《卫报》：中国有意纵容基督教在藏区传播，用心险恶

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/going-undercover-christian-evangelists-tibet?INTCMP=SRCH

Going undercover, the evangelists taking Jesus to Tibet

龙腾
Chinese authorities said to be selectively tolerant of Christian missionaries, seeing them as a counterforce to Buddhists

[查看图片]
Tibetan Catholics pray at a church in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Most Christian missionaries in Tibet belong to nondenominational groups intent on mass conversion. Photograph: Wang Changshan/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Chris and Sarah recently moved into a newly renovated two-bedroom apartment in Xining, a bustling Chinese city on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, where they manage a small business and spread the teachings of Jesus Christ. The couple, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, are enthusiastic and devout. They say that they could stay for decades.

"I really love being in a place where, it's like, if you're an artist, and an artist comes in and sees a blank canvas, they go heck yes – they love creating something new, and that's how I feel," said Sarah. "That's not to say that there aren't times when I cry my eyes out and get discouraged, but I know that this is where I'm supposed to be, so we're going to find joy in the midst of difficulty."

Tibet is the K2 of the evangelical Christian world – missionaries see it as a formidable yet crucial undertaking, a last spiritual frontier. Of the 400 foreigners living in Xining, most are missionaries, estimates Chris.

Proselytising has been illegal in China since 1949, when Mao Zedong declared western missionaries "spiritual aggressors" and deported them en masse, so today's evangelists work undercover as students, teachers, doctors, and business owners. Moreover, Tibetans are tough customers in the market for souls – Buddhism is central to their cultural identity, making them notoriously difficult to convert.

Despite all that, experts say that changing economic circumstances could make foreign Christians more influential in Tibetan society now than at any point in history.

Robbie Barnett, a leading Tibet expert at Columbia University, argues that the missionary phenomenon overturns the standard notion of western attitudes towards Tibet – that western society is intent on protecting Tibetan religion, while the Chinese government is more concerned with dismantling it. "If you look at foreigners there, there are people whose commitment is to the opposite – it's to replace Tibetan religion with their own religion.
"

More than 10 people interviewed for this article said that Chinese authorities in Tibetan areas were selectively tolerant of missionaries for reasons that range from pragmatic to borderline sinister. One is that they are a boon to local economies – they open lucrative businesses and teach at local schools for next to nothing, supplementing their meagre salaries with donations from home. Authorities may also consider missionaries politically trustworthy, reluctant to undermine their spiritual missions by openly criticising regional policies.

And lastly, the government may welcome them as a powerful counterforce to Tibetan Buddhism, with its electrifying political overtones.

"China isn't trying to destroy religion by any means, but they're trying to destroy certain parts of Tibetan religion," said Barnett. "They're not the same project by any means, but they certainly have some congruency."

'For Tibetans, everything is about religion'Most missionaries in Tibet belong to nondenominational organisations which believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth only when people from every social, cultural and linguistic group have been exposed to his teachings. These groups view mass conversion as a high form of ecclesiastical service, and as such, their tactics can be covert and transactional. Some lure young Tibetans with the promise of English lessons or professional training and coax them into conversion after making sure of their loyalty. Various Tibetans in Xining expressed disgust with this tactic. One likened it to bribery.

"For Tibetans, everything is about religion," said a Tibetan woman in Xining who requested anonymity because of political sensitivities. "They think that Buddhism is perfect for them – that it's flawless. And if somebody points out that there's something wrong with their religion, that's a huge offence."

Most Tibetan converts know the potential consequences of disclosing their spiritual leanings – social alienation, broken family ties – so keep them a closely guarded secret. Nobody knows how many there are: estimates range from zero to thousands.

According to Barnett, Tibetan distrust of missionaries is shorthand for a much broader context – "where the whole structure of Tibetan ideas, beliefs, and cultural values is being radically undermined, year after year, by the Chinese project, by modernity and globalisation in general".

Nowhere is this clearer than in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Once an outpost on the Silk Road, the city is now a bustling transport hub linking the Tibetan wild west with affluent eastern provinces. Its entrepreneurs and officials are flush with cash, the ancillary beneficiaries of government programmes that aim to win Tibetan hearts and minds by packing the region with highways and residential high-rises.

Young Tibetans are flocking to cities in ever-greater numbers for jobs and opportunities. The devout spin prayer wheels at tiny temples nestled among police stations and extravagant banquet halls. Outside, the acrid smell of burning yak-butter candles mingles with faint overtones of car exhaust fumes.

No evangelical organisations agreed to be interviewed for this article, but their websites shed light on their functional goals and theological justifications. Good News for Tibet Radio produces Tibetan-language radio programmes that feature "a mixture of Tibetan culture and history, health issues, native folklore, and the Gospel". The evangelical organisation AsiaLink prints children's Bibles in Tibetan.
.

The Joshua Project, a website that catalogues "unreached people", lists 20 Tibetan subgroups as untouched by Christian beliefs. It quotes the Gospel of Matthew: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."

Interpretations vary: "You've got rapture people, you've got people who don't believe in the rapture, you've got millennial people, you've got all sorts of beliefs," said one Xining missionary who also requested anonymity.

The first missionary to make any significant headway in Tibet was a Portuguese Jesuit named António de Andrade who, in 1624, infiltrated the region disguised as a Hindu pilgrim. The king and queen of a large independent kingdom there were intrigued by Catholicism, and helped him build a church. Yet De Andrade's warm reception rankled with Tibet's religious elite and, within a few years, the mission was undermined by insurgent lamas (pdf). With a few exceptions, missionaries spent the following centuries proselytising to ethnic Tibetans in northern India, hoping in vain that they would carry their message into the heart of the forbidding theocracy.

A challenging terrain Things haven't got much easier. Foreigners have been summarily banned from volatile Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces since a two-year wave of protest self-immolations intensified there in the autumn. They are forbidden from entering the Tibetan Autonomous Region except in highly organised groups. Military police patrol the streets of Tibetan cities and maintain checkpoints on major roads.

Missionaries have adopted a range of tactics to combat these obstacles, but none have proven consistently successful. In the 1990s, many would distribute religious leaflets in predominantly Buddhist areas. Evangelical blogs describe the process: often by cover of night, "tract-bombing" teams on tourist visas would stuff the leaflets into letterboxes and nail them to monastery walls. These missions tended to invite more hostility than curiosity. Missionaries were often arrested by high-strung officials or chased away by monks.

Their techniques have become more sophisticated over the past few decades. Some, like Chris and Sarah, have secured long-term Chinese visas by opening coffee shops, boutiques, restaurants and guesthouses. Others are charity-minded doctors and aid workers. Evangelical organisations brainstorm new ways to make the Christian gospel accessible to Tibetans, such as screening Christian films in Tibetan dialects.

"I would be sad and super disappointed if I saw a Tibetan church that looked like an American church," said Chris. "It's a very different culture, and they're going to worship in a very different way."

Chris and Sarah have a strong affinity for Tibetan culture, even if elements of Tibetan religion strike them as sinister or harsh: its icons, the shamanistic rituals, the draconian precepts of reincarnation. "I love these people so much, and I feel like I … I want them to be free from fear," said Sarah. God, she said, brought her overwhelming feelings of love and compassion – feelings she wanted her Tibetan friends to share. Yet so far, progress has been slow. "You can't expect to go into this really rocky field and immediately plant corn," she continued. "It's going to take some time."

英国《卫报》周五(2月22日)发表记者乔纳森·凯曼的调查报道说，中国有意容忍基督教在XZ的传播。


《卫报》记者乔纳森·凯曼在青藏高原边缘的青海省西宁市访问了一对西方传教士夫妇。这对夫妇刚刚搬进新装修的两室一厅。


报道说，约有400名外国人居住在西宁，其中多数都是传教士。

文章回顾，1949年毛泽东宣布西方传教士是“精神侵略者”，并将他们驱逐出境之后，传教在中国成为非法。

所以，现今的传教士都以学生、教师、医生、生意人等身份作为掩护。而在以藏传佛教为主导的XZ，人们更加难以转信基督教。

报道说，尽管如此，专家表示，经济环境的日益改变之际，如今基督教对XZ的影响比历史上任何时候都要大。


文章引述美国哥伦比亚大学XZ问题专家罗比·巴尼特表示，传教士现象颠覆了西方对XZ的标准看法，即西方社会意图保护XZ宗教，而中国政府则试图破坏。

巴尼特说，目前在华外国传教士的目的正好相反，他们想要用自己的宗教代替XZ的宗教。


有意容忍


作者采访的10余人说，中国当局选择性地容忍西方传教士，原因则从务实到可以说用心险恶。


文章说，其中一个原因在于，传教士是对当地经济的福音—这些人要么从事利润丰厚的生意，要么在当地学校几乎不计报酬地教学，靠外国捐献补贴微薄的薪酬。


报道说，中国当局在政治上信任传教士。传教士不愿公开批评区域政策，以避免阻碍他们的精神使命。


文章说，中国政府可能欢迎基督教传教士作为藏传佛教的一种反作用力。


哥伦比亚大学XZ问题专家巴尼特说，中国并不是要摧毁宗教，而是试图摧毁XZ宗教的特定部分—虽然二者并不相同，但是肯定有一定程度的一致性。


下面有一些评论，不过好像宗教术语很多，大家能不能帮忙译一译？
http://d2.guardian.co.uk/discussion/p/3dpv2http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/going-undercover-christian-evangelists-tibet?INTCMP=SRCH

Going undercover, the evangelists taking Jesus to Tibet

龙腾
Chinese authorities said to be selectively tolerant of Christian missionaries, seeing them as a counterforce to Buddhists

[查看图片]
Tibetan Catholics pray at a church in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Most Christian missionaries in Tibet belong to nondenominational groups intent on mass conversion. Photograph: Wang Changshan/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Chris and Sarah recently moved into a newly renovated two-bedroom apartment in Xining, a bustling Chinese city on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, where they manage a small business and spread the teachings of Jesus Christ. The couple, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, are enthusiastic and devout. They say that they could stay for decades.

"I really love being in a place where, it's like, if you're an artist, and an artist comes in and sees a blank canvas, they go heck yes – they love creating something new, and that's how I feel," said Sarah. "That's not to say that there aren't times when I cry my eyes out and get discouraged, but I know that this is where I'm supposed to be, so we're going to find joy in the midst of difficulty."

Tibet is the K2 of the evangelical Christian world – missionaries see it as a formidable yet crucial undertaking, a last spiritual frontier. Of the 400 foreigners living in Xining, most are missionaries, estimates Chris.

Proselytising has been illegal in China since 1949, when Mao Zedong declared western missionaries "spiritual aggressors" and deported them en masse, so today's evangelists work undercover as students, teachers, doctors, and business owners. Moreover, Tibetans are tough customers in the market for souls – Buddhism is central to their cultural identity, making them notoriously difficult to convert.

Despite all that, experts say that changing economic circumstances could make foreign Christians more influential in Tibetan society now than at any point in history.

Robbie Barnett, a leading Tibet expert at Columbia University, argues that the missionary phenomenon overturns the standard notion of western attitudes towards Tibet – that western society is intent on protecting Tibetan religion, while the Chinese government is more concerned with dismantling it. "If you look at foreigners there, there are people whose commitment is to the opposite – it's to replace Tibetan religion with their own religion.
"

More than 10 people interviewed for this article said that Chinese authorities in Tibetan areas were selectively tolerant of missionaries for reasons that range from pragmatic to borderline sinister. One is that they are a boon to local economies – they open lucrative businesses and teach at local schools for next to nothing, supplementing their meagre salaries with donations from home. Authorities may also consider missionaries politically trustworthy, reluctant to undermine their spiritual missions by openly criticising regional policies.

And lastly, the government may welcome them as a powerful counterforce to Tibetan Buddhism, with its electrifying political overtones.

"China isn't trying to destroy religion by any means, but they're trying to destroy certain parts of Tibetan religion," said Barnett. "They're not the same project by any means, but they certainly have some congruency."

'For Tibetans, everything is about religion'Most missionaries in Tibet belong to nondenominational organisations which believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth only when people from every social, cultural and linguistic group have been exposed to his teachings. These groups view mass conversion as a high form of ecclesiastical service, and as such, their tactics can be covert and transactional. Some lure young Tibetans with the promise of English lessons or professional training and coax them into conversion after making sure of their loyalty. Various Tibetans in Xining expressed disgust with this tactic. One likened it to bribery.

"For Tibetans, everything is about religion," said a Tibetan woman in Xining who requested anonymity because of political sensitivities. "They think that Buddhism is perfect for them – that it's flawless. And if somebody points out that there's something wrong with their religion, that's a huge offence."

Most Tibetan converts know the potential consequences of disclosing their spiritual leanings – social alienation, broken family ties – so keep them a closely guarded secret. Nobody knows how many there are: estimates range from zero to thousands.

According to Barnett, Tibetan distrust of missionaries is shorthand for a much broader context – "where the whole structure of Tibetan ideas, beliefs, and cultural values is being radically undermined, year after year, by the Chinese project, by modernity and globalisation in general".

Nowhere is this clearer than in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province. Once an outpost on the Silk Road, the city is now a bustling transport hub linking the Tibetan wild west with affluent eastern provinces. Its entrepreneurs and officials are flush with cash, the ancillary beneficiaries of government programmes that aim to win Tibetan hearts and minds by packing the region with highways and residential high-rises.

Young Tibetans are flocking to cities in ever-greater numbers for jobs and opportunities. The devout spin prayer wheels at tiny temples nestled among police stations and extravagant banquet halls. Outside, the acrid smell of burning yak-butter candles mingles with faint overtones of car exhaust fumes.

No evangelical organisations agreed to be interviewed for this article, but their websites shed light on their functional goals and theological justifications. Good News for Tibet Radio produces Tibetan-language radio programmes that feature "a mixture of Tibetan culture and history, health issues, native folklore, and the Gospel". The evangelical organisation AsiaLink prints children's Bibles in Tibetan.
.

The Joshua Project, a website that catalogues "unreached people", lists 20 Tibetan subgroups as untouched by Christian beliefs. It quotes the Gospel of Matthew: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."

Interpretations vary: "You've got rapture people, you've got people who don't believe in the rapture, you've got millennial people, you've got all sorts of beliefs," said one Xining missionary who also requested anonymity.

The first missionary to make any significant headway in Tibet was a Portuguese Jesuit named António de Andrade who, in 1624, infiltrated the region disguised as a Hindu pilgrim. The king and queen of a large independent kingdom there were intrigued by Catholicism, and helped him build a church. Yet De Andrade's warm reception rankled with Tibet's religious elite and, within a few years, the mission was undermined by insurgent lamas (pdf). With a few exceptions, missionaries spent the following centuries proselytising to ethnic Tibetans in northern India, hoping in vain that they would carry their message into the heart of the forbidding theocracy.

A challenging terrain Things haven't got much easier. Foreigners have been summarily banned from volatile Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces since a two-year wave of protest self-immolations intensified there in the autumn. They are forbidden from entering the Tibetan Autonomous Region except in highly organised groups. Military police patrol the streets of Tibetan cities and maintain checkpoints on major roads.

Missionaries have adopted a range of tactics to combat these obstacles, but none have proven consistently successful. In the 1990s, many would distribute religious leaflets in predominantly Buddhist areas. Evangelical blogs describe the process: often by cover of night, "tract-bombing" teams on tourist visas would stuff the leaflets into letterboxes and nail them to monastery walls. These missions tended to invite more hostility than curiosity. Missionaries were often arrested by high-strung officials or chased away by monks.

Their techniques have become more sophisticated over the past few decades. Some, like Chris and Sarah, have secured long-term Chinese visas by opening coffee shops, boutiques, restaurants and guesthouses. Others are charity-minded doctors and aid workers. Evangelical organisations brainstorm new ways to make the Christian gospel accessible to Tibetans, such as screening Christian films in Tibetan dialects.

"I would be sad and super disappointed if I saw a Tibetan church that looked like an American church," said Chris. "It's a very different culture, and they're going to worship in a very different way."

Chris and Sarah have a strong affinity for Tibetan culture, even if elements of Tibetan religion strike them as sinister or harsh: its icons, the shamanistic rituals, the draconian precepts of reincarnation. "I love these people so much, and I feel like I … I want them to be free from fear," said Sarah. God, she said, brought her overwhelming feelings of love and compassion – feelings she wanted her Tibetan friends to share. Yet so far, progress has been slow. "You can't expect to go into this really rocky field and immediately plant corn," she continued. "It's going to take some time."

英国《卫报》周五(2月22日)发表记者乔纳森·凯曼的调查报道说，中国有意容忍基督教在XZ的传播。


《卫报》记者乔纳森·凯曼在青藏高原边缘的青海省西宁市访问了一对西方传教士夫妇。这对夫妇刚刚搬进新装修的两室一厅。


报道说，约有400名外国人居住在西宁，其中多数都是传教士。

文章回顾，1949年毛泽东宣布西方传教士是“精神侵略者”，并将他们驱逐出境之后，传教在中国成为非法。

所以，现今的传教士都以学生、教师、医生、生意人等身份作为掩护。而在以藏传佛教为主导的XZ，人们更加难以转信基督教。

报道说，尽管如此，专家表示，经济环境的日益改变之际，如今基督教对XZ的影响比历史上任何时候都要大。


文章引述美国哥伦比亚大学XZ问题专家罗比·巴尼特表示，传教士现象颠覆了西方对XZ的标准看法，即西方社会意图保护XZ宗教，而中国政府则试图破坏。

巴尼特说，目前在华外国传教士的目的正好相反，他们想要用自己的宗教代替XZ的宗教。


有意容忍


作者采访的10余人说，中国当局选择性地容忍西方传教士，原因则从务实到可以说用心险恶。


文章说，其中一个原因在于，传教士是对当地经济的福音—这些人要么从事利润丰厚的生意，要么在当地学校几乎不计报酬地教学，靠外国捐献补贴微薄的薪酬。


报道说，中国当局在政治上信任传教士。传教士不愿公开批评区域政策，以避免阻碍他们的精神使命。


文章说，中国政府可能欢迎基督教传教士作为藏传佛教的一种反作用力。


哥伦比亚大学XZ问题专家巴尼特说，中国并不是要摧毁宗教，而是试图摧毁XZ宗教的特定部分—虽然二者并不相同，但是肯定有一定程度的一致性。


下面有一些评论，不过好像宗教术语很多，大家能不能帮忙译一译？
http://d2.guardian.co.uk/discussion/p/3dpv2