More good news about Christianity in China (many of you have probably seen it in the New York Times).

Source: NYT (5/31/07):http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/opinion/31kristof.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

OP-ED COLUMNIST>From Torture to Plaintiff: a Pilgrim¹s Progress in China
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

WEIHAI, China Every evening in a little village near this coastal city, peasants gather ina private home and do something that used to be dangerous. They pray. Theyare Christians gathering in a little ³house church,² reflecting a religiousboom across China. But their story also underscores another trend: the waythe legal system here offers hope of chipping away at the Communist Partydictatorship.The tale begins a year ago when the authorities here in Shandong Provinceraided this house church and carted 31 Christians off to the police station.Such crackdowns are the traditional way the Communist Party has dealt withhouse churches in rural areas, and some Christians have even been torturedto death. But this incident ended differently.

Tian Yinghua, a 55-year-old evangelical Protestant who runs the church inher living room, was outraged after she was ordered jailed for 10 days. ³Wehad done nothing wrong at all,² explained Ms. Tian. ³We weren¹t criminals.²So Ms. Tian contacted a prominent Christian and legal scholar in Beijing, LiBaiguang, who traveled to Shandong Province to do something that once wouldhave been unthinkable: Sue the police. Even more unthinkable, Ms. Tian won.The police settled the case by withdrawing the charges. The police alsoformally apologized, paid symbolic damages of 1 yuan (a bit more than adime) and promised not to bother the church again.It was a historic victory for freedom of religion in China ‹ and, even moreimportant, for the rule of law.³

The police don¹t bother us at all,² said another church leader, Wang Qiu.³They just stay away.²That seems to be a growing pattern. The central government¹s policy towardreligion is much more relaxed than a few years ago, and in coastal areas thegovernment usually lets people worship freely.³In most places, it¹s no problem today,² said Mr. Li, who himself wasimprisoned for more than a month two years ago for his legal activism. ³It¹sjust a problem in backward areas, or if you directly attack the CommunistParty.²Mr. Li, who enjoys a bit of protection because President Bush invited him tothe White House last year, says that last year he filed suits like this onein eight provinces. The other he lost, but even in those cases theauthorities were shaken enough that they have stopped harassing Christians,he says.³

On the surface we lost,² he said. ³But in reality, we won in every case.²Han Dongfang, a Chinese labor activist now exiled to Hong Kong, says that hehas also found that suing the authorities is often an effective way toincrease labor protections. Mr. Han was a leader in the Tiananmen protestsof 1989, but now he is trying to bring about change from within. ³I believethis is the way to develop a civil society, not through a revolution,² hesaid.

Of course, the legal system is still routinely used to oppress people,rather than to protect them. China imprisons more journalists than anycountry in the world, and one of them is my Times colleague Zhao Yan. Judgesnever go against the Communist Party; what they can do is rectify localinjustices where the higher party officials are indifferent.Moreover, even when lawsuits are allowed to go forward, many Chinese policeand judges are so corrupt that they sell themselves to the highest bidder.

A common saying, which I even saw in an illegal poster pasted on agovernment building in Beijing, goes: ³The bandits used to hide in thehills. Now the bandits are in the courthouses.²Still, the rule of law has gained immensely since the 1980¹s, when a defenseattorney was imprisoned for having the temerity to claim that the police hadarrested the wrong man and that his client was innocent. If the Chinesegovernment continues to nurture the rule of law, China could increasinglyfollow the path of South Korea and Taiwan away from autocracy toward greaterdemocracy.Easing the repression could also change the religious complexion of China.

Estimates of the number of Chinese Christians vary widely, but the numbermay be approaching 100 million, many of them evangelical Protestants whoaggressively recruit new believers. And with the more relaxed policy, thenumbers are soaring.³In 20 to 30 years China will have several hundred million believers,² saidMr. Li, the lawyer who helped the Shandong church. ³That will make China thebiggest Christian nation in the world, with more Christians than the entireU.S. population.²

You are invited to comment on this column at Mr. Kristof¹s blog, <http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground> .