China cracks down on Christian churches

[Thanas]

Source

LOWER DAFEI VILLAGE, China — About a dozen Catholics wept and sang hymns outside their church as a man climbed to the top of the building and sliced off its steel cross with a cutting torch. It toppled with a thud.

“Aren’t you ashamed of what you have done?” a teary woman yelled at the more than 100 security guards, who along with police and government workers kept the parishioners of Lower Dafei Catholic Church from protecting the symbol of their faith. The guards, who stood with shields and batons in the sun for nearly two hours, looked indifferent.

“Doesn’t the government give us the right to religious freedom? Why are they taking down our symbol without any explanation?” another parishioner said hours earlier, as government workers arrived to build the scaffolding to reach the cross.

“We have violated no law. We do not oppose the government,” said the parishioner, who gave his name only as Chen for fear of retaliation from authorities. “We have been good, law-abiding citizens.”

Authorities in southeastern Zhejiang province are believed to be under a two-month deadline to remove crosses from the spires, vaults, roofs and wall arches of the 4,000 or so churches that dot the landscape of this economically thriving region.

In a rare move, even China’s semi official Christian associations — which are supposed to ensure the ruling Communist Party’s control over Protestant and Catholic groups — have denounced the campaign as unconstitutional and humiliating. They have warned that it could risk turning the faithful into enemies of the party.

The campaign is believed to be the will of President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, whose administration has launched the most severe crackdown in decades on social forces that might challenge the monopoly of the party’s rule.

But Yang Fenggang, an expert on China’s religions at Purdue University, said the party may have miscalculated and could be creating the very instability it is trying to avoid.

“The crackdown has alienated the Christians in China, who are otherwise law-abiding citizens,” Yang said.

He said the campaign to assert state power over officially sanctioned churches has been ordered by the central government and is likely being carried out as a kind of experiment in Zhejiang, where the provincial party chief, Xia Baolong, is a trusted ally of Xi.

The massive campaign comes one year after the provincial leadership ordered the razing of several churches and hundreds of rooftop crosses deemed to be illegal structures. This summer, Zhejiang banned rooftop crosses altogether. Despite criticism that the new rule violates China’s constitutional right of religious freedom, local enforcers are sending demolition crews to virtually all the province’s churches.

They have met with resistance. Parishioners have kept vigils and tried to block entrances to church grounds with cargo trucks, and many churches have re-erected crosses in defiance.

Since Xi came into power in late 2012, Beijing has hushed voices critical of its policies and practices in China’s social media, locked up members of the New Citizens Movement who had called for greater government accountability, and, most recently, rounded up rights lawyers who insist China’s law must be followed to the letter and applied equally to the people and the state.

“The authorities are especially worried that those with religious beliefs have a strong sense of identity and belonging, which can translate into huge social forces,” said Zhao Chu, an independent commentator.

In targeting Christians, the party is going after a group possibly bigger than itself. Yang said Christians probably number close to 100 million after more than three decades of rapid growth, though official figures are much lower. The Communist Party has nearly 88 million members.

In a troubling sign for the party, a sizable portion of its nominally atheist membership holds Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or other beliefs. The party is worried that religion – especially versions of Christianity rooted in the West – could subvert its rule.

The party tried to wipe out religion altogether during the ideological fervor of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, but later restored the right to worship. In ensuing decades, religious participation has grown as people seek to fill a spiritual void.

Still, Beijing retains tight controls over all religious groups, requiring them to register with the state or be labeled illegal. It claims the exclusive right to appoint Catholic bishops within China, instead of the Vatican.

In the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, where Buddhist and Islamic beliefs mingle with ethnic identities, the government also has sought to curb some of the visible symbols of faith, including beards and veils, and installed surveillance cameras in and around monasteries and mosques.

The rules Zhejiang adopted in early July say crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade’s height. No rationale has been provided, and the provincial government did not respond to an Associated Press request for an interview.

The Catholic Patriotic Association of Zhejiang has said it is illegal to remove crosses from properly registered churches. The Christian Association of Zhejiang warned the act has caused animosity toward the ruling party. Both groups called for an immediate halt.

Yang said the rare open opposition from the government-sanctioned Christian associations, which serve as liaisons between the authorities and rank-and-file Christians, means the authorities could lose this important conduit. “Now this bridge has been burned,” he said.

Fear, frustration and fury are probably most palpable in the municipality of Wenzhou, tucked between China’s eastern coastline and rugged mountain ranges. With its 2,000 or so churches, Wenzhou, home to 9 million people, is as well-known as a bastion of Christianity as it is for its gritty entrepreneurship.

Almost every township has its own claim to a line of products – whether it be buttons, shoe soles, pet products or children’s toys. Almost every village has a church or two, joining the landscape of rice paddies, farmhouses and factories.

Zhu Libin, president of the Wenzhou Christian Association, is torn between fellow Christians, who want him to speak on their behalf, and local authorities, who want him to persuade churches to comply.

“As a Christian, I want to see the cross lifted as high as possible, but as a citizen of China, I have to follow the rule when asked,” he said in an interview at his downtown Wenzhou office.

When asked to comment on the continuing cross removals, he stood up and walked out. Moments later, he returned but refused to answer.

Zhu Weifang, an officially appointed bishop, declined to be interviewed, but he and two dozen other Catholic officials and priests signed a strongly worded letter calling the new rules unlawful.

“The more (authorities) suppress the call for justice, the more it shows they are faced with severe social crisis, that they have little confidence in their ability to rule, and that they are incompetent in dealing with issues,” said the letter, which urges parishioners to “fight by law of reason to defend our very basic right to our religion.”

In village churches, Protestants and Catholics are defying orders to remove crosses on their own and keeping around-the-clock vigils in slim hopes of holding off demolition crews. Many have defiantly re-erected the crosses.

Tears welled in the eyes of Tu Shouzhe when he recalled how authorities forcibly removed the cross from his Protestant church in the village of Muyang on a hot, humid summer afternoon.

“It was a surprise attack. We did not let them in, but they broke in by cutting off the lock. We demanded paperwork, but they showed us none. They cordoned us away from the church,” Tu said. “They had 60-70 people. We had just about a dozen or so. Everyone was crying. Our hearts ached. We felt powerless to resist, and only prayed and sang hymns.”

In the Zhejiang city of Jinhua, two pastors from the official Jinhua City Christian Church have been detained on suspicion of corruption after the two refused to remove the rooftop cross from a newly-built sanctuary, lawyer Liu Weiguo said Wednesday.

In Lower Dafei Village, the demolition crew descended one morning last week, but soon realized it could not scale the spire to get to the cross. They returned in the afternoon with poles for scaffolding and a cutting torch. Officials barred a photographer and videojournalist from the AP from documenting the demolition, but another reporter was present, apparently the first news media to capture images of such a cross removal.

One parishioner sat in the narrow entrance to the church grounds, trying to block the intruders, but was ordered to leave. He never spoke a word but kept his eyes on the cross and prayed silently.

As several men built the scaffolding, parishioners’ tearful singing echoed over the church grounds: “He uses the love of the cross, the cross, to conquer the man.”

Haven't they learned anything fron Rome? You control Christianity by moulding it via the state, as Rome did, not by oppression. That only strengthens christianity.

[ArmorPierce]

I don't think Rome oppressing Christianity had anything to do with strengthening Christianity. Christianity was strengthened by the Emperor Constantine converting Christianity, and then finally actively suppressing, tearing down, and pillaging opposing beliefs.

[Thanas]

Wrong, true, wrong, wrong and wrong.

[ArmorPierce]

Do provide evidence or rational for your assertion. It appears that your assertion falls under the belief that a monotheistic religion is a higher and more complex religion, which is an old ethnocentric view, and necessarily would have spread across the world rather than it being a luck of the draw combined with inherent factors of the religion that made it open.

[Thanas]

Do provide evidence or rational for your assertion.

How about you back up yours first? Because it reads like old views common fifty years ago.

[ArmorPierce]

Do provide evidence or rational for your assertion.

How about you back up yours first? Because it reads like old views common fifty years ago.

Are you asserting that the belief that Christianity is not inherently a more advanced religion is an old view from the middle-20th century?

You made the assertion, you need to defend it. My assertion is that it was luck of the draw and that it was a matter of right place in the right time, which is the neutral position.

That is unless you follow the Christian belief that the fact that Christianity became the dominant religion demonstrates that God guided it and is the best religion. This is like stating that evolution picks the best, rather than those species of animals that are simply good enough compared to its competition and in the right place and right time.

It is also combined with other factors such as being a religion interested in converting others and willingness to be flexible in areas to attract conversions as opposed to a religion such as Judaism which by its nature is exclusive, or other religions and beliefs that didn't care what others believed in.

Regardless, what do you want me to back up? The fact that folks up to the middle of the 20th century did believe that Christianity and monotheism was the more advanced religion and natural progression of religion?

Link to Support
Earth's Insights: A Multicultural Survey of Ecological Ethics from the ... pg162

excerpt

Behind both these hypotheses lurks a questionable assumption: that monotheism is more advanced and sophisticated than polytheism and plyspiritualism.... This assumption originated in the Enligthenment,....

I'm not going to quote everything but yes, monotheism and Christianity being the more advanced religion and inherently superior religion is a very old belief that folks propagated a lot more during most of the 20th century.

[ArmorPierce]

I will layout my original points of disagreement below to foster simplified discussion.

1. I don't think Rome oppressing Christianity had anything to do with strengthening Christianity.

Is there any evidence that this strengthened Christianity rather than weakened it at the time? At the time, did this gain them more followers than they lost?

2. Christianity was strengthened by the Emperor Constantine converting Christianity

I think we agree here at least partially. I think this is a main reason that Christianity spread however.

3. and then finally actively suppressing, tearing down, and pillaging opposing beliefs.

Do you disagree that this occurred or do you disagree that this had an impact in influencing folks to convert to Christianity?

Regarding the historical account, see support below. Do you believe that the state persecuting those who do not convert does not incentivize folks to convert? There are numerous examples of Christianity terrorizing other local religious groups which resulted in homogeneous Christian populations.

Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews
By James Carr
pg 187

support

excerpt, I'm not going to retype it

So in turning to religion, unity of belief and practice, not tolerance of diversity, had to seem paramount. ... Constantine moved at once against paganism. Pagans ...

4. Move to Christianity was not inevitable, nor is Christianity or monotheistic religions more advanced.

Christianity failed to take hold in the Middle east or north africa. Other non-monotheistic or Abrahmic regions are currently going strong in the world such as Buddhism and Hinduism. What exactly makes a monotheistic belief system more or less advanced than a polytheistic or other belief system? As I pointed out, this belief is an old belief based on faulty notions of the natural progression of a society's belief system to advance from animalistic beliefs to polytheistic beliefs to monotheistic beliefs.

[ray245]

The great prosecution did a massive aid to Christianity during the third century. Seriously study the third century in depth and you can see how Christianity continued to grow in spite of the sheer number of actions directed against Christians.

That and the whole notion of martyr strengthening their cause was something the Romans weren't prepared to handle well.

It's not as if Christianity did not grow in numbers before Constantine.

[ArmorPierce]

The great prosecution did a massive aid to Christianity during the third century. Seriously study the third century in depth and you can see how Christianity continued to grow in spite of the sheer number of actions directed against Christians.

That and the whole notion of martyr strengthening their cause was something the Romans weren't prepared to handle well.

It's not as if Christianity did not grow in numbers before Constantine.

Growing in numbers does not equate becoming dominant religion. You cannot simply extrapolate a growth trend to infinite. When you are starting with a small base, large growth percentages is easy to attain.

Additionally, can you provide any actual evidence that persecution did more to help grow Christian numbers than hurt it? What do you define as great persecution, was there actually a consorted and consistent persecution of Christians?

Just saying that it's common knowledge does not make it true, I want to see an evidence-based argument and support.

The Myth of Persecution
How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom
by Candida Moss

Support

Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.

The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.

[K. A. Pital]

China has no use for Christianity. It is a stupid Western religion - and like any religion, it serves no purpose other than providing the toiling masses with a lie of the afterlife. Christianity, along with all other religions, should perish in a secular society and occupy the same place as myths of Ancient Greece do - fun stories to read, but we don't build temples to Zeus any more. Too bad China does not apply the same treatment to all other religions, like Islam, Taoism and such, this looks more likea sectarian cleansing to ensure correct beliefs than a genuine anti-religious action.

[biostem]

This part caught my attention:

The rules Zhejiang adopted in early July say crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade’s height.

If an area has certain building codes in place, and you violate them, then don't be surprised if they come and tell you to take down the crosses that don't adhere to the regulations. None of this would have happened if they simply followed the building codes...


For instance, (and IIRC), Paris has a rule that no building may be taller that the Eiffel Tower - if someone were to go ahead and erect a giant cross that was taller, would it be religious persecution to order to be taken down?


Now, the key factor here is whether other religious symbols are permitted to be erected in the same manner as some of these crosses were. If they are allowed, then there is more of a case to be made. The fact that the above quote specifically mentions crosses, may in fact support this assertion.

[Grumman]

This part caught my attention:

The rules Zhejiang adopted in early July say crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade’s height.

If an area has certain building codes in place, and you violate them, then don't be surprised if they come and tell you to take down the crosses that don't adhere to the regulations. None of this would have happened if they simply followed the building codes...

For instance, (and IIRC), Paris has a rule that no building may be taller that the Eiffel Tower - if someone were to go ahead and erect a giant cross that was taller, would it be religious persecution to order to be taken down?

That is an incredibly stupid analogy. If the city of Paris has such a rule it is not a rule written for the specific purpose of persecuting religious minorities, and it is presumably not being applied retroactively for the purpose of justifying tearing down the symbols of that religious minority's faith.

[madd0ct0r]

There is a long standing view in the area that many churches are funded by Americans or fronts for anti-Chinese American democratists

[ArmorPierce]

China has no use for Christianity. It is a stupid Western religion - and like any religion, it serves no purpose other than providing the toiling masses with a lie of the afterlife. Christianity, along with all other religions, should perish in a secular society and occupy the same place as myths of Ancient Greece do - fun stories to read, but we don't build temples to Zeus any more. Too bad China does not apply the same treatment to all other religions, like Islam, Taoism and such, this looks more likea sectarian cleansing to ensure correct beliefs than a genuine anti-religious action.

China does apply similar treatment to other religions. This is not an only anti-christian thing. Do these folks think that China should embrace Islam too?

https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/04/12/chi ... ur-muslims

Muslim 'Persecution'

(New York) - The Chinese government is directing a crushing campaign of religious repression against China’s Muslim Uighurs in the name of anti-separatism and counter-terrorism, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China said in a new report today.

The 114-page report, Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, is based on previously undisclosed Communist Party and government documents, as well as local regulations, official newspaper accounts, and interviews conducted in Xinjiang. It unveils for the first time the complex architecture of law, regulation, and policy in Xinjiang that denies Uighurs religious freedom, and by extension freedom of association, assembly, and expression. Chinese policy and law enforcement stifle religious activity and thought even in school and at home. One official document goes so far as to say that “parents and legal guardians may not allow minors to participate in religious activities.”

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/wor ... 5298_x.htm

Buddhist 'persecution'

Activists: China persecuting Buddhist monks in Tibet

BEIJING — China has stepped up persecution of Buddhist monks with mass detentions, Tibet activists said Wednesday, as China prepares to take the Olympic torch to the top of Mount Everest.

[ArmorPierce]

This part caught my attention:

The rules Zhejiang adopted in early July say crosses should be wholly affixed to a building facade and be no more than one-tenth of the facade’s height.

If an area has certain building codes in place, and you violate them, then don't be surprised if they come and tell you to take down the crosses that don't adhere to the regulations. None of this would have happened if they simply followed the building codes...

For instance, (and IIRC), Paris has a rule that no building may be taller that the Eiffel Tower - if someone were to go ahead and erect a giant cross that was taller, would it be religious persecution to order to be taken down?

That is an incredibly stupid analogy. If the city of Paris has such a rule it is not a rule written for the specific purpose of persecuting religious minorities, and it is presumably not being applied retroactively for the purpose of justifying tearing down the symbols of that religious minority's faith.

France does have laws that are written that pretty much specifically targeted religious minorities for what some may call 'persecution'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_la ... in_schools
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leland-wa ... 55732.html

There is a long standing view in the area that many churches are funded by Americans or fronts for anti-Chinese American democratists

They largely were funded my western missionaries, and in the past used as a tool to foster homogeneity in a conquered population, I see how they can make that argument.

[mr friendly guy]

I thought it was well known that China's targeting of certain groups is because the government perceives, rightly or wrongly that they are a threat to the system.

For example Uyghurs complain about limiting their religious freedom, ie China has laws which says you aren't supposed to bring your kids to a place of worship until they are an adult and can decide for themselves. This is only applied to Uyghurs but for the more numerous Hui Muslims a blind eye is turned.

Tibetan Buddhists are also suspected. Meanwhile elsewhere in China ginormous Buddhist temples are being erected for devotees which also double as tourist attractions. I know, I have visited one in Xian.

Falun Gong was targeted when they started harassing Chinese scientists who had the gall to point out they don't have magical powers.

I wonder what these Christians are perceived to have done. Hopefully not like those crazy Christians who murdered a woman at McDonalds because they couldn't convert her to their religion.

[hongi]

China has no use for Christianity. It is a stupid Western religion - and like any religion, it serves no purpose other than providing the toiling masses with a lie of the afterlife. Christianity, along with all other religions, should perish in a secular society and occupy the same place as myths of Ancient Greece do - fun stories to read, but we don't build temples to Zeus any more. Too bad China does not apply the same treatment to all other religions, like Islam, Taoism and such, this looks more likea sectarian cleansing to ensure correct beliefs than a genuine anti-religious action.

Christianity is not (just) a Western religion. It is a religion of the East, with ancient roots in China itself going back to the Nestorian days, and is at home there just as much as another foreign religion, Buddhism is.

I also find your religious views to be quite repellant, but not uncommon among atheists on the internet of all political stripes, from Marxist-Leninists to Libertarians. I used to be such an atheist as well. I simply found it intolerable to have such negative views about several other billion people. That is, I found it hard to believe that I was smarter than them, that it was all a system of control etc. I think that's actually highly simplistic, bordering on inaccurate. There's no evidence that something so complex a phenomenon as religion serves no purpose other than providing the toiling masse with a lie of the afterlife, as opposed to serving many purposes at the same time, as many purposes as there are religious people who create religion. A naturalistic reading of religion as opposed to a purely political reading at least has a better grounding in reality. Religion obviously has political interests, but what annoys me is when only political interests are found, and usually these political interests are only seen very nefariously as well e.g. it's a machination of the corrupt priests to create a power structure keeping the peons down! It's just a way to distract the masses from their current turmoil via hopes of the future! It's just a way to make people make peace with injustice! And yet religion can also be a source of movements for justice, it can be resolutely directed towards the present etc, it can be anarchical. If you're going to talk about religion as politics, then you gotta acknowledge the full diversity of religions as politics.

[K. A. Pital]

I think when life is hard as hell, you are looking for straws to grasp. That is what religion is. It is not bad or good, just the way it is. In our present society, it is impossible to remove religion, but it is possible to negate it slowly. I don't think a brute-force approach is the best way to go about it, but mankind will have to grow up someday. Everyone's atheist in the future and better off that way.

Coupling religion with anti-imperialism has not produced a good result, political Islam of Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. an example of what happens when you do so. Religion had some purpose ages ago, but whatever progressive role it may have had in the past that is long gone by now.

[Thanas]

Just saying that it's common knowledge does not make it true, I want to see an evidence-based argument and support.

I am not going to rehash what takes six hours to pull up for somebody who in the past has refused to acknowledge evidence. If you are interested then read the works of Alan Cameron, Johannes Hahn and Peter Brown. Or look up Galerius, Valentinian, Opferedikt, Theodosius II and Temple destruction in the CAH.

[Flagg]

Haven't they learned anything fron Rome? You control Christianity by moulding it via the state, as Rome did, not by oppression. That only strengthens christianity.

Christianity gains strength through persecution by design, that's why even in countries flat out dominated and run by Christians you have huge numbers of Christians whining about how persecuted they are. In America letting people have rights is persecuting Christianity.

[ArmorPierce]

Just saying that it's common knowledge does not make it true, I want to see an evidence-based argument and support.

I am not going to rehash what takes six hours to pull up for somebody who in the past has refused to acknowledge evidence. If you are interested then read the works of Alan Cameron, Johannes Hahn and Peter Brown. Or look up Galerius, Valentinian, Opferedikt, Theodosius II and Temple destruction in the CAH.

Since you refuse to provide support rather than listing books to read, your concession is accepted.

Open debate is part of the scientific method. If you re making an argument, it must be supported by proper evidence and rationale. If your argument, evidence, and support cannot stand up to exploratory questions, then you cannot represent your hypothesis as proven fact and dismiss counter arguments. You only have an hypothesis.

In other threads I argued against people jumping to conclusions and representing it as fact when the evidence and support was incomplete or is misinterpreted.

When did this website become anti valid exploratory questions and the scientific method? Quite frankly I expected better.

Referencing my responses in other threads to dismiss my points seem to be a personal vandetta btw.

[Channel72]

I don't think Rome oppressing Christianity had anything to do with strengthening Christianity. Christianity was strengthened by the Emperor Constantine converting Christianity, and then finally actively suppressing, tearing down, and pillaging opposing beliefs.

What about Julian the Apostate? He came to power after Constantine, and attempted to convert the state religion back to paganism. But Julian himself was aware that brute-force state suppression tended to strengthen the underground Christian movement, so he sought instead to attack Christianity in more underhanded ways, like disallowing Christian teachers in state-funded schools, or cutting funding from Christian institutions. I mean, certainly it's well documented that Diocletian-style brute force state persecution had the effect of strengthening the underground Christian church.

That's not to say Constantine finally adopting Christianity as the state religion didn't go a long way towards paving the way for a future Christianized Europe - just that state-sponsored persecution as carried out by Diocletian (and I guess to a lesser extent, Nero) is well known to have had the opposite effect than was intended. And of course, this is complemented by the fact that a simple cursory examination of Christianity in the first/second century reveals that a lot of the early Church fathers were outright obsessed with martyrdom. LIke, read St. Irenaeus - the guy was just itching to get executed by the state so he could be glorified. This kind of obsession goes back to Stephen in Acts, an arguably to Christ himself.

Although, to be fair, I do wonder how much of the "victory in the face of persecution" is part of the hagiographical narrative of the early Church Fathers, and how much is actually true history. Christianity has a deep-rooted obsession with persecution and martyrdom, going back to its Jewish roots with the Maccabees. (The anonymous Jewish chronicler who wrote down the Maccabees narrative literally delights in telling us all the gory details of how these brave rebels were tortured...)

Thanas, how do we know that Diocletian's persecutions strengthened the underground church? Does that information come primarily from (unreliable) hagiographers like Eusebius? Or is it from more reliable Roman sources? I suppose the fact that Julian was reluctant to repeat the methods of Diocletian speaks a lot for itself, regardless.

[Thanas]

Like you said, early Christianity is a religion of martyrdom. It defines itself by the faith people show in the face of death. The whole debate how to deal with the lapsi stems from that. Look at all the early saints - nearly all of them are martyrs. The whole christian identity and ideology would be a way different one if they would not have those martyrs to venerate. Heck, just look at St. Peter. There is no evidence that he was actually crucified under Nero. But in order to make him a complete saint, he of course had to stand up to the Emperor. Whether prosecution actually happened (and if it did it was on a limited scale until Diocletian, and even Diocletian hardly caused a lot of martyrs - the number of all the martyrs is in the low thousands, probably somewhere between 1500-3000 if we consider every sources to be valid) does not matter, what matters was the identity they developed from the act of martyrdom. And it goes on and on. Theodoret. Sebastian. Barbara etc.

You bring up Julian. Julian is attacked by Christians for centuries. Why? Because his methods were the most dangerous. He did not create martyrs. He used other means. He used philosophy and laws. This was an attack Christianity was ill-suited to respond to, especially because no fixed theological system and ideology was in place. Canon was not formalized. So once Julian started attacking the logical flaws in Christianity instead of Christians, it caused a great deal of trouble. Christians can handle torture and executions, but attacking them on the basis of their faith - the belief that they and only they possess the ultimate truth - and the Church starts sweating. This is even more doubled because Julian was the successor to Constantine, of his blood and baptized a christian.

In any case, militant Christianity was soon neutered by the Roman state. Once it became a state religion, it was controlled. And the vast majority of ancient Romans did not care either way. Look at John Chrysostomon. He writes about how evil it is for Christians to pray to other gods (indicating most Romans up to the sixth century did so), how evil it is to go to the circus or blood games etc., but the Colisseum was well in use in the fifth century - and we even have sponsor inscriptions from Christian high senators.

Constantine himself never properly understood Christianity. He viewed himself as the reincarnation of Jesus (look up how Eusebius describes his funeral plans - one can see him sweating while trying to rationalize it). The Christianity we have today is a Constantinian inventions that - as I am sure you well know - combines a lot of pagan beliefs and practices with a thin veneer of Christianity. Just look at the early state-financed churches in Rome. Guess who is buried near the altar in a post chamber and could be venerated there? Members of the Imperial family. This is straight up taken from the Imperial cult. Even moreso, there is some evidence that Christian church officials were also members of Pagan cults. Heck, even in the sixth century, a well-known Bishop of Alexandria had the right to hold church office and also practice Neoplatonism.

This is also why there is little evidence of organized Temple shutdowns. There are some isolated cases but it is very hard to make a case that this was state-organized persecution of the old faiths. Heck, even in the 8th century, we still have Pagan cults in Greece.