Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikko Ainasoja
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These are false assumptions. Here's why......
CHINA
Organized religion of any kind in Communist China is an embarrassment to the government and is therefore discouraged. This includes Islam and Buddhism as well as Christianity.
All property in China is communal. This means that legal precedent favors state ownership and development rather than by private groups. Therefore, property cannot be held by a church for the purpose of erecting a building. All church buildings in China have either been repurposed or razed to the ground.
Christian groups in China are home churches. Observance of prayer meetings and Bible studies are allowed only so long as neighbors do not complain about it. Although religious jewelry and icons of various types are on display in Chinese shopping malls, it is not generally accepted as evidence for expansion of a religion.
Bottom line here is that the Christian church in China is a secret church. Being secret NOBODY knows how large or small it may be. This means that western claims about expansion are totally unfounded. It is religious propaganda of the meanest sort because it fails to recognize political truth.
RUSSIA
The Russian Orthodox Church is the legal religion of the country. Prelates of the ROC work hand in glove with Russian leadership to promote and propagate political views no matter who is in charge. This was true of communist administration as well as the current corporatized political atmosphere. This is how the ROC has survived toxic political atmospheres throughout history.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union under Communist rule, opportunities for evangelization appeared in the country for about a half dozen years. At the same time western corporations and banks looted the nation of its wealth. Once the government and its bureaucracy stabilized the open door policies both religious and economic were terminated. Although religion in Russia is not as repressed as it is in China, it is not flourishing by any measurable standard of the west.
The condition of the church in Russia is not well documented. Nobody really knows its true condition. It is religious propaganda of the meanest sort because if fails to support documentation and reflect political truth.
THE WORLD
Christianity is withering all across the globe while most of its leaders focus on religion as a business rather than any spiritual effect it may have on earth (the salt has lost its saltiness). Islam is growing at such a fantastic rate that even Muslim leadership is amazed.
In Europe the Pope has admitted that traditional culture is now secularized. (The RC church has always been more political than religious and that aspect of the organization remains healthy.)
In America the church is almost completely commercialized and philosophically diluted. Recent national conventions of the Presbyterian and Lutheran churches have voted to deny the spiritual authority of the Bible as the Word of God. Methodism no longer pronounces salvation in the Name of Jesus Christ as being the only path to God's favor. Evangelistic groups focus on Vegas style production numbers on Sunday morning rather than fiery sermons about spiritual responsibility. TV preachers continue to make millions in profits by selling their snake oil to gullible viewers (Pat Robertson has been documented as being one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in America with assets in the tens of millions of dollars).
In South America and Japan, the general population is embracing a return to traditional pagan religion and ancestral worship. I've personally heard stories of frustration by missionaries to both areas.
In Africa, Southern Asia and the western Pacific basin Islam is growing even as Christianity is being ignored. African culture is in a state of flux as the entire central region has been subjected to a new wave of corporate colonialism to strip the continent of valuable resources. Chief among these aggressors is the United States and China. Religion is viewed as having little or no influence upon politics or to provide hope for the future. Calls by missionary groups for aid to the citizens has been deeply corrupted since the early 1980's and has little or no real effect upon the people or their problems. Donations go to corrupted officials not to suffering people. Devoted missionaries told me decades ago they are fleeing the area because missionary organizations as so corrupted that even the Name of Jesus Christ has been forbidden for use in letters and email.
The Great Apostacy, foretold in the Bible, is upon us.
Jesus Christ, once rejected by His own people the Jews, is now being rejected by the gentile world in a wholesale fashion. The coming Great Tribulation, which WILL NOT be a second holocaust punishment upon Jews as is hoped for by anti-semitic Fundamentalist dogma (tribulation and rapture),
is coming to punish the Gentile world instead.
The age of the Gentile church ended on June 7, 1967.
When the IDF marching into Jerusalem the church age ended (Luke 21:24). Evidence to prove this point is everywhere. All one has to do is look with unbiased eyes.
The time of the End has come.
Now is the time to repent of sin. Now is the time to make peace with God in the Name of Jesus Christ. There is no other way and no other time available. Repent now.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...