The Fall of Falun Gong?
With the sentencing of four group leaders to stiff prison terms in late December, the Communist Chinese government may have hoped to put an end to Falun Gong, a spiritual/health movement that has preoccupied official attention since its surprising show of numbers last April.

Sociologists of religion would classify Falun Gong as a "new religious movement," one of many worldwide that combine traditional and nonconventional beliefs and practices into a hybrid faith for uncertain times. Founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, now a resident of New York City, Falun Gong draws together aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, New Age spirituality, and especially the Chinese health and healing tradition known as Qigong, a practice listed in the National Institutes of Health's classification of complementary and alternative medicine along with related acupuncture and Tai Chi. Falun Gong now claims followers in at least thirty-eight states, both Chinese immigrants and non-Chinese practitioners seeking health benefits from alternative sources.

Li Hongzhi teaches that everyone possesses a Falun, a spinning wheel of energy located in the solar plexus, a microcosm of the spiritual energy suffusing the universe. This energy has a dual venue for health and healing. "Internally," writes Li, "Falun offers self-salvation: it makes the person stronger and healthier, more intelligent and wise, and protects the cultivator from deviation. Externally, Falun can cure diseases and get rid of evils for others, rectifying all abnormal conditions." External Falun thus constitutes a type of noncontact therapeutic touch. Li elaborates: "Falun rotates nonstop in the lower abdomen area, clockwise for nine times and then counterclockwise for nine times. When rotating clockwise, it vigorously absorbs energy from the universe." In addition to ordinary health benefits, Falun energy can also bestow "supernormal capabilities" such as clairvoyance, claims Li. Why would such teachings strike fear in the hearts of China's Communist Party leadership?

On April 25, 1999 more than 10,000 Falun Gong followers staged a silent protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, site of previous mass protests by students in 1919 and 1989, the latter infamous for brutal suppression by the Chinese army and its tanks. The Falun Gong protesters sought official recognition of their right to practice their religion. The government instead outlawed the group on July 22. Arrest and detention of thousands followed, and the movement was vilified by official sources. "Although the social tumor of Falun Gong has been removed," announced the People's Daily in late September, "its viruses have not been fully destroyed and are still attacking society." The disease imagery carries an ironic poignancy.

Mass protests resumed in late October, followed by more arrests and the first convictions of group leaders in a provincial court. The government officially branded Falun Gong an "evil cult" as well as an illegal group. Especially galling was Falun Gong presence within the Communist Party. As one detained police officer and Party member recounted, "They asked me, 'Do you want Falun Gong or do you want the Communist Party?'" His response: "I chose the great way of Falun." The four Falun Gong leaders sentenced in December were all Party members as well.

Falun Gong, like all religions, holds to a higher power than that wielded by any government. One protester summed it up in explaining why he felt compelled to come to Beijing: "…to report the truth to the highest authorities." A purported spiritual truth above the highest earthly authority poses a frightening threat of social unrest and revolution, since the usual political sanctions carry so little weight in the eyes of such religious people. Falun Gong's demonstrated ability to mobilize thousands in protest certainly worries China's rulers, but the group's underlying motivation is its most powerful resource. The fall of Falun Gong may have been greatly exaggerated.

Moral Suasion, Not Legislation
It's not news that guns are bad for your health. The latest study demonstrating this phenomenon, published last November in the New England Journal of Medicine, concludes "The purchase of a handgun is associated with a substantial increase in the risk of suicide by firearm." It is one of many studies demonstrating that gun ownership, almost always in the interest of self-defense, actually increases the risk of violent death.

The Center for Disease Control says that, in 1996, 34,000 people died in the United States from gunshot wounds. The number is all the more striking when compared to thirty-three in England and sixty in Japan for the same period. Gun control efforts so often languish in this country because taking on the gun culture can be political suicide, even in the wake of such tragedies as the Littleton massacre.

But Chicago Episcopalians are taking up the challenge, reports the Chicago Tribune. At its annual convention last November, the Diocese of Chicago passed a resolution asking members to neither "willingly or unwittingly contribute to the violence around us by keeping handguns or assault weapons in our homes." In a letter to Chicago Episcopalians, Lay Convention Delegate Duncan Moore said, "[The resolution] utilizes moral suasion, the church's true currency, to achieve its ends. And it proposes a place to start in grappling with a complex social problem that our country hasn't been able to make much progress on." The 2.5 million member national denomination will be asked to do the same later this year.