FaithWorld

By Sheng Li

After many days trying to set-up an interview at the Ruoshui Mental Health Clinic, which resides within a commercial apartment building in Shenyang, China, I finally received a call from the owner on December 12 who granted me the access and opportunity to photograph one of their “death experience therapy” patients.

An hour later, I found myself in the so-called “death experience room”, a 10-square-metre room with nothing but a coffin on the floor. On the wall there was a poster of Jesus holding a newborn baby illuminated with gloomy blue lights. My first impression? Quite intimidating.

According to 50-year-old therapist Mr. Tang Yulong, the clinic opened in 2009 and since then there have been more than a thousand people who have done the death experience therapy. The therapy costs 2000 yuan ($320) and usually lasts 4 to 5 hours, during the duration of which the patient is required to lie in a coffin while his/her relatives read “epitaphs” or give speeches nearby. The patient also needs to write down his/her feelings and share with therapists and family. Mr. Tang said that many of them burst into tears when they are “resurrected.” He believes it is an extreme but efficient method to make people realize the value of their lives.

Then I met 42-year-old Mr. Yang, who had booked his therapy appointment for that day. During the psychological preparation talk, I learned that Yang had lost his mother when he was only 11 months old. Lacking maternal love and constantly being insecure in his childhood made him unable to cope with the pressure of work and daily life, and thus he became profoundly pessimistic.

With his wife’s accompaniment, he followed the therapist’s instructions and got in the coffin while the funeral music began. Maybe it was the music - I found myself completely absorbed in the atmosphere, and felt somewhat sad during the entire process. Mr. Yang told me later that for a few seconds he really felt as if he were dead inside the coffin, and his desire to keep on living became stronger. And when he heard his wife reading a letter to him, he cried. He said that it was so strange that when he was “dead,” he actually felt closer to his wife and loved ones.

(Chinese Dragon Festival dragon at festival in Galashiels, Scotland, 2 February 2008/Walter Baxter)

China has launched a crackdown on a cult it says is calling for a “decisive battle” to slay the “Red Dragon” Communist Party, and which has been spreading doomsday rumours, state media said on Friday.

In recent weeks, hundreds of members of the “Almighty God” group have clashed with police, sometimes outside government buildings, in central Henan, northern Shaanxi and southwestern Gansu provinces, according to photos on popular microblogs.

(A U.S. flag hangs from a home that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy, in the Ortley Beach area of Toms River, New Jersey November 28, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Burton)

Nearly four in 10 U.S. residents say the severity of recent natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy is evidence the world is coming to an end, as predicted by the Bible, while more than six in 10 blame it on climate change, according to a new poll.

The survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Religion News Service found political and religious disagreement on what is behind severe weather, which this year has included extreme heat and drought.

(Jenny Taylor adjusts a wedding cake figurine of a couple made up of two men at the Gay Wedding show at the Town Hall in Manchester, November 6, 2005/Ian Hodgson.)

Britain looks set to legalize same-sex marriages in the next year or two but legal safeguards it will add to protect the Church of England from having to conduct them may not survive the expected court challenges to them.

Presenting the government’s proposals on Tuesday, Culture Secretary Maria Miller promised that a “quadruple lock” of legal safeguards would bar any judge from forcing the Church to perform the gay nuptials that its leadership opposes.

(Demonstrators block the Donegal Road in the village area of south Belfast December 11, 2012. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton)

Petrol bombs on the streets of Belfast this month reveal anger and frustration among pro-British Protestants at a loss of dominance in Northern Ireland but do not – yet – pose a serious threat to a 15-year-old peace.

Launched after local councilors voted to end a century-old tradition of daily flying Britain’s union flag from City Hall, 10 days of brick-throwing battles with police provided an outlet for a build-up of grievances among a community that new figures this week showed no longer forms a majority of the population.

(Protestors wearing overalls daubed with red paint on the genital area, demonstrate against male circumcision, in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin December 12, 2012.  REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski )

German politicians passed a law on Wednesday to protect the right to circumcise infant boys in a show of support for Muslims and Jews angered by a local court ban on the practice in May.

The ban – imposed on the grounds that circumcision amounted to “bodily harm” – triggered an emotional debate over the treatment of Jews and other religious minorities, a sensitive subject in a country still haunted by its Nazi past.

(France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls delivers a speech during a visit to Ajaccio on the French Mediterranean Island of Corsica, November 25, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer )

France will deport foreign-born imams and disband radical faith-based groups, including hardline traditionalist Catholics, if a new surveillance policy signals they suffer a “religious pathology” and could become violent.

A French Islamist shooting spree last March that killed three soldiers and four Jews showed how quickly religiously radicalized people could turn to force, Interior Minister Manuel Valls told a conference on the official policy of secularism.

The future rarely turns out as expected. Imagine, for example, two sets of economic predictions for the half-century that began in 1962. The first, the Blind Guide, is written with only the knowledge available then. The second, the Retrospective Guide, is based on what actually happened.

The biggest economic issue a half-century ago was the battle of economic systems: communism versus capitalism. The Blind Guide would have predicted a lively rivalry in 2012. True, communist countries were already falling behind economically in Europe, but political oppression would keep the system well entrenched. Besides, 50 years ago many Western experts still believed that communism’s social levelling and central planning offered poor countries the best hope of rapid economic growth.

In the retrospective volume, the future abject failure of communism has a prominent place. The decline would be slow, but the people would inevitably become increasingly disenchanted with the system’s incompetence, hypocrisy and cruelty. The will of the people ultimately prevailed.

(Roger Lockyer (L) and Percy Stephens pose for photographers, after or their civil partnership ceremony, at Westminster Town Hall in central London December 21, 2005/Paul Hackett)

Britain outlined plans on Tuesday to allow gay marriage that have split Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives and raised fears among religious groups they will be forced to hold same-sex weddings.

Gay couples may already have “civil partnerships”, conferring the same legal rights as marriage, but campaigners say the distinction gives the impression that society considers gay relationships inferior.

( Breedon Priory Church near to Breedon on The Hill, Leicestershire, England, 2 December 2006/Oxymoron))

The number of Christians in England and Wales declined by 13 percent over the past decade, while the non-religious population grew from 15 to 25 percent, the most recent national census has revealed.

Christianity remains by far the largest religion in the country, with more than 33 million adherents amongst Britain’s 61 million population, but over 14 million people professed to have no religion at all.