By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer Yahoo News
The group arrived in China on Sunday and had intended to distribute the Bibles to people in the city, Klein told the AP in a telephone interview while still at the airport.
"I heard that there's freedom of religion in China, so why is there a problem for us to bring Bibles?" Klein said. "We had over 300 copies and customs took all of them from us."
The move comes as China hosts the Olympics in Beijing, where false media reports last year claimed Bibles would be banned from the games. The state-run China Daily reported last month that 10,000 bilingual copies of the Bible would be distributed in the Olympic Village, which houses athletes and media.
Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country only allows them to be used in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.
Notice that last paragraph.
Government printed Bibles allowed to be used in government-sanctioned churches.
Be thankful if you live in a free country where you can choose your Bible version to take home with you and choose your church to worship in. We who are free take too much for granted and we tend to not appreciate things until we lose them.
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3 comments:
Somehow this story reminds me of how the early translators of the Bible were tortured and killed for doing so, but their endeavors gave us, the laity, the Bible.
Thankfully, we should have it much easier than Wycliffe and Tyndale. We have the advantage of instant communication and of publicity.
We've come a long way from the times of the "Great Bible" which was chained to the podium in the churches. Now the more Bibles we have the less we read them. Before Satan would block us from the Bible now many have free and abundant access but we ignore it.
Berean Wife
Not only that but people seem to be receiving their 'theology training' via Google. I've coined a term for it calling the phenomenon "Google Theology" and am writing up a post on it at the moment.
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