In a move that would make Pontius Pilate blush, the celestial bureaucracy has rounded up another batch of underground church leaders in China. The charges? Preaching without a license, spreading joy without a permit, and generally ignoring the state-approved hymnal.
Our sources whisper of a dawn raid on a church that looked more like a catacomb than a cathedral. The faithful were dragged out, clutching their Bibles like life rafts in a sea of red tape.
This is a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the Party's monopoly on the afterlife. The underground church, that stubborn organism that refuses to die, now faces another purge. The state, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that salvation must be administered, not discovered.
But here's the rub: the Chinese constitution guarantees religious freedom. Of course, it also guarantees that I'll be served a decent G&T on a flight from Heathrow. Both promises are about as solid as a communion wafer in a hurricane.
The authorities claim these pastors were 'disrupting social order'. Which is hilarious, because the only thing more orderly than a Chinese church service is a queue for the toilet at a Communist Party conference.
What's the real crime? These churches are outside the state-sanctioned structure, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. 'Three-Self' meaning self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. Unless you're too self-propagating, in which case it's off to the re-education camp to learn the official version of the Lord's Prayer.
The international community will tut, issue statements, and then get back to trading with the world's factory. Meanwhile, the underground church will do what it's always done: go deeper, quieter, and more stubbornly underground.
Let's be honest. The state doesn't fear God. It fears an organisation that doesn't bow. An independent meeting of minds, souls, and possibly political ideals. That's the real heresy.
So here's to the underground believers. May their jailers be troubled by dreams of a more compassionate world. And may the gin in my glass keep flowing, a tiny act of defiance against the forces that would drain all colour from the world.
