Radical Transparency

At the NYRB web site, Ian Johnson summarizes the changing relations between the Chinese government and the church. He ends with this account of the Huanan church:

“A decade ago, authorities in China smashed one of the world’s biggest charismatic Christian churches, the 500,000-member South China (Huanan) Church, sending its leaders to jail on charges of rape, torture and kidnapping. The actions were widely condemned as violations of religious freedom, with US-based organizations attacking the imprisonment of church leader Gong Shengliang.

“Then something interesting happened . . . .

“On their own initiative, a group of Chinese human rights lawyers and Christians investigated the church. Their conclusion: the church had indeed coerced some people into converting and Gong may have raped women or at least coerced them into having sex. The government was in part right, they concluded in a study, which helped defuse much anger about the arrests, as well as international outrage. Later, Gong even sent a letter out of prison asking for forgiveness.”

That was a major event in the church’s efforts to “self-police.” But it also changed the tactics of many churches: “Many church leaders concluded that a key problem faced by the Huanan Church was that it had been an underground movement, which forced its leaders to be secretive and encouraged the concentration of power in a few hands while stifling internal debate. Their solution: radical transparency. Essentially, these mostly urban church leaders decided to face the consequence of operating in the open. They began posting online their scheduled services, church bulletins, and even videos of sermons to show authorities that they have nothing to hide. Surprisingly, some local officials have accepted this approach—many local public security managers have decided they have bigger problems elsewhere.”

Transparency is of course a danger to the churches, but it is equally a danger to the state. Once the Christians are in the open, it is harder to shut them down in secret.