In the Beginning, There Were Hermeneutical Mistakes of Church-State Relations in Modern China

Abstract

The hectic and slow progress of religious freedom in China is a direct result of restrictive religious policies, which have been guided by hermeneutical mistakes about religion-state relations made in the early 1900s. The phrase “separation of state and church” was incorrectly translated and understood as total separation of state and church, instead of its American authentic meaning of “checks and balances between state and church.” Even worse, the phrase has been employed to justify the state’s domination over religion, while forbidding religion from criticizing the state. Chinese nationalism in the early 1900s further permeated the Chinese versions of the Bible by mistranslating different human groups into the state, thus, transforming the Bible into a nationalist textbook for the Chinese. The continued impacts of these hermeneutical mistakes on church-state relations in modern China are evidenced by the Christian Textbook of Patriotism and six major misconceptions of church-state relations commonly held by Chinese officials and intellectuals.