Church

So, yesterday I decided to go to church here in Yingtan. I looked up the address and time of the Christian church here in town, and off I went. I had been to a Christian church before when I was in Benxi. That time, I ended up being hauled off to that church - I had told the family that I was staying with that China controlled churches and that my church was not allowed to proselyte or hold meetings for native Chinese. She didn't believe me, and in her effort to show me the extent of religious freedom in China, I was taken to the Chinese church in Benxi and after the meeting, I had a very awkward meeting with the pastor in which I asked whether there was religious freedom in China (to prove to my host family that there wasn't - like I said, it was a very awkward moment).

Here, it might be appropriate to include a bit about Chinese church organization. China recognizes only three "denominations" of churches - "Catholic" church (which actually is not really under Vatican control - this is an ongoing issue where Beijing appoints bishops and church leaders in their government approved Catholic church. China and the Vatican still do not have established diplomatic relations), the "Orthodox" Church - usually for ethnic Russians, but I think there are also some native Chinese who converted to Orthodox Christianity back in the day - naturally, most of these people are in the Northeast and Xinjiang. And finally there is a catchall church referred to as "Christianity" that is a sort of nondenominational Protestant organization. Of course, there are underground "house churches" that are not subject to government control. Anyways, I didn't really want to go to an underground church - even though it turned out that the lady at the front desk of my hotel mentioned that she attends one and would take me there on Sunday.

Anyways, so off I went to this church. It is located on the outskirts of the city, and is painted a bright blue. The moment I entered the church, everyone turned around and looked at me (it is a really strange feeling) and I heard everyone say things like "laowai laile" (a foreigner is here). I sat near the back of the church, hoping to avoid more people staring at me. Nice try. I should have sat at the front, so that when everyone stared at me, they would at least be facing the pastor and I wouldn't know they were actually staring at me. Instead, with everyone turning to look back to me, it was fairly obvious that - yes, they are staring at me. Anyways, the church service was generally devoid of doctrine and consisted mainly of repetitive singing. It really doesn't do it for me. First the minister sings one line of the hymn. Then the congregation repeats it. Then the next line. The minister went through the hymn about 10 times in this manner in the local dialect (Jiangxinese? Gan dialect is what it is formally referred to). Then he went over it 10 times in Mandarin. Then we sang the whole song together about 10 times in local dialect. Then 10 times in Mandarin. Remember, this is just one verse. Then we go on to the next verse. It takes forever. I'm not quite sure what the congregation gets from it.

After the singing, the pastor gave a talk. This was on mother's day, which was nice - and I bet that the churches back home had Mother's day talks as well. So that felt nice and similar.

I don't know if Chinese churches overseas are like this, or if the house churches are as well - I really wish that I had visited some Chinese churches while I was on my mission, or even after I had come home. It would be interesting to compare - then I could get a sense for how much government control there really is of Chinese churches.

After that, I walked back to my hotel, because there were no taxis out there at all - it took about a half hour to make it back home. Interesting experience - I'll probably try to go to churches as much as I can out it, even if it is just to see what they are like.......