Beijing -- The matronly woman reading the Bible to a dozen solemn migrant workers in her tiny but tidy living room heads a family of dangerous political provocateurs, in the eyes of the Chinese government.Her family's crime: believing the state should have no role in how they follow their faith and share it with others.To retain control over religion -- particularly faiths with foreign connections, such as Islam and Christianity -- the government bars its people from following the established heads of these religions. And in officially atheist China, the printing of Bibles and all other religious publications needs approval from the State Bureau of Religious Affairs.The party has created its own "Catholic" and "Protestant" churches, called the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the Three-Selves Patriotic Movement, respectively. Both appoint their own clergy and are supposed to maintain complete religious and financial independence from the Vatican and foreign Protestant churches."That is really a preposterous idea," said Wu Guo Yin, a laundry owner originally from central Henan province in Cai's Protestant congregation. The official church "is headed by a Communist who doesn't believe in God, yet he feels he can stand at the door between us and our God."
