Luo Er, a former Editor-in-Chief of a lifestyle magazine in Shenzhen, Guangdong, posted the article with the title "Jesus, Stop Forcing Me to Be Your Enemy" on Sept. 13, 2016, expressing his sorrows on his 5-year-old loved daughter's leukemia. This heart-breaking post went viral among Christians and even non-believers, after a marketing company helped promoting the journal on Nov. 27 by announcing that the company agreed to donate one yuan for each share on social media to raise money for Luo's daughter.
In a matter of days, the journal was forwarded millions of times and received donations of more than 2 million yuan. The public issue stirred up trouble that Christians and Christianity were embroiled in the discussion for the journal talked about Jesus and the Bible.
An opinion from a non-Christian netizen stated that the main beneficiaries of the event were Christianity, the financial company and a life-insurance company. For this, many Christians showed concern and opposed the view. Meanwhile, some social media believed that Christians played a critical role in publicizing Luo Er's crowdfunding issue.
An editor from China PhilanthropyTimes wondered why this common fundraising for the leukemia treatment went popular, claiming that there was some logic behind this wide but unscientific spreading. Considering that the most liked comment below Luo's post was left by Christians, she stated in her article entitled "Why Didn't I Forward Luo Er's Journal" that in her eyes, Christians played a key role in the evolvement of the issue. Later she posted on WeChat, saying that many parent groups on WeChat forwarded posts concerning the event in the perspective of religions.
Did Christians really exert a key influence in promoting the Luo Er's issue? For this, Christian Times interviewed four Christians to talk about their points of view:
Brother Fu from Zhejiang (who joins in a youth ministry):
In Fu's eyes, this event reflects the powerful mass communication capacity of WeChat and Christians' activeness on the social media. He holds that Luo's alleged Christian identity and the emotional sentences such as "Jesus, Stop Forcing Me to be Your Enemy " contributed to the multitude of comments from Christians by stimulating their nerves. A number of believers criticized him for his false understanding of God, human and sufferings as well as sins.
He continues that it was not Christians who agitated the issue, despite that there were close attention and numerous discussions from many Christians. They regarded similar social events through the eyes of faith, judging if they were in accordance with the Bible and norms of Christian behaviors, unlike ordinary internet users.
He adds that the view that Christians were related to fanning the flames came from non-Christians who saw a large percentage of followers that engaged in rewarding Luo's journal and commenting. Those who contributed the largest portion to the flames were ordinary people who expressed the fiercest criticisms on Luo for feeling deceived after giving donations and some official WeChat accounts that wanted to shape public views by attracting more clicks.
Suppose that Christians influenced the flames or should be responsible for the issue, the reflections should be that Christians cannot distinguish between true and false, who are just normal people, and that our country doesn't open a way for Christian charity so that Christians and churches lack practice in engaging in charity.
He's sad that Luo Er, who claims to believe in the Lord, used the marketing means during the incident, which brought shame to Christianity.
He appeals that Christians can establish a cross-denominational forum belonging to a third party and discuss how to respond to hot social issues in China, which aims to avoid being blind to reality by fundamentalists and train Christians to interpret public issues. In addition, a good impression of Christianity can be given to the world.
Teacher Yi from Jiangsu
Teacher Yi who often gives theological lectures in China shares his opinion that the tricky father got support by raising his Christian identity and stimulating Christians with challenging words, knowing that Christian are kind-hearted, easily to be fooled.
It seems to Yi that Christians donated to defend their faith, like the US while evangelical chose Donald Trump to protect their traditional values. This reveals that utilitarianism and simplicity exist in the faith of Chinese Christians and the Christian donors only wanted to testify the truth of their faith rather than merely save the poor girl. It proves that religion is a double-edged sword in philanthropy. On one hand, the religious communities are enthusiastic about charity, on the other hand, they engage in charity with interests, testifying that their religions are better than others.
So the issue had a negative impact on Christianity because Christians' donations brought about mocking, regarded as fools and if they didn't give donations, they would be criticized for being without love. He believes that Christians only made a little contribution to the total donations of over 2 million yuan for many fundraising results raised by Christians are much less than the sum. It was a shame for Christians because never a Christian who needs help receives so much donation.
Sister Xia from Shanghai:
Xia has aided many Christians both online and offline. Focusing on the cause and effect of the crowdfunding issue, she says that it reminds her of a fundraising case initiated by her for a preacher's leukemia treatment. Eventually, she collected a considerable fund of 180,000 yuan, finding it difficult to deliver the message among Chinese Christians after the all-out efforts. She speculates that somebody intended to upset public donations through this issue.
She disagrees that Christians played a critical role in publicizing the crowdfunding, according to her previous experiences that show the impossibility of raising a donation of some million yuan from the Christian community in just two or three days. Secondly, she finds in doing fundraising that non-Christians stop giving donations and only Christians keep donating when the patients are identified Christians.
Remember that these biblical words like the Bible and Job are strange to non-Christians in China, who may lose interest in such an article. However, she believes that non-Christians contribute to the majority of the donations in just several days. If Christians' attention on the journal attracted non-Christians according to China Philanthropy Times, it was almost out of the question because the Chinese Christian community has nothing to do with the non-Christian circle. For example, the cross-removal campaign in Zhejiang went viral among Christians, while seeming nothing to non-Christians. In the beginning, non-believers actually didn't care much about this issue, until it had become a scandal. Xia believes that there was a scheme with marketing strategy before it turning to be a scandal. Don't blame Christians for they haven't done improper things.
Her opinion is that some information may be false under the current circumstance so Christians should help people around themselves and check the authenticity of information from distant places.
Brother Andy from Beijing:
Andy once founded a charitable organization and has experience in participating in charity for years. He shares his view on the side of a Christian and a supporter of charity:
He's not against the opinion of the article "Why Didn't I Forward Luo Er's Journal", considering the post as rigorous as a whole. But there was a sentence that might cause confusion: "Combining the description in the post and comments, I judged at that time that Christians played a key role in the evolvement of the event."
Andy points out that the editor of China Philanthropy Times meant that Christians played a significant part in publicizing the crowdfunding. Regardless of the truth of this view, it seems to him that disciples of Christ are pleased to hear it. There is no difference between Christians and others in donating or promoting fundraisings.
Concerning the editor's view, it deserves to be explored. As far as he is concerned, Christians prefer not to be involved in disputes and at least his church as well as believers around him do so. The first thing God spoke to Adam was "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16) We are not allowed to judge good and evil for we don't have such a capacity. Humans can comprehend the whole truth behind things for only God is just and omniscient. As a participant in charity and a Christian, he hopes that all the Christians remain their love for the needy and love neighbors as themselves, helping people in need as many as possible. Even he will give a hand to a liar.
On the other hand, this scandal triggers Christians to ponder over how to engage in charities in a better way. The first principle for charitable organizations is to stay true and not to deceive people.
For the government, it should supervise charitable organizations strictly. Compared with the developed countries that do so in the world, China has lax regulation over them. It's not enough to control these organizations by ruling the leaders' consciousness while the supervision should depend on the law for everyone is a sinner. In fact, our government has started legal supervision and there is still a long way. He expects every issue to be an opportunity of promoting charities and lawmaking on charities.
Translated By: Karen Luo
