BBC disseminated such rumors,

  • and what was really going on between the BBC and the CCP.

  • Professor Introvigne,

  • what would you like to say about the BBC's accusation

  • that The Church of Almighty God is anti-family?

  • I have just finished a study of the family in The Church of Almighty God.

  • There are two reasons for this study.

  • The first is the accusations by CCP and also by some Christian leaders

  • that Almighty God teaches that family is something bad.

  • Unfortunately,

  • this information has also been spread by some Western journalists,

  • but they only relied on sources of people who are against The Church of Almighty God,

  • they didn't do a lot of homework.

  • So that's the first reason.

  • And the second reason is

  • to understand how The Church of Almighty God was able to grow so rapidly.

  • Normally sociological theory teaches

  • that family plays an important role, not an exclusive role of course,

  • but an important role when movements grow very rapidly.

  • If movements are against the family,

  • it's very difficult for them to grow,

  • particularly in the initial stage.

  • So there are really two parts of my study,

  • the first part is to go through The Word Appears in the Flesh

  • and other statements of faith of The Church of Almighty God

  • to determine what are Almighty God's teachings on the family.

  • Because here there is a misunderstanding,

  • because some people will say

  • since The Word Appears in the Flesh is the holy scripture for our time

  • and it supersedes the Bible,

  • that means that everything which is in the Bible

  • is not respected by The Church of Almighty God

  • including the Ten Commandments.

  • That's not the case,

  • because of course, The Church of Almighty God teaches that

  • in the Bible there are words of God, but also words of men,

  • so not everything is perfect in the Bible.

  • But there are several statements by Almighty God

  • that the Commandments maintain a certain validity

  • and in particular that

  • respect for families and respect for the parents remains very important

  • also in the Age of Kingdom.

  • And also Almighty God teaches that marriage should be respected

  • and that marital infidelity is something very bad.

  • I will say that we find in the words of Almighty God

  • the idea that the family is something preordained by God,

  • so the family is not something bad, it's actually something good,

  • and even in the Age of Kingdom,

  • God keeps reminding us that we should respect the family,

  • honor the parents, maintain the fidelity to our partner.

  • So what is said that the theology of The Church of Almighty God is against family

  • doesn't find any support in the words of Almighty God.

  • The second part of my study is about the growth,

  • because even when I went to China,

  • the CCP authorities are very astonished of the growth of The Church of Almighty God.

  • That's the reason of their fear, I believe,

  • that's the deep reason of their fear.

  • They do not understand how the Church can grow so rapidly.

  • Of course, normally scholars distinguish

  • between what we call etic and emic, etic without “h”, etic.

  • That's the perspective of the insiders

  • and the perspective of the scholars looking from outside.

  • So from the point of view of the members of The Church of Almighty God,

  • the reason why The Church of Almighty God grows

  • is because it is the Church of God,

  • and God helps it to grow.

  • I believe that should not be dismissed even by scholars lightly,

  • because we know that in the end people join a church

  • because they find the message persuasive,

  • so we should not dismiss the idea

  • that the main reason why people joined The Church of Almighty God

  • is because they read The Word Appears in the Flesh

  • and they find it highly persuasive.

  • One of my masters was perhaps the most famous sociologists of religion alive,

  • he's 82 now,

  • Rodney Stark, who teaches in Texas at Baylor University.

  • Rodney Stark always says we should always believe that

  • people convert to a religion because they find that this religion is true,

  • so that's the main motivation.

  • But unfortunately, it's a motivation difficult to measure.

  • Scholars can only measure the human side of religion

  • but that's not to deny that the divine side is the most important.

  • We should do our work as scholars and outsiders

  • and also try to assess the human side.

  • When it comes to assessing the human side,

  • I studied the questionnaires

  • submitted to 500 members of The Church of Almighty God,

  • and I found that there is a significant difference

  • between the members who return to Almighty God in China

  • and those, both Chinese and non-Chinese, who return to Almighty God in other countries.

  • In China, it seems from the questionnaires

  • that a very significant number of people, indeed, the majority

  • first heard about Almighty God from a relative,

  • and also that members of family were important in their return to Almighty God.

  • It's not the only way of returning to Almighty God,

  • sometimes entire Christian congregations convert.

  • And it's also possible

  • because of course I could not give questionnaires

  • to members of The Church of Almighty God in China,

  • it will be too dangerous.

  • So questionnaires were only administered

  • to members of The Church of Almighty God outside of China

  • so it's possible that those who were converted in the family

  • are over-represented in the diaspora abroad,

  • so all sociological studies are subject to some caution.

  • But what comes out without making absolute generalizations is that

  • family networks are an important part of

  • the growth of The Church of Almighty God in China.

  • As opposite, abroad the situation is different,

  • because your communities are small

  • and many of your members left their families to come abroad.

  • So many of those who convert abroad

  • know you through the Internet or through your literature

  • rather than through family members.

  • So abroad, the situation is different than in China.

  • But in China, family networks are very important

  • and that, I believe, is another evidence

  • that The Church of Almighty God is not against the family.

  • Of course, there are different situations,

  • sometimes the families are separated because of the persecution of the CCP,

  • but that's the fault of the CCP,

  • not of The Church of Almighty God.

  • Yes, I totally agree with you.

  • Professor Introvigne,

  • Regarding the consequences of

  • the CCP government's brutal persecution of religious freedom,

  • we have conducted some surveys and assessments.

  • In mainland China,

  • at least 300,000 to 400,000 CAG Christians have been arrested or imprisoned.

  • There are at least 500,000 to 600,000 Christians who have gone into exile

  • and were rendered homeless with their families scattered.

  • Countless Christian families have been thus broken!

  • It can be seen that the CCP government is the main culprit

  • behind the breakdown of Christian families.

  • However, it actually turns the table around

  • and says that these families are broken

  • because people have abandoned their families for their belief in God.

  • This is really distorting the facts and inverting black and white!

  • What people in overseas countries hear

  • about the facts of the CCP's persecution of Christians

  • is only the tip of the iceberg.

  • They heard about these, but most of them do not understand:

  • Why does the CCP so insanely persecute house church Christians?

  • Professor Introvigne, what do you think of it?

  • Well, I believe there is a general reason,

  • which is very obvious,

  • that the CCP doesn't like religion.

  • They can accommodate religion

  • because, I believe it was (unavoidable).

  • First, Deng Xiaoping recognized that

  • religion would still exist for centuries,

  • contrary to what Marx and Lenin said.

  • So in a way they can try to accommodate and control,

  • but it's clear that

  • in their ideology they do not like religion in general.

  • This is very simple and pretty much obvious,

  • but it's a basic presupposition.

  • We should understand that

  • the CCP is an atheist Communist Party,

  • so they do not like religion in general.

  • Second, all the history of the CCP proves

  • that they persecute independent religions.

  • They call these religions non-Sinicized.

  • The wordsinicizationis an old word,

  • actually was created, I believe, by Chiang Kai-shek, before the CCP.

  • Butsinicizationis a word which now the CCP gives a different meaning,

  • because in the ideas of nationalist Chinese,

  • sinicization means

  • all organizations in China should have Chinese leaders, not foreign leaders.

  • Now, in this case,

  • The Church of Almighty God would fare very well

  • because not only does it have Chinese leaders,

  • but also its religion was born in China, not imported from the West.

  • So it should be the perfect example of a sinicized religion.

  • Unfortunately,

  • for the CCP, the wordsinicizedhas a different meaning,

  • it doesn't mean that your leaders should be Chinese,

  • but it means that your leaders should be appointed by the CCP

  • and should share the ideology of the CCP.

  • So the Three-self Church is sinicized not because the leaders are Chinese,

  • but because the leaders are appointed by the CCP

  • and the leaders are willing to work completely with CCP.

  • So that's the real meaning ofsinicized.”

  • And in this case, of course,

  • The Church of Almighty God, like many house churches,

  • like the underground Catholic church, is not sinicized,

  • because its leaders are not appointed by the CCP,

  • and do not work hand-in-hand with the CCP.

  • So that's already a reason for persecution.

  • Then there is a third reason

  • that became very clear when we went to China.

  • The CCP is very much afraid of groups growing very rapidly,

  • because they start thinking if they grow and grow,

  • they can even become bigger than the Communist Party,

  • or they can convert members of the Communist Party.

  • And that's also the reason they target particularly The Church of Almighty God,

  • because they were very impressed by the growth,

  • they cannot explain the growth, and they are afraid of this growth.

  • Professor Introvigne, you are absolutely right!

  • I very much agree with your point of view.

  • The CCP is an atheist revolutionary party.

  • It is hostile to theism as a whole.

  • Therefore, it is not surprising

  • that the CCP brutally persecutes religious beliefs.

  • This is determined by its evil essence.

  • The CCP has designated Protestantism and Catholicism as Xie Jiao,

  • and the Bible as a cult book.

  • Countless copies of it have been confiscated and burned.

  • Bibles sent to China from various countries and regions including Taiwan and Hong Kong

  • were dumped into the sea.

  • Many missionaries sent to China from various countries overseas

  • were arrested and repatriated.

  • Many Christian leaders and elders were sentenced to prison,

  • such as Watchman Nee, Wang Mingdao, and others.

  • Today, after Xi Jinping took office,

  • he has resumed the policy of dismantling crosses and demolishing churches.

  • It is reported that some particularly good churches were blown up.

  • However, these reports are only the tip of the iceberg.

  • The CCP has committed countless heinous crimes,

  • it is more evil than the Hitler fascist regime.

  • Yet, countries around the world know too little

  • about the CCP's persecution of religious beliefs.

  • They even believe the CCP's nonsense that distorts the facts and deludes people.

  • This is really a sad thing.

  • Professor Introvigne, what do you think about this?

  • I believe, some years ago, many years ago actually,

  • there was an American scholar called Robert Conquest.

  • He did some calculations

  • and determined the CCP in China killed more people than Hitler.

  • It's an interesting old book that perhaps should be rediscovered.

  • After this, I believe,

  • in France was published a book called The Black Book of Communism some years ago,

  • and they also did the calculation in different countries

  • and these scholars came out with the same answer

  • that the Chinese Communist regime actually killed more people than Hitler.

  • That's not to say anything positive about Hitler of course,

  • he was a criminal.

  • Even killing one person innocent is one person, too many.

  • So of course killing millions like Hitler is a horrible crime.

  • But sometimes scholars like to make statistics,

  • and it comes out that the CCP regime actually killed more people.

  • And there is a difference of course,

  • that everybody in the world, except a few crazy Neo-Nazis,

  • would regard Hitler as a criminal,

  • but few people are aware of the crimes committed in China,

  • so the level of awareness is completely different.

  • If you mention to a schoolboy Hitler,

  • immediately he realizes we are talking about a criminal.

  • I recently was in Kyrgyzstan for a conference,

  • and I heard about the image, the public opinion,

  • Central Asia has of the various governments.

  • It comes out the worst is United States,

  • the best is Russia, and China is in the middle,

  • so meaning that populations in many countries

  • do not have a bad impression of the Chinese government

  • and they do not know what's really going on in China,

  • particularly in matters of religious freedom and persecution of Christians.

  • That can be said also for Russia, but that's of course another matter.

  • People don't know what's really going on there.

  • So I agree with your comment

  • that the problem is

  • the awareness of the religious persecution in China in the world is very low.

  • And in part it's low because of CCP propaganda,

  • but in part it's low because of political and economic reasons.

  • Many countries, many media conglomerates, newspapers, governments, businesses,

  • they do business with China

  • and so they don't want to compromise their business with China

  • by telling the truth about the religious situation

  • and the human rights situation in China.

  • And also some countries,

  • that can be true in South Korea for instance,

  • they need the help of China

  • to solve problems with North Korea or other international problems,

  • so they don't want to antagonize China

  • by talking too much on human rights and religious freedom.

  • So I believe there is important work to do

  • in raising continuously the issue of human rights and religious liberty in China

  • and in particular the issue of the persecution of The Church of Almighty God,

  • because all these people need to know.

  • Perhaps some know, but they are afraid to speak,

  • but some genuinely don't know.

  • So there is a lot of work to do,

  • to tell the truth about the religious persecution in China.

  • Thank you, professor Introvigne.

  • Thank you for joining our interview dialogues of The Trumpet of Truth

  • and sharing with us your opinions.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you for watching!

  • See you again next time!

Good afternoon, everyone.

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馬西莫-特羅維涅|第二部分 :分析中共對全能神教會的謠言 (Massimo Introvigne | Part 2 : Analyzing the CCP's Rumors Against The Church of Almighty God)

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    yi.ping 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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