Many thanks to Julia for the picture of a recently new bulding, one that I have been invited to before. As you can see, it is a very large and impressive “Christian Church” located in the heart of Beijing’s university district.

It is heart-warming to see religious tolerance in China reaching such an extent that such a large structure, prominently displaying such a huge Cross and the word “Christian”, can now be given the permission to be built.

I haven’t been to the church pictured, though I have a morbid curiosity to go there soon (perhaps even this Sunday as there is no Divine Liturgy on that day), so I cannot say what this church provides. I do, however, know what it doesn’t provide: the aforementioned Divine Liturgy.

I know at least one person who regularly attends this church, and so I know at least one person who goes there has a deep love of God, and faithfulness towards Him. I have no reason to believe that every other person who also goes there is the same. But then, I wouldn’t judge a person based on their church anyway. Churches are not places were only holy people go, nor those who are saved, nor only those who wish to worship God - so who can know about the people there?

No, we cannot judge a church upon who goes, but on what the church provides to those who attend, whoever they may be. Christ is the physician who heals our wounds, and church is the hospital to which sinners and saints alike (because the saints still sin and sinners can still be sanctified) go to be healed.

There’s more to it than that - worship, prayer, community - but without our Liturgy to God and God’s sacrifice to us, they are nothing. The reason I am, or anyone is, given time on this green earth, is so that we can move closer to God and He can move closer to us. That reunification is also our healing, and that requires our service to Him, the Liturgy, and God’s sacrifice for us, the shedding of Christ’s blood. Without the sacrifice of Christ, Our Saviour, at the centre of a church building, a church gathering, at the centre of our lives, then how can we be healed by it? The cross is empty, as it is in the Christian Church building above.

So although heart-warming, my heart still breaks for the Chinese Christians who need medicine, yet instead have been given a big white placebo.

Thursday is the feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross, and there will be a Divine Liturgy in the Russian Embassy at 8am. God willing, I’ll be there, and so can post something more positive (lighting a candle instead of cursing darkness).