Catherine Pepinster

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The question is about your or your partner project. It's in the same way. LähiTapiolan health care management.

You can now get a 25% increase in the health care management. Health care management is the primary health care management company. The health care management is increased by years. LähiTapiola.

The same part. speaker this morning, Catherine Pepinster, the Catholic commentator, who is here in the studio. Catherine, good morning. Good morning, Justin. If you're feeling in need of a little nostalgia for the 1980s, then the film Wham! Ten Days in China, that opens in cinemas this week,

might be just the thing. It's a documentary about the 10-day tour of China that Wham! featuring George Michael and Andrew Ridgely made in 1985. They were the first pop act to visit the communist country and it was devised by their manager as a way of garnering publicity for Wham. In that, it was ultimately successful. But as the documentary shows, there were other

more profound consequences too from this encounter of cultures. In an interview this week, Andrew Ridgely talked about a behind-the-scenes clash between band members about China. He recalled that backing singer Shirley Kemp was unhappy. At the time, she told the music press the tour was unfair to the Chinese because it

threw a spotlight on freedoms they didn't have. But for Ridgely, it showed the Chinese that Western values were about freedom and a chance to fulfil dreams and aspirations. The Chinese agreed to let Wham into the country as evidence that it was opening up, but the concerts were tightly policed. They've taken a similar approach to Christianity, creating an official Protestant and an official

Catholic church, both regulated by the government. Even then they view Christianity with great suspicion. When I visited official churches a few years ago, for example, my group was followed by government officials everywhere. Other Christian churches do exist, though they operate underground, and like those who follow other religions in China, their members face abuse and constant harassment.

Part of the tension over Christianity is that even though there's evidence that Christianity first arrived in China around 625 in the Christian era, and today there are at least 44 million Christians, probably more, Chinese officials see Christianity as Western and alien to their culture. But Christianity doesn't belong to one nation or one continent. God doesn't have a passport identifying his nationality.

It is as much for the Chinese as it is for anyone else. It offers dreams and aspirations, as Andrew Ridgely said, of music. But it needs a place to start. Four years after the Wham Tour,

one of those who attended a show at the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium, Tsue Yen, wrote a song, Nothing to My Name, that became an anthem for student protesters at Chanaman Square. What begins as a small lifting of the curtain to another world

can be a route to calling for far greater change. It may well cause some initial frustration, as Shirley from Wham feared, but it can lead to seeking something, whether music or faith, that offers meaning, sometimes triggering a desire for liberty.

It's a chink of light in the darkness. And that was Thought for the Day with Catherine Pepinster, brings us to 12 minutes to 8. Drowning in death.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Take the LähiTapiolan energy and sleep in peace. The energy energy is the LähiTapiola's main energy energy agency. LähiTapiola, the same half.

Hey, what's the thing again? You're going to have our turn on 7th of a day. No, I'm not going to have our turn on our turn on. But why are we still on our own?

I'm not even going to be a kid with those little fish-sons, so this is the same thing. What? No worries, because it's in the same way.

It's in the same way. Bealteamasta find the best-to-be-sons of the best-to-be-sons of the project. There's a question about your or your project.