The Rev’d Peter Mullen on top form:
[T]here has been a great deal of press conjecture about the reasons behind the rapid growth of Christianity in China – one item in particular in that frivolous girls’ magazine called The Times. Could it be, as the airhead bimbo who wrote the piece opined, a result of the progress of capitalism in China? Or might it have something to do with the Hegelian dialectic? You could be tempted by her baroque phraseology to take her half-seriously: until you realise with a shudder that this is the same Madchen who writes The Times‘ regular columns on knicker elastic and of who’s going up and down in the celebrity ratings.
Perhaps – I don’t know, but perhaps – the rapid rise of Christianity in China has something to do with its appeal to hearts and minds: to the intuition that this thing called the Christian faith has the ring of truth about it? It doesn’t sound, on the face of it, to be an implausible thought with which to start.