Not Allowed In Church

So here is something that never happens out West.

Last Friday I had about a four-hour lunch with my language partners; they are both Chinese college students from different parts of the country, studying at the same university I am. At some point during the conversation, I mentioned I was going to church on Sunday. They were quite curious about this and asked if they could come along, as they had never been to a church service before. I said of course, and told them to meet us at 3:15 on Sunday.

I was pretty psyched about this, so I mentioned it to my friends Colby and Vincent; they were equally enthusiastic, but told me they had heard that only foreign passport holders were allowed to attend the English service. This sounded ridiculous, that they would actually check some people’s ID at the door of a church, so I asked some of the Shanghai veterans in our new small group about this at a BBQ we had on Sunday before church. They confirmed that it was absolutely illegal for a Chinese citizen to attend an English service at an expat church. Had they ever heard of someone actually getting kicked out of a service? No. But if they came, they would run the risk of getting a permanent mark on their record.

The reason for this is that the government doesn’t censor the English services at all; it seems that as long as we don’t try to start an insurrection or something, we pretty much have free reign to talk about whatever we want. This church does offer services in Chinese as well though, which citizens are allowed to attend, as the sermons are looked over by government officials before they are preached. It seems they don’t censor too much out—the one example that a new friend of ours gave is that they must never mention abortion from the pulpit. Interesting, but given the country we’re in, not surprising.

It turned out one of my new friends couldn’t make it, but when I met up with the other just outside our dorms at 3:15, it was pretty awkward and strange trying to explain that he was not allowed to come inside our church because he was a Chinese citizen. This is a conversation I have never had, nor would like to have again soon. We are going to check out a Chinese service tonight though, so that will be cool. It will be weird that my friends and I, the Christians, won’t understand anything, but my new Chinese friend, the non-Christian, will understand perfectly. We’ll see how it goes!