April 26, 2012…Punta Cana, Dominican Republic…William Johnsson, PARL staff
Reports from four parts of the world-China, Russia, India and the Middle East-presented Wednesday night, April 25, showed how difficult it often is to state whether or not a country enjoys religious freedom.
“Is China a Communist country of not? Is there religious freedom there or not?” asked Dr. G. T. Ng, executive secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, who recently visited that country at the invitation of the China Christian Council. The delegation to China included Pastor Ted Wilson, president of the Adventist world church.
Ng pointed out that officially denominations do not exist in China. The China Christian Council controls all Protestant churches. However, churches such as the Seventh-day Adventists are tolerated and retain a separate identity with international connections.
The delegation visited Adventist churches and others belonging to the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Ng showed a series of slides of church buildings and congregations from the visit.
Adventists often share worship facilities with other congregations that meet on Sunday. In most places they have liberty to preach, baptize, conduct training classes, and follow their own order of worship.
Adventists also have many church buildings of their own. Some are large and well appointed, with thousands of members. They are also prominently involved, through Adventist-owned Loma Linda University, in the running of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou. This eminent, state-of-the-art facility has an attractive Adventist church nearby.
The situation in Russia is very different, reported Vladimir Ryahovsky of the Slavic Center for Law & Justice (SCLJ) in Moscow. Although Russian laws supposedly guarantee religious liberty, local authorities often disregard them.
Justice is selective: properties of the Russian Orthodox Church confiscated at the time of the Revolution have been restored, but those belonging to other denominations have not. In court cases psychiatrists can be used to discredit believers.
IRLA director for India, Pastor Rathinaraj John, described conditions in his country. Although the constitution designates India as a secular nation that does not give preference to any religion, many state governments have enacted anti-conversion laws. Many Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists, have been driven from their homes. Many have been killed by Hindu extremists.
Judge Amjad Shammout from Jordan described conditions in his country which, he said, is a model of religious freedom in the Middle East.
