Church in Changsha infuriates Mao admirers

Changsha, China

SWEEPING heavenward like an enormous glass-and-metal ski jump, a new Protestant church dominates the crumbled earth, freshly planted trees and unfinished water features of a suburban park under construction in Changsha.

About 80 metres tall and topped by a cross, the Xingsha Church is bigger even than the biggest statue of Mao Zedong in China, which is just 4.8 kilometres west of here. On Tangerine Island, in the broad Xiang River, the massive granite head and shoulders of the revolutionary leader rear up as if surveying the world. But at 32 metres, the sculpture is less than half the height of the church.

That disparity, in the city where Mao spent his youth and first embraced politica…