The government of China is twitchy about foreign missionaries in China. This is understandable, given the role played by Christian missionaries in the bloody Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century. But now Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore reports for Time that Beijing is quietly encouraging American and Korean Christians, mostly fundamentalist evangelicals, to proselytize among ethnic Tibetans.
The reasons for this are twofold. One, the foreign missionaries provide English language lessons for little pay. And two, an obvious way to loosen the bonds of Tibetan nationalism is to undermine Tibetan Buddhism.
It's hard to tell if the missionaries are having much success. The Tibetans are not impressed with stories of Jesus healing the sick and turning water in the wine. "Is that all he could do?" they ask. Tibetan myth and history are well stuffed with stories of miracle-performing lamas, after all. It's said Milarepa could fly, for example, and also walk through rocks. That makes turning water into wine rather pedestrian, I would say.
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