China house churches - not as threatening as before

Once the focus of huge growth and intense persecution, the CCP has now turned their attention to another spiritual movement. Falun Gong. They gave grown rapidly in numbers and influence. They even have an impressive dance group and control the 4th largest news organization in the USA. From a copy of the Epoch Times we read today:

Twenty-six years ago, on April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 peaceful Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside the State Council’s appeals office at the Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing to appeal for their right to practice Falun Gong in China. Not since students assembled in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 had so many Chinese citizens gathered in public to appeal to the authorities.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice in the Buddhist tradition based on the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, forbearance (zhen, shan, ren, in Chinese). It was brought to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in May 1992 and quickly became the most popular qigong in China. By 1998, the State Sports Commission found that more than 70 million people were practicing Falun Gong.

Meditation and health are/were core components of Christianity. In fact, the biblical word for salvation has the broader meaning of good health.

I guess Falun Gong did a better job of marketing...